Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

so yeah...
Why don't the IG use bolter's?! They're much more powerful than lasguns. Is it just that they're too heavy or something? Why not just make them smaller? Or is it a status thing that only marines can use them? Please answer

Why don't the IG all use hotshot lasguns?

Why don't the IG all use bolters?

Why don't the IG all use plasma guns?



Lasguns are cheap, efficient, do not require a complex and costly supply chain. They're rugged, simple, can be recharged by just about anything, and are good enough for the countless trillions in the guard.

plasma guns i can answer, its cuz they're heavy XD

orkoidSTD wrote:so yeah...
Why don't the IG use bolter's?! They're much more powerful than lasguns. Is it just that they're too heavy or something? Why not just make them smaller? Or is it a status thing that only marines can use them? Please answer

Uh........

When you have 581750917167109760912571026501056125016097135717 x 10/\28 solders you will have a problem manufacturing powerful expensive weapons and give it to the ALL of solders at your command...

For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

WIth Power Swords as bayonets

Las guns require no ammo, almost no training, and almost no maitenance. When support ships may take decades to arrive, and your solders may be the equivalent of a 10th century peasant, low maitenance and ease of use are important.

Beyond that the las gun is already overkill for 98% of the guards enemies, i.e. other humans.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

If Mat Ward is working on the next SM-based codex, it'll happen.
And complaining about it being over-powered will result in aspersions being cast about the size of your manhood.

oh so its more manufacturing. Plus ease of use, I guess the Imps don't take a lot of time to train their troops, whereas space marines have eternity to learn how to work the damn things...

Space Marines are also seven and a half feet tall and weigh somewhere around four hundred pounds (or more). With their power armor, and sheer size, they can manage the weight of a boltgun and its ammunition. This doesn't even get to the recoil these monstrously huge guns produce.

The average IG soldier? He's simply not big enough to make this a general-issue weapon. You might see an IG Heavy Weapons team deploying a heavy bolter on a tripod, or an armored unit mounting them on vehicles... but a bolter is simply not an easily man-portable weapon system. Made even moreso by the weight of its ammunition.

Bolters are far more complicated and expensive to produce then simple lasguns, they are finely hand-crafted from high-quality materials and individually blessed by the Mechanicus. Moreover most humans can't handle the weight or recoil of a boltgun.

Tacking on to what has already been said, Bolters are just not efficient for the IGuard.

The transition from the M14 to the M16 (for Americans) and from the AK-47 to the AK-74 (Soviets) came largely due to the weight of ammunition. A soldier could carry twice as much ammunition at the 5.56mm and 5.45mm cartridge weights than they could with the respective 7.62s (especially the 7.62x51 NATO round). Bolter ammunition would just be too heavy for a Guardsman to carry a sufficient amount of.

orkoidSTD wrote:oh so its more manufacturing. Plus ease of use, I guess the Imps don't take a lot of time to train their troops, whereas space marines have eternity to learn how to work the damn things...

Quite so. Imperial Guard training can in fact be just a few weeks, it all depends on how long the troopship is in transit, meaning how much time the conscripts have to learn stuff before arriving at their drop zone. It's more than that, though, as bolt weapons are somewhat more complicated in terms of mechanics. Without a high degree of maintenance (which is often not possible in Guard campaigns), it will simply jam and be useless. A lasgun on the other hand is basically the Kalachnikov of the 40k setting in that it is incredibly reliable and there is little chance that a soldier (some of whom do come from feral worlds) might break it.

Harriticus wrote:Moreover most humans can't handle the weight or recoil of a boltgun.

Neither the weight nor the recoil of the weapon itself are a problem. Bolt pistols and boltguns are in use in the Imperial Guard, just not widespread but instead limited to individuals like vaunted officers and Commissars. However, these guys won't have to resort using their weapons in full combat, rather carrying them as a badge of office or hereditary trophy. For executing cowards or firing a few token shots at the enemy, one or two bolt pistol magazines is more than enough. Stopping an advancing horde of mutants, however? A las chargepack will both provide you with more shots and will be lighter to carry.

Lynata wrote:

orkoidSTD wrote:oh so its more manufacturing. Plus ease of use, I guess the Imps don't take a lot of time to train their troops, whereas space marines have eternity to learn how to work the damn things...

Quite so. Imperial Guard training can in fact be just a few weeks, it all depends on how long the troopship is in transit, meaning how much time the conscripts have to learn stuff before arriving at their drop zone. It's more than that, though, as bolt weapons are somewhat more complicated in terms of mechanics. Without a high degree of maintenance (which is often not possible in Guard campaigns), it will simply jam and be useless. A lasgun on the other hand is basically the Kalachnikov of the 40k setting in that it is incredibly reliable and there is little chance that a soldier (some of whom do come from feral worlds) might break it.

Harriticus wrote:Moreover most humans can't handle the weight or recoil of a boltgun.

Neither the weight nor the recoil of the weapon itself are a problem. Bolt pistols and boltguns are in use in the Imperial Guard, just not widespread but instead limited to individuals like vaunted officers and Commissars. However, these guys won't have to resort using their weapons in full combat, rather carrying them as a badge of office or hereditary trophy. For executing cowards or firing a few token shots at the enemy, one or two bolt pistol magazines is more than enough. Stopping an advancing horde of mutants, however? A las chargepack will both provide you with more shots and will be lighter to carry.

All of this.
Guard have to go with something simple and effective because it is simply to wast for anything else.

Joey wrote:

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

If Mat Ward is working on the next SM-based codex, it'll happen.

He wrote the current one, you know. Or rather, you didn't know.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

If Mat Ward is working on the next SM-based codex, it'll happen.

He wrote the current one, you know. Or rather, you didn't know.

Yeah, I think he knew.

Mostly because of the logisitcs. When you have Trillions of soliders, Its better to give them all the same gun, one that is durable, easy to use and requires no ammo. Imagine producing ammo for all those guns...

I have heard that a bolt round costs the imperium as much to manufacuture as a lasgun. I might be wrong however

MrTau wrote:I have heard that a bolt round costs the imperium as much to manufacuture as a lasgun. I might be wrong however

Nope, that's in Purging of Kadillus.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Joey wrote:For balance reasons, basically. Same reason Space marines don't all walk around with lascannons.
It would just be silly.

We need assault Lacannons that count as a power weapon in CC!

If Mat Ward is working on the next SM-based codex, it'll happen.

He wrote the current one, you know. Or rather, you didn't know.

You mean the Mat Ward of internet fame is the same Mat Ward who wrote the SM codex? Are you SERIOUS?
I didn't know Mat Ward actually wrote army books I thought he was a Fruedian regurgitation of forumite's Eudipal anxiety over the attention of his mother (Rogue Trader).

In Dark Heresy, a standard lasgun will cost a character 75 Throne Gelt, assuming you're on a world where such things are a common technological level (ie, Hive, Imperial or Forge Worlds). A boltpistol runs you 250 Throne Gelt, which is more than most people make in a month.

15 Throne Gelt buys you a fully-charged powercell for your lasgun. Bolt rounds run you 16 Throne Gelt each. A full magazine for your bolt pistol comes out to just under the cost of *2* lasguns.

It is good the Inquisition has deep pockets.

You can however recharge lasgun power packs by simply throwing them in a fire.

The real reason is that GW needed a way to differentiate marines from guard so they gave the former power armour and boltguns while the latter got lasguns and flak jackets.

Guardsmen can be armed with boltguns. There is no set standard for IG equipment, only what their homeworld is willing/able to supply and maintain they are just very (very) expensive and as such would be out of the reach of all but the most affluent of worlds.

Palindrome wrote:There is no set standard for IG equipment

I believe the lasgun is actually the one and only thing that is considered standard, at least if you go by the latest Codex. I'm not entirely sure if any GW material ever said otherwise, though. Boltguns and -pistols seem to be limited to optional choices for officers and veterans, likely being supposed to mean family heirlooms or stuff they picked up on the field (former heirlooms ).

I don't know about the latest codex (I haven't played 40k seriously for a good while) but older fluff simply said that the tithe was 10% of the PDF equipped to a reasonable standard by that world. I certainly haven't seen anything that specifies required kit; Indeed the old IG dex used to have 'warrior weapons' to allow for low tech worlds.

Huh, was that in the 4E one? I only have 2E, 3E and 5E and neither of them has such an option. In fact, even the 2E Codex already writes:

"Regardless of their appearance almost all newly recruited troops carry the universal lasgun. [...] Indeed, planetary lords are obliged to provide heavy weapons of a basically standard type for the Imperial Guard, as well as stocks of spares, fuel processors and logistic support as appropriate. Although a planet's defence forces will almost certainly include locally designed vehicles, often of the most wild or specialised kind, these are almost never recruited into the Imperial Guard because of the difficulty of maintenance and impracticality of keeping them running."

Now, I took the exceptions included in the "almost" part there to be stuff like the Rough Riders who don't get a lasgun but laspistols to go with their lances, as well as the various heavy weapon teams or armour crews. But I'll admit there is room for more. What would 40k be without its various interpretations of the fluff, eh?

Personally, I always considered the regiments differing mostly in their clothing and uniforms, just conveniently missing a game-mechanical difference to their armour protection (i.e. manly Catachan chests protecting just as good as flak armour).

Using any other weapon than las would probably mean the regiment running into resupply problems quickly as it is shipped across the Segmentum as their campaigns progress - which might in turn simply result in the troopers exchanging their autoguns for las weaponry they picked up of fallen comrades. Veteran IG regiments are said to be rather ... "colourful" in terms of weaponry and uniforms, after all.

Veteran Imperial Guard units can and do use Bolters, and bolt pistols.

The reason your average guardsmen might not is because it takes to long to give all the ammunition and training out to every grot in the entire army.

I find it ironic that inquisition henchmen get storm bolters, those things look very heavy and probably chews through ammo like crazy. Maybe they spent too much time filling requision forms to get the guns and not practicing? hence the BS 3 vs IG vets at BS 4!

Well, Inquisition operatives probably deploy the same way the Space Marines, the Sisters or the Storm Troopers do.

Get in, get out, back to base and resupply.

Guardsmen only get in ... and spend months or even years there.

orkoidSTD wrote:so yeah...
Why don't the IG use bolter's?! They're much more powerful than lasguns. Is it just that they're too heavy or something? Why not just make them smaller? Or is it a status thing that only marines can use them? Please answer

Your average guardsmen makes roughly 25 crowns a month in wages paid. A single bolt round costs nearly 30 crowns in materials and labour.

EDIT: fun fact

Grey Knights using psybolt ammunition. To create a single round of psybolt ammo, a psyker of some measure is sacrificed, killed, and their psychic death scream imprint honed into the round.