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So, just curious, which do you guys see yourselves leaning towards more for your infantry carried heavy weapons? When I say this, what I'm asking is...

Which IG heavy weapon do you prefer to use the most?

Maybe it's reliable, maybe it's a heavy hitter, maybe it just looks cool. Which one makes it into your list the most. In a way, I guess this is a debate about which heavy weapon is the "superior" choice. I know not everybody uses infantry carried heavy weapons, so if you don't tend to use them, if you were to take them, which one would it be? As for me, I feel like the real debate is between Autocannons and Lascannons. They're the two most powerful ones point for point, and seem to be the most flexible. The rest are cool and all, but they just never were able to stack up against the big two in my experience. If you've got a good reason for any of the other 3 I'd love to hear it, but I see this boiling down to the autocannon and the lascannon.

Now, on to the meat of the thread. After fooling around quite a bit with lascannons and autocannons in my army lists, I feel like the lascannon is starting to pull ahead. Now, I know what you're thinking, "but MrMoustaffa, guardsmen are idiots! Why would you trust such an expensive single shot weapon to such lowly scrubs who barely even understand which end the laser comes out of?" And to that I'd reply "that's why you bring 15+ of the friggin things."

What it's boiling down to me is that while yes, the autocannon is pulling out more hits, it's whiffing a LOT more when it comes to killing things. It's only AP4, so it's not getting a bonus on the damage table, and it's not cutting through the thick hides of most Monstrous creatures. On top of that, many high toughness elite infantry like bikers are also getting armor/cover/FNP saves against it, so it whiffs there as well. When I dropped all my autocannons and replaced them with nothing but lascannons, I found myself doing far more damage, even when you take the points increase and shot decrease into account. Whereas an autocannon will hit, but not necessarily kill, a lascannon is more like a sledgehammer. It may not always connect, but when it does, it gets results. AP 2 ensures it's got +1 on the damage table, is cutting through any armor save for infantry, and instagibbing any T4 multiwound characters. While the accuracy problem is a serious one, it's solved like any other problem this army tends to have, by being redundant with them. Where 1 lascannon will probably fail, 9 will not. Since I play footguard, clever use of orders can also help cut down on some of the lascannon's shortcomings. "Bring it down" ups their hit rate to above BS4, and Fire on my Target" helps them mitigate the problems of night fighting and aegis defense lines.

TL;DR I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the autocannon hurts things, the Lascannon kills them. Even when I was taking 20 or so autocannons per list, they just didn't stack up to the damage I'm getting with 10 or so lascannons now. I just feel like the lascannon is the more flexible weapon, and with proper play it can put down just as much, if not more hurt, than a similar pts total of autocannons instead. It does less wounds total to MC's, but far more are making it through saves to actually stick. It's dealing more kills to characters and elite infantry, because it ignores their armor and possibly even FNP. It's even more threatening to vehicles, as it's far more likely to pen, and instead of just stripping HP through glances, has a 33% chance to outright wreck the vehicle, and another 33% or so to do a serious damage result.

However this is all data I've pulled from experience. I'm not really a mathammer guy, so if someone can crunch the numbers and "prove" me wrong, feel free to. So which is it guys? The cheap, humble autocannon, or the hard hitting lascannon? Or are you crazy and take 35 mortars every game?

It depends. I prefer the Lascannon, but only if I have a CCS nearby to Twin Link it. If not I prefer Autocannon, or sometimes the Missile Launcher. I cant really decide between the two.

For the Brief time I used HWT's I used 6 Autocannons
There was so much Low AP 2-3 in the large blasts flying around.
So much Melta/Plasma with CCS/Vets
Not to mention Lascannons on Vendettas just seem better ^^

I like lots of lascannons, autocannons and plasma in balanced ratios.

From experience, I gotta go with massed HWS autocannons.

As far as heavy weapon squads go, Lascannons sound great, no really, they sound awesome. The AP2 really shows promise, and I've had them work on occasion, but the problem is the single shot. It's great when they do work. The problem is that when they whiff it hurts. I suppose I've just got bad luck with low-shot weaponry. I've always found that firing a larger volume of shots works better than firing a few high-AP shots. I've had three Lascannon heavy weapon squads only score one hit on a terminator squad, and that hit failed to wound. :(

As far as versatility goes, I play orks and tyranids from time to time, and while a lascannon shot that hits is awesome against a very expensive model, such as a terminator or MC, they absolutely suck against hordes. One lascannon can only kill one thing. That thing may be really dead, but it's still only one unit. I find that weapons that put out a lot of shots are more versatile, as eventually that elite infantry will fail a save. Pask with a punisher+ heavy bolters can (and successfully has) engage hordes, GEQ, MEQ,TEQ, MCs and light armor due to sheer volume of fire; whereas three lascannon heavy weapon squads (a bit more than the punisher, but a fair for comparison) are limited to only 9 kills a turn, limiting their targets to TEQ (perhaps MEQ) and AV12, AV 13 (and if you're feeling lucky, AV-14) armor vehicles.

Next, there is the issue of getting lucky. When a lascannon heavy weapons squad gets lucky: great job, you've got yourself three wounds dealt out. Whupty-do. In contrast, when a high-volume-of-fire model gets lucky on the tohit/towound roll, that gak is noticeable. Case and point: one 10 man guard infantry squad (1/2 the cost of a LC HWS!) got lucky against a big tyranid monster, and they FRF 'ed the six-wound beast to death in one shooting phase. Then, they stepped forward three inches and did it again to the next one.

Of course, there's the issue of having bad luck. The more dice rolled, the more chance that things will even out, but there are occasions where 10+ autocannon rounds will miss a single AV11 vehicle. Here's my point of view: It's the target that determines the consequences a bad roll. When my lascannons miss the terminators about to charge into my gunline. It hurts; those termies are going crush some guardsman face. But when some autocannons fail to glance a lightly-armored vehicle to death, that's no biggie, because the vehicle still has to move into multi-melta range, and then deal with my leman russ's front AV-14. Or maybe it has to get to an objective and drop off troops. Whatever. The point is that failing an autocannon roll that should have done some damage is, in general, more forgiving then whiffing with lascannons that are oh-so-easy to whiff with.

Finally, the one use that the lascannon seems to try to do is long-range-anti-tank. That's nice, but I'm a guard player. I have seen many-a-player try to use lascannons to counter my leman russ, only to have each beam bounce harmlessly off the front armor. When it works, it's nice, but I'd rather throw some stormtroopers with meltas at the problem or send in a Valkyrie hungry for some rear-armor shots.

-----------


That said, I am a fan of running them in normal infantry squads when the points allow. I already shoot a bazillion lasguns at 2+ armor models trying to charge my line, and I look at the lascannon as a bit of a bonus. If it works, great! If not, well, that squad was bubblewrap first and foremost anyways.


Anyways,I guess that was a roundabout way of saying that I prefer autocannons in team and lascannons in infantry squads. I'm glad you have better luck with 'em then I do.

So, I've come to the same conclusion, Moustaffa. Yes, autocannons can now glance vehicles to death, which makes them vaguely worth taking (outside of AV10, which they were always good at), but still. No.

I actually came to an epiphany recently. Against AV12, a S8 Ap1 weapon (outside of melta range), has the same odds as killing the vehicle as a S9 Ap2 weapon, which has roughly the same odds as a S10 Ap3+ weapon.

This is the class of weapons we consider "serious anti-tank". Drop down to an autocannon, and the kill rate drops to LESS THAN A THIRD of this, even including the fact that it gets an extra shot. A missile launcher has the same kill rate. Everything else is just worse.

This has really clarified things in my mind. In the case of infantry upgrade weapons, you have two guns - the meltagun and the lascannon, that are your only two anti-tank weapons. Everything else isn't an anti-tank weapon. Yes, you could talk about blowing up AV10 stuff, but AV10 vehicles aren't really that credible of vehicles, as they're often HP2, open topped, and can be drug down by small arms fire. You don't REALLY need fancy weapons just to handle AV10 most of the time. A heavy bolter will probably do just fine in an age of glance-to-death against that target type.

So, for me, at least, this really clarifies things. If you want to have guard infantry that has a heavy weapon that you brought to shoot at vehicles, take a lascannon. No exceptions. If damaging vehicles is only a secondary concern, then pick from any of the other ones, depending on what you're specifically looking for.

I am also preferring Autocannons.

My reasoning being my the way I run my IS squads. I like to combine them with a melta gun. Although many people will say it is not a good setup, I am a huge fan. With the new rules to HWT being able to fire on the move and stand still and fire, it provides them with a lot of teeth for very little points. 70 points gets me a very high threat n close range as well as the option to sit back and fire as well. It is a lot of flexbility for such few points and really has allowed me to make decisions half way through the game rather than relying on my deployment choices to carry me through the game.

 Ailaros wrote:
So, for me, at least, this really clarifies things. If you want to have guard infantry that has a heavy weapon that you brought to shoot at vehicles, take a lascannon. No exceptions. If damaging vehicles is only a secondary concern, then pick from any of the other ones, depending on what you're specifically looking for.

Pretty much this.

If all you're shooting is vehicles, vehicles, and more vehicles with your HWT, then for sure, lascannons are the bomb.

Problem is, you show up packing 15 lascannons, and oops, your opponent brought nothing but Guardsmen-equivalent troops and a bag of chips to munch on while you whittle away at him.

Autocannons aren't as good as Lascannons at anti-armor, but they aren't as good as heavy bolters at killing GEQ either. They're our multitool, and they can do a bunch things pretty good, but nothing better than our corresponding hard-counter.

Well, that's the problem, they don't do anything really well. I mean, they have their roles, like against mutli-wound T3 and stuff, but still.

It's something that I've noticed that people have missed about 6th edition vehicles. Yes, you can now glance them to death, but they're much harder to kill outside of glancing.

Quick, go look at the damage table in your 4th ed rulebook. Look at 4th ed glancing. Now look at 6th ed penetrating. Notice how they're EXACTLY THE SAME?

Given that penetrating is the new glancing, you've really got to step up the firepower of the weapons you take in order to get the same job done. Really, there is no longer a substitute for Ap2/1 against vehicles, nor for being less than S8.

As for those lascannons being made worthless against guard, well, we're TALKING about guard here. If I'm bringing an infantry horde, I'm going to have enough killing power with all those lasguns I brought to handle another horde. Yes, if my opponent used those points to buy heavy bolters instead, then yeah, the lascannons would be a real relative waste, but I'm not anticipating coming across all that many horde armies that have no anti-vehicle weapons whatsoever.

Sure, lascannons might be better in most cases, but they also cost more. So you have to ask yourself whether it's worth paying the extra points for the LCs, or if you should just consider the ACs good enough. And this is especially true if you have a lot of mobile units where your heavy weapons can expect to be snap firing frequently and not really making good use of an expensive upgrade.

On HWTs I would much rather have ACs.
Vendetta for the LCs.

Interesting that one of the main reasons I've been picking lascannons more hasn't popped up. Monstrous Creatures. It seems like every time I go into my store I'm up against an Mc. Eldar, nids, daemons, and even DE have been fielding big, meaty MC's, and to be brutally honest, autocannons are horrible against them. Take a tervigon (I believe its the baby pooper correct?) something pretty much any nid player will have. Add in the fact it's T6 (soon to be T7-9 if its rolling on biomancy) +3 armor, fnp, and possibly able to regenerate several wounds a turn, and autocannons just don't cut it. You're going from a heavy weapon thats wounding in a best case scenario on 3's, and having to get through a +3 armor save AND THEN a +5 fnp, to a weapon that in the worst possible scenario is wounding on 4's, bypassing armor entirely, and leaving him with only cover and fnp to stay alive. What would've taken an obscene amount of autocannons to chip a few wounds away, only took about 8 lascannons with bring it down to knock 3 wounds off, and that was with fairly unlucky rolling. The pain engines things DE seem to be the same way. Autocannons just get shrugged off, but lascannons actually slap these things around fairly well. Daemons are the odd ones out, as their MC's tend to have pretty beefy invuln saves, but even there the lascannon will at least force them to save on a 4 invuln, instead of a 3 armor save.

So if autocannons suck at killing vehicles, suck at killing hordes (because a S7 hit per gun isn't wiping a blob of gaunts anytime son),and suck at killing MC's, then why are we taking them? They put out tons of fire and look cool, but thats about it I feel. Is it just because they're cheap and better than taking nothing at all? This will sound like horible blasphemy, but the more I try autocannons, the more Ifeel like the autocannon is the grenade launcher of the heavy weapons family (and not in a good way). And before you guys freak out, take a list where you spam autocannons, and replace as many as possible with lascannons. Proxy if you have to, but give them a real try. The key is redundancy with them. You need a healthy amount, which varies depending on the list.

EDIT because i cant into typing yo.

Also, I think the final nail in the coffin for autocannons for me was when I started gauging my opponent's reactions to what I took. Autocannons were treated with mild annoyance, something that was more an inconvenience almost. Lascannons on the other hand caused genuine worry. I'm not a genius, but if my opponent treats one weapon as meh, and the other as death incarnate, I know which one I'm taking. It's the same reason I've switched from vanilla russes to executioners with plasma sponsons. Battle tanks hurt, but executioners annihilate. Yes they cost more, but you get what you pay for. We've been taking plasma and meltas as our go to special weapons for ages with no question. Why wouln't we invest in heavy weapons the same way?

The autocannon just isn't what it used to be-- despite its dominance in 5th edition, people have largely stopped taking large numbers of the units autocannons are best against (AV10/11 transports, IG heavy weapon squads, and Scarabs), and with 6th edition buffing AV13 against autocannon fire and bringing more monstrous creatures to the fore, I'm beginning to question whether autocannons are really effective at all.

As MrMoustaffa pointed out, people aren't really scared of autocannons anymore. On the other hand, lascannons really throw a wrench into almost anything aside from a pure horde army. The new Chaos codex may be the best example of this. When I see a Chaos army with maximum autocannon Havocs, I smile, because there's no way those guys are going to be effective against my AV13 and marines on foot. On the other hand, when I see a Chaos army with tri-las Predators, I get worried!

This is very interesting. I don't think my autocannons have ever managed to glance a tank to death, without including the occasional rhino. They do however, put the hurt on MEQ. Enough AC fire will drop MEQ fairly reliably, but, I have plenty of weapons able to do this, just not with the 48" range.

I will proxy out the ACs for LCs. See how it goes. It also brings up the idea of using a MRP valkyrie instead of a vendetta. The 3 lascannons are covered but I will have lost some ways to deal with hordes, which the MRP valk could make up for.

I did a spreadsheet about this a while ago. Looking at it now makes me scratch my head on how I did it. it take into account invuln by just saying "highest save available". The saves with "7" is just 7 for maths purposes, it's actually no saves.
Anyway, it worked out the "to wound" cost of purely the HW (AC/HB=10, LC=20) at BS3.
Results can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtoNxvqJp00_dHU5bGt0T1laOWlVRWJuLVBYLWdrcXc
It's not all that pretty atm, hopefully someone (else) can chart this up so y'all can make sense of it.

People have been frothing at the mouth over how good autocannons were for a long time now. They weren't that great in 5th, and they're still not great now.

I feel that this thread is, in a way, vindication for a years-long campaign against this weapon starting with this thread. What we're seeing is probably not the result of autocannons getting worse as much as people are finally starting to see what they have been this entire time.

... of course, my dislike to meltaguns and lascannons in infantry squads three years ago is rather humorous.

 Ailaros wrote:

I feel that this thread is, in a way, vindication for a years-long campaign against this weapon starting with this thread.

Wow, you put up a hell of a fight in that thread Ailaros. It was just logical fallacy after logical fallacy, I'd have lost my cool and quit arguing by page 2. You made some valid points, and it's made me consider the humble heavy bolter too.

Auto cannons work wonders against Orks and Nids for my part, so I take them as a staple of my army. In fact I seldom leave home without them

Okay if AC are not the mainstay HW now, can a case be made for the missle launcher to be the new all comers type of weapon. Its better than the LC against hordes, better than the AC against armor. I know its generally regarded as a poor weapon for IG, but 3 or 4 firing in volleys against hordes or AV10-12 isnt that bad.

Went ahead and sorted my horribly unsorted data and created a chart:


If I could get my spreadsheet program to flip the data ranges correctly so the chart is more verticle than horizontal, I would. As it is, it screws up and decides that "Toughness and Save" need to be charted, and not the weapons.

 Ailaros wrote:

I feel that this thread is, in a way, vindication for a years-long campaign against this weapon starting with this thread. What we're seeing is probably not the result of autocannons getting worse as much as people are finally starting to see what they have been this entire time.

Yeah right. Autocannons were great in 5th edition when you hated them, and then you started liking them when 6th edition came around and they got worse! Now that people seem to be coming around to them being not so great, you're with the crowd, but the fact that your opinion finally matches up with that of others doesn't mean that everyone else finally came around to your point of view, but rather that you've been wrong for two out of three cycles-- not something to be proud of!

Ok guys let's chill a bit. This thread is about us wasting time and endlessly debating which chunk of plastic to arm our little army dudes with to kill the other guy's plastic army dudes the best.

As for missle launchers, interesting point, but I kind of wonder what the point is if for a mere 5pts more you get the lascannon. I've taken the view that my vehicles kill infantry, and my infantry kill vehicles, and its worked well. As a result, inve just been going nuts with lascannons, and been taking things like various leman russes, artillery, and am even looking into valkyries to handle my antihorde needs. Of course, if you wanted to go 100% infantry and be able to handle hordes without gimping your long range antitank/antiMC, I guess you could make a pretty good argument for missile launchers. Thats about the only time I'd seriously consider them though. I've got 3 bases of them though, maybe I should give em another try...

I don't think this is an all or nothing discussion. I personall like autocannons and lascannons and those are my go to choice for squad or heavy weapon teams typically LC go into squads and AC go into heavy weapons teams. I think there is no reason for you guys to turn on each other or be snarky. I don't always agree with what Alairos says, but everything he says has a compelling and sound argument, from his persoanl experiences. I have worked and modeled my own IG army (successful 5th Ed) after his battle reports and his advice. Mr Moustaffa also has also been invaluable in providing insightful and intelligent musings on IG tactics. We're all just tryin to wrap our heads around the best way to play our toy soldiers, no reason to be nasty!

If you ask me, missile launchers are inferior in that they are more expensive than autocannons. Were they the same price, they might be worth it, but the only thing that they have a comparative advantage in is shooting at Marines outside of cover. Admittedly, this happens a fair amount, but when there's a mere 5 point premium for a lascannon, which achieves the same performance against Marines but with substantially improved performance against vehicles, Terminators, and most Monstrous Creatures, the missile launcher seems like a pretty weak option.

I think from the table I've made that I'm going to stick to Autocannons. They aren't *that much* more expensive per wound than HB's, I'll be shooting them all match, I can use them against fliers if required, and if I fight any MC's they can hurt them. Melta's and blast templates for vehicles.

AC will also ID T3 models whereas a HB will not.

 Blaggard wrote:
I think from the table I've made that I'm going to stick to Autocannons. They aren't *that much* more expensive per wound than HB's, I'll be shooting them all match, I can use them against fliers if required, and if I fight any MC's they can hurt them. Melta's and blast templates for vehicles.

This is a fair point. I would certainly take autocannons over heavy bolters or missile launchers. When it comes down to autocannons or lascannons, autocannons can still be a valid choice-- but they aren't the only thing you need to focus on, as they generally were in 5th edition. Realistically speaking, the big change of 6th edition was that lascannons got much better relative to their old position, making them a strong competitor for anti-tank slots. Since the meta has changed to favor higher-AV vehicles and tougher MCs, lascannons are getting a nice boost-- but that doesn't mean autocannons are worthless and should be discarded.

MLs are better for marines due to its relative cost compare to LCs for them and its flexibility.
IG ones cost too much compare to LC and the ability to fire a template is not that important as IG has far better templates already.

Yeah, MLs are still garbage. They aren't better against vehicles (+1S does not cover for -1 shots), and they're still not great against infantry, what with even modest displacement seriously reducing the amount of damage they can do.

It's really a matter now of:

Lascannons - I want to kill vehicles
Autocannons - I want to ID T3 models
Missile Launchers - I want to ID T4 models
Heavy bolters - I want to kill infantry and AV10 vehicles.
Mortars - Where on earth can I spend these last 5 points?

... which... wait. Is how it's always been, actually...

Well, ML is simply not the weapon for IG, Marines can use them effectively, due to the fact it's cheaper for them (As much as a HB) and marines need a versatile weapon due to higher cost of their models. IG gets cheap stuff everywhere, so specialist weapons are prefered.
AC is good against AV10-11, and the best thing a guardsman on foot can have to fight flyers with. It is also strong enough to wound MCs.
HB kills infantry, though IMO we are better off using templates for such thing. Glancing AV10 to death is okay I guess.
LC kills vehicles and MC and does it well. Cost the most for a good reason. Vendetta is the best platform for it though.
Mortars... Because you dont like heavy support for some reason?

If Vendettas dont exist, I think I'd use LC on foot much more frequently.