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I really don't understand why they are 15 points, compared to a meltaguns 10.

For 5 more points than a melta gun you gain:
The ability to double tap at 12"
12" longer range

You lose:
one point of strength
one level of ap
the ability to assault after shooting
the 2d6 penetration
the ability to fire without risk to yourself

None of the things you lose are small things either. The meltagun is a very versatile weapon, being effective against light tanks, heavy tanks, heavy infantry, independent characters. Losing one point of strength makes it less effective against heavy tanks and independent characters. Losing one point of AP makes it less effective against light tanks and heavy tanks. The loss of 2d6 pen again makes it less effective against heavy tanks and light tanks too. Therefore reducing effective target choice to heavy infantry and (sort of) light tanks.

The risk to yourself is quite high, high enough that plasma is really only safe to take on FNP units. Either that or you run the risk of killing your own 30-40 point model when you fire. Since killing the user dramatically reduces the firepower of the squad (less plasma next turn) it's an even bigger cost than you might think at first. The ability to assault after shooting is another huge deal. With meltas you can open a transport and then assault the contents, plasma guns prevent this. This makes their usefulness against light transports much less than a melta gun. The lack of 'Assault' type also means they are hard to put on a platform and can't be used by a squad that wants to assault.

Advantage wise, not much is gained. 24" is an awkward range, and not one you stay at for very long. For most armies they either want to be very far away, pounding you with guns, or within 12" for rapid fire and for assault. In fact, most armies do best at close range, where their rapid fire weapons can do the most damage. As such that plasma shot you can potentially get off at 24" makes little to no different most of the time. Just one powerful shot doesn't make much difference when you could have twice as many by being closer. Finally, the ability to double tap at 12". This is a true advantage, and is the ONLY thing, imho, that makes the plasma gun in any way better than a meltagun. However, I feel that all the above disadvantages are suffice to 'cancel out' this advantage, if you will, and as such I don't think of upgrading the plasma to a melta should be worth 5 points. Trading a lot of advantages for one other advantage should be a side upgrade, and as such plasma guns should be 10 points, the same as a melta.



Now, why plasma pistols are possibly 15 points!? That's another story, but I think they could be 5 points and people still wouldn't take them!



Regards

Lunarman

I think that Plasma guns are fairly priced for any MEQ armies, who don't suffer nearly as much as you imply from Gets hot!.
A Guardsman with 5+ save has 11% chance of losing the model. if youinvest in carapace armour or FNP this chance drops further down. (8% and ~6%)
A Marine on the other hand only has 6% chance of suffering a wound. FNP drops this to 3%.

These are hardly unfavourable odds. With a Plasma gun you still wound almost all opponents on 2+, and your shots ignore all armour saves. Plasma gun is at home in units with other Rapid fire weapons, which share the same range, and also can't assault after firing, so you really lose nothing over melta in tactical squads or any IG units. CSM benefit more from assault weapons as they pack a better punch in close combat, but this doesn't mean that Plasma guns are bad weapons or overcosted. It's all a matter of taking the right tool for the right job. If you need to take out vehicles, you take a melta gun, which suffers from short range, but can reliably destroy almost anything it hits. yuo can assault afterwards with Krak grenades if it's still standing. Plasma guns are ideal for taking out Terminators, Plague Marines or Monstrous creatures, as their higher rate of fire means that you can put more wounds through. They also work against light vehicles, though obviously not as well as Meltaguns. Flamers are cheap, and potent against weaker infantry like Guardsmen or Orks. Plasma gun is the fall-between option, that has it's own role, and can do an OK performance in other too.

Melta guns are only really good against high-AV vehicles (AV13 or 14), and even then can leave you vulnerable for counter-attack even after assaulting contents of a transport. Worse, you can leave yourself open to a lot of shooting in any case by being so close to the opponent. Because Meltaguns only have 1 shot, they work best in pairs where you are more likely to get a hit through. Meltas do destroy ICs if they are left detached for some reason or another, but I rarely see this happen in Melta range (I mainly see IC detach to take out a small unit in CC, where you can't shoot them. Meltaguns also suffer more from cover with only 1 shot.

Plasma pistols otoh are too expensive to take except in special cases (Plasma CCS for 10 pts) and even then it's a stretch. I think Plasma gun is ok as it is with it's current cost.

lunarman wrote:I really don't understand why they are 15 points, compared to a meltaguns 10.

You should play Black Templars, they have 6pts plasma guns.

The 15pt symptom you see is a result of 3E/4E armies, where it was significantly easier to destroy tanks due to far less forgiving damage chart, cover was much less of an issue, and delivery systems for meltaguns were less common. PG's worked very well as AT guns back then, in addition to MEQ killing, and not as many units were able to make use of the MG's "assault" type the way they are now so RF wasn't as much of a drawback. The PG also matched very well with Lascannons that could be taken in 5man units.

They fixed everything that made meltaguns seem weak with 5E and buffed some stuff that PG's we too good against, but didn't tone the cost back down after the late 4E books.

Really, 15pts is too much for PG's for basically any army, especially with Gets Hot! still in there which no longer serves any believable balance purpose.

15pts for Plasma Pistols is just...ridiculous.

What really sucks is IG paying the same points for them, with BS3 and a higher chance of death.

Meltaguns may only have one shot, but if a plasma gun gets hot it doesn't get any.

(by which I mean if a plasma gun shot 15" at an ork, rolled a 1 to hit, its as if the shot never happened apart from the smoking crater where the guardsman was standing assuming he failed his armour save)

I agree 15 points is too expensive!

I agree - 10 pts is about right. It is high powered but it is also rapid fire. So if you get anywhere inside of 12" your choice is double tap or pull out your bolt pistol and get the charge.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:What really sucks is IG paying the same points for them, with BS3 and a higher chance of death.

yes, but the higher chance of death is mitigated by the fact that the model costs ~50% as much...

It's 30% cheaper, with a worse chance of hitting with it but a better chance of dieing from it, for the same cost.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:What really sucks is IG paying the same points for them, with BS3 and a higher chance of death.

You can take them on BS4 models in IG, which is what you generally do. Having a lower BS shouldnt decrease weapon costs, since it is already accounted for in the unit cost.
And seriously, you have like what, 11% chance of dying to overheat with a guardsmen? (1/6 chance of overheat, then 2/3 chance to fail save)

I agree. this point has been raised many a time.
frankly the disadvantages outway the advatages of the plasma gun over the meltagun.
whilst they may be effective against heavy infantry they are to expensive to be general issue in my IG army as they are near useless for the cost against hordes of light infantry. Frankly i only bring them into play against MEQs and the suchlike. they are no good at fighting anything else being over priced and under powerd with a 1 in 6 chance of voporising your guy with each shot. Now if they were assault2 i could understand the price.....

Jackster wrote:
You can take them on BS4 models in IG, which is what you generally do. Having a lower BS shouldnt decrease weapon costs, since it is already accounted for in the unit cost.

partially. the weapon is still worth less on a less effective platform.

And seriously, you have like what, 11% chance of dying to overheat with a guardsmen? (1/6 chance of overheat, then 2/3 chance to fail save)

At double tap range it's 22%, rather high.

I do think 10pts would be right.

Just sayin', they're 6 points for us Templars and all it's ever used for is lasplas squads.

I am pretty sure you guys shouldn't be talking about the cost of Plasma Guns as that is in the Codices and is copyrighted material.


All wargear is at different costs because of different editions and the fact that the same weapon may be situationally better in one codex over another.


Sure, IG pay more then BT for plasma guns. but consider that a special weapon squad can have 4 of them and will end up costing less then a BT squad with 1 plasma gun.

All I'm going to say is that when my armies come up against a squad with a couple of plasma guns, things die. I don't know how many times they have annihilated my wraithlords with absolutely no trouble at all. Definitely worth the points.

Grey Templar wrote:I am pretty sure you guys shouldn't be talking about the cost of Plasma Guns as that is in the Codices and is copyrighted material.


All wargear is at different costs because of different editions and the fact that the same weapon may be situationally better in one codex over another.


Sure, IG pay more then BT for plasma guns. but consider that a special weapon squad can have 4 of them and will end up costing less then a BT squad with 1 plasma gun.

Though I am sure the common cost of standard imperial special weapons is pretty much known to most people on this Forum.

Or... maybe melta guns should rise in price to match the plasma guns?

Lucky you. I'm Tau, our Plasma Rifles (same thing but 1 point less St and don't Get Hot) are 20 oints.

Now that I think about it, Gets Hot! is really a stupid in of as itself. Who's ever herd of dying from a gun malfunction 1/3 of the time!? It SHOULD be that if double 1's are rolled firing rapid only that it happens, or that the user just cant shoot next turn.

Um...whoever heard of a man portable weapon that fires miniature suns?

I'm pretty sure the % chance of dying from GH has been posted in here a few times already. It's not 33% even for Guard.

Yah, the death percentage of guard dying from Grey Hunters is more like in the lower 10%...
How about 13 points for a plasma gun? that sounds reasonable right?

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Um...whoever heard of a man portable weapon that fires miniature suns?

And melta-guns firing focused microwave-fusion rays inches from a soldiers hands that can melt straight through the thickest armor doesn't present some sort of imminent danger? Just the ambient heat rise and air pressure changes would likely be extremely hazardous

Its funny that in the Vanilla codex (Ultramarines), in the tactical squad force organization chart, you can see some strange stuff. Here are the prizes of the plasma weapons, they can have:

Plasma cannon-5p.
Plasma gun-10p.
Plasma pistol-15p.

I don't know that was Matt Ward on drugs or something when he made this, but i do like cheap plasma cannons Returning to the real topic question, I'd want to see an reduction in the cost of plasma weapons due to their risky nature. 10 points for an plasma pistol would be better.

Their strength and ap far outweigh the risks of it as far as im concerned. They kill things and do so quite easily, quickly making up their points cost.

Yeah clearly a points drop is in order.. hardly anybody takes them, and that's proof enough.

rivers64 wrote:Now that I think about it, Gets Hot! is really a stupid in of as itself. Who's ever herd of dying from a gun malfunction 1/3 of the time!? It SHOULD be that if double 1's are rolled firing rapid only that it happens, or that the user just cant shoot next turn.

its more of the weapon destroying itself and giving its wielder 3rd degree burns. He naturally heads for the rear and medical attention.


Not all "Deaths" are actual death. Incapacitation is also an explaination.

rivers64 wrote:Now that I think about it, Gets Hot! is really a stupid in of as itself. Who's ever herd of dying from a gun malfunction 1/3 of the time!? It SHOULD be that if double 1's are rolled firing rapid only that it happens, or that the user just cant shoot next turn.

I agree. a man who has been trained in the usage of this weapon should be able to recognise the sighns of an impending melt-down and do something like letting the gun cool down a bit before it blows up or even lobbing it in the general direction of the enemy.
I actualy read something like this in a sister of battle book when the sister had a heat meter on her gun. at the end she kept firing till melt-down was imminent then lobbed it at the demon prince.
it worked.

Grey Templar wrote:

rivers64 wrote:Now that I think about it, Gets Hot! is really a stupid in of as itself. Who's ever herd of dying from a gun malfunction 1/3 of the time!? It SHOULD be that if double 1's are rolled firing rapid only that it happens, or that the user just cant shoot next turn.

its more of the weapon destroying itself and giving its wielder 3rd degree burns. He naturally heads for the rear and medical attention.


Not all "Deaths" are actual death. Incapacitation is also an explaination.

Actualy the overheat rule represents the gun going Nova in its users hands. Read the fluff.

master of ordinance wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

rivers64 wrote:Now that I think about it, Gets Hot! is really a stupid in of as itself. Who's ever herd of dying from a gun malfunction 1/3 of the time!? It SHOULD be that if double 1's are rolled firing rapid only that it happens, or that the user just cant shoot next turn.

its more of the weapon destroying itself and giving its wielder 3rd degree burns. He naturally heads for the rear and medical attention.


Not all "Deaths" are actual death. Incapacitation is also an explaination.

Actualy the overheat rule represents the gun going Nova in its users hands. Read the fluff.

Venting super-hot coolants isn't the same thing as going "nova". Nice try though.

It's 1/6 of the time, not 1/3 of the time. Unless your dice have two ones on them.