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I have yet to find a great place for Flamers or Plasma guns in IG armies.
You can do Plasmavets or Plasma CCS but it competes with the Melta delivery and anti-tank is usually more important.
PCS can do the 4x Flamer setup fairly well but thats all I have.

I know that infantry squads can take either one but in both cases I see disadvantages. With Flamers its great for their BS3 but wasted if they're walking up the board. With Plasma it matches their Lasgun's weapon type which is nice but BS 3 and a 5+ save make it hard to love.

I guess you could take Armored Fists infantry squads for the Flamer but mechanizing everything seems like it would get expensive quickly, and you could put a Plasma gun in a static infantry squad to support the AC or LC to provide another S7 or AP2 shot.

Anyway, I could use some help.

Flamers fit well in infantry squads that babysit/ bubble wrap, PCS squads, and heavy flamers on vehicles. Usually, due to hull heavy flamers, you shouldn't have a shortage.

Plasma works on vehicles (no overheat), CCS (BS 4), and vet squads, especially in a transport but also parked in cover.

Plasam doesn't compete with melta- they perform different roles. I like 3x melta on a CCS, 3x flamer pcs, 3x plasma on a vet squad in chimera and 2 vet squads with with 3 meltas in a chimera. The plasma vets are to do drivebys on MEQs and TEQs and transports in a pinch.

I prefer a 4x Plasma CCS w/ Plas pistol, and two squads of plasma veterans, three of melta. They don't compete with each other.

Plasma: CCS, Veterans
Flamers: Platoon Command Squads, Special Weapons Squads, and on the hulls of most vehicles.

As has been said, if you are taking plenty of mech squads then you have ample space for plasma as well as melta. Remember that plasma is pretty much as good against AV10-11, the difference only gets really pronounced at AV13+. And plasma puts far more wounds on heavy infantry/monstrous creatures.

For non-mech, I advocate putting cheap GLs or flamers on the small squads with few ablative wounds (PCS, SWS) and the more expensive, higher-priority meltas and plasmas in the infantry squads. If the anti-vehicle and anti-big hard target guns are in small squads, it is too easy for certain mech or super-tough armies to take them out and laugh off your lasguns and low-strength weapons.

For flamers, you should probably put them in non-critical free spots when you have extra points left over. Really, flamers aren't a necessary special weapon, as chimeras get heavy flamers for free, and infantry hordes already pack lots of anti-light-infantry killing power.

As for plasma, as mentioned, officers and vets are the best place. If you're not putting them there, I can only think of one possible other good place to put them - a plasma blob

PCS - 3x melta (60)
PIS - plasma pistol, plasma gun, commissar, vox (115)
PIS - plasma pistol, plasma gun (75)
PIS - plasma pistol, plasma gun (75)

265 points, yeah, but it's a 31-dude stubborn deathstar that can take "bring it down" with 9 plasma shots at 12". Add in the lasguns and, with the rerollable Ld9 order, it nearly puts down an uninjured trygon or wraithlord in a single round of shooting, while putting down lesser monstrous creatures like demon princes and dreadknights without much effort.

Yeah, you get burns, but it stays pretty effective for quite a while, and, more importantly, it also scores.

That helps a lot, thanks.

Does the PG/LC or PG/AC combo for a static infantry squad make sense or am I spending too many points for a BS3 weapon that can fry my Guardsmen? I just feel that the PG is the only weapon that will actually have a significant impact on the opponent if they decide to put something nasty close to an objective camper because of the 2 shots while still providing medium range firepower for the majority of the fight.

EDIT:

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:For non-mech, I advocate putting cheap GLs or flamers on the small squads with few ablative wounds (PCS, SWS) .

I've thought about the 4x GL PCS as an alternative to the 4x Flamer squad I normally see, have you had any success with it?

Bring it Down seriously helps with Plasma also, not only do you get more hits, you get to re-roll those 1's. As such, I'm a huge fan of the plasma CCS. In a chimera they can put enormous hurt on anything within 24".

I've been thinking about trying that plasma blob Ailaros suggested for a while now, but I'm on the fence. I think it could still use a power weapons for defense, but they're not required, certainly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I personally have had good experiences with the 4x PCS squad. It's cheap like the flamer squad, but you can use it pretty much every turn. It's not half as good as counter attacking, but you can stick the squad in a chimera and move 6", thunking 4 shots out the back plus the multilaser for a scoring, 7 S6 shot/turn platform (105 points). Against hordes the blast is great, and you might find some shots against power armor if they're all clustered. It's no good at counterattacking, but if you've got flamers covered, there's some nice things you can do with the squad.

You've pretty much described the strength of the plasma gun. It's nasty enough at close range that you can put down quite a bit of close range threats, and it's got enough range that it can support units across a large portion of the board.

I agree with biophysical's assessment of GL PCS - you get to shoot more, but it probably won't make a difference except against packed T3 enemies, or AV10 vehicles. Whereas flamers, when you need them, you need them. A good thing to consider would be if you face lots of assault armies. Flamers are for discouraging assault, GLs are for fighting shooting wars.

Also, I strongly favour PG/AC as an allround combo for firepower throughout the game.

A CCS shouldn't really have to decide between melta or plasma if you look at the other options to take melta (or anti-tank in general for that matter) Melta are usually best place in cheap suicide units which get a good crack at a tank and then die. Melta vets usually perform this role but I always feel its a redundant choice. The units not as cheap and cheerful as I'd like for the points. They lack delivery unless you fork out on a chimera or valk. A unit of 5 storm troopers give you a nice suicide deepstrike unit for early on, Lascannons and Autocannons can harrass vehicles at long range for some time and cause a headache for your opponant in HWS with the bring it down order. When the enemy finally get close enough for you to use melta will it make that much difference for BS4 or BS3? Infantry squads can have a melta bomb SGT which is handy because they're the ones that usually come up against vehicles first. Special weapon squads can be thrown into a list if you're doubtful but I've found the best place to field my Melta's is my PCS.

Why? They'll generally move along with their platoon, so along with the melta bombs, I have plenty of close up anti-tank spread around the table. The infantry can pose an initial threat with an assault and the PCS won't be far behind to move up packing those melta guns. Along with the Lascannons and things like my manticore or demolishers, theres little place to hide.

Plasma guns on the other hand are more expensive and I don't feel they get much use in infantry squads. Maybe 'use' insn't the right word. I find it a bit lackluster. Plasma does better in multiples so you can go up against those tough-as-nails units like terminators. If those units are BS4 then even better. BS4 obviously does better for 8 rapid plasma shots than 4 melta shots. There is three places to get this. Storm troopers, CCS and Vets. I like infiltrating Storm Trooper melta guns since I don't have to pay for a delivery method. The CCS and Vet squad should take a chimera to protect them and get them around the board.

What this does for the plasma and melta units is create an effective anti-tank screen which can threatern vehicles virtually anywhere but also creates one or two flexible units with transport to go back and forth to chase down tougher units. I field the CCS plamsa in a chimera and it's an excellant elite killer and hasn't yet let me down. Melta vets on the other hand have failed me eveytime.

i have had a good run with a vet squad with three plasma guns and the sgt with a plasma pistol. give them carapace armour. throw them in a chimera and it is a good day.

I guess I always assume that CCS will be armed with Meltaguns and moving forward in a Chimera to take advantage of BS4 and "bring it down!"
In my mind this means they aren't available for using the various orders on infantry squads for the big fancy weapons.

At the moment I'm thinking of spreading the weapons out like this:
Plasma in Plasma/Autocannon or Plasma/Lascannon infantry squads
Melta in CCS and Vet squads in Chimera
Flamers in PCS in Chimeras
Grenade Launchers in walking infantry squads

minigun762 wrote:I've thought about the 4x GL PCS as an alternative to the 4x Flamer squad I normally see, have you had any success with it?

I've had success with one in a chimera, using the 7 s6 shots on the move for finishing of power-armoured stragglers. It supports the platoon regulars.

Plasma Vets have been coverd, so I will mention Flamer Vets.

In a pure mech vet list with no platoon, I have had good luck sticking 85 point triple flamer+shotgun vets in Vends in order to make them scoring.

It works great, as the Vends main job is that of a gunship, blasting away with 3 TL lascannons a turn. Making the Vends scoring, along with the ability to clear out infantry that gets too close to the objective they are holding, is a nice bonus, as it allows my Chimera mounted melta vets to advance and do their jobs w/o having to hang back and sit on a home objective.

In KP games this works out well, too, as it gives every vet+transport combination the capabiltiy to threaten both vehicles and infantry. Melta Vets get a Chimera with hull heavy flamer, and Vends get 3 flamers transported inside. Since every transport is a threat to every type of unit my opponent has, it makes target priority that much more difficult for him.

Now, if you have a platoon, then there is really no place for flamer vets, as a SWS can do the same jobs for fewer points points.

The usefulness of those 7 S6 shots shouldn't be under-appreciated. I always include a few units that can put a fistful of S5 or S6 dice on a target (preferrably on the move) just to clear those last few models out of a unit. They don't care about cover, invulnerable saves, or maximum coherence. They just get those last wounds at times where a lascannon, plasma gun, battlecannon easily misses or is foiled by a cover save.

Biophysical wrote:The usefulness of those 7 S6 shots shouldn't be under-appreciated. I always include a few units that can put a fistful of S5 or S6 dice on a target (preferrably on the move) just to clear those last few models out of a unit. They don't care about cover, invulnerable saves, or maximum coherence. They just get those last wounds at times where a lascannon, plasma gun, battlecannon easily misses or is foiled by a cover save.

'

Taking this a step further, I've often been tempted by the pillbox Chimera idea of a Multi-Laser, Heavy Bolter, Heavy Stubber and 4x GL. Thats a whopping 7x S6, 3x S5 and 3x S4 shots out 24" for a fairly cheap price tag. People always comment that weight of fire is much more important now because of cover saves and uber Inv saves and thats alot of shots going out of 1 target. However maybe the whole BS3 just limits it too much.

BS3 hits 75% of the time that BS4 hits. There is nothing intrinsically bad about BS3, or BS2 for that matter. Expected hits/point is the only stat that matters. If you have a high number of shots, a lower BS doesn't matter.

Is there any guidelines for whether you should give your CCS or Vets Plasma or Melta?
CCS have more weapons and easier access to orders but fewer guys to protect the weapons then Vets.

I'm leaning towards CCS with Melta and Vets with Plasma but thats only because it keeps the cost of the special weapons approximately equal (40 vs 45).