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I'm a longtime fan of the half-life series and it will take me a long time to get over this cheap imitation of my favorite gun ever (save the portal gun).

However the obvious question lingers, what are grav weapons? I don't know where to find the WD articles and I'd rather not wait until I can fit in getting the dex (I'm impatient like that ).

I personally care more about a basic idea of what they do on TT and any fluff we've got so far (like where this odd tech popped out from and suddenly became so prolific in an army that is distrusting of anything new) but any and all details are welcome for others to enjoy.

Thank you my fellow dakkanaughts,
Lag

According to (fairly solid at this point) rumours, they are S- AP2 weapons that wound against the targets armour save in some way. I dont know exactly how the wounds are calculated. Maybe something similar to a poisoned weapon? It seems TEQ are in trouble at least.
At vehicles they do nothing on a roll of 1-5, on a 6 they immobilise the vehicle and strip a hull point.

Based on their rules it sounds like they work by increasing the gravitational pull on the target until they get crushed by that force. That's just a guess though; there's no telling until the book is out.

They don't wound "against the armour save", because that would imply you compare two numbers in a table.
Their 'to-wound roll' is equal to the target's armour save.
Their AP is high enough to ignore all armour saves.

And I think they are some sort of Gravity-weapons, which is supported by them dealing more damage to heavily armoured targets and the chance to immobilize vehicles.

Kangodo wrote:
They don't wound "against the armour save", because that would imply you compare two numbers in a table.
Their 'to-wound roll' is equal to the target's armour save.
Their AP is high enough to ignore all armour saves.

And I think they are some sort of Gravity-weapons, which is supported by them dealing more damage to heavily armoured targets and the chance to immobilize vehicles.

In fact, the sprue of the Tactical squad contains a grav gun, a grav pistol and a grav combi-weapon. I guess the latter two can only by the taken by the leading Sergeant so that a Tactical can have at most two grav weapons.

 laginess wrote:
I'm a longtime fan of the half-life series and it will take me a long time to get over this cheap imitation of my favorite gun ever (save the portal gun).

I'm pretty sure that Grav guns were included in Rogue Trader and therefore pre-date Half-life by about a decade They even had a specific weapon specialist marking for shoulder pads. They may have nicked it from somewhere else, but HL wasn't the source.

Flinty and Godless-Mimicry are correct. Grav guns date aaaaaaall the way back to Rogue Trader, but didn't appear from 3rd ed onwards again until now. They also work very differently - they work by increasing the effect of gravity in a localised area around the target, effectively crushing them. There's no "grab-and-fling" action involved.

 Flinty wrote:
...They even had a specific weapon specialist marking for shoulder pads...

Would you or anyone else happen to have a link/image of said marking? I'd love to put them on my breacher squad marines that have grav guns

http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/f/f5/RT-Space_Marines_Colors_%26_Markings.jpg

is a copy of the classic RT era picture. On the bottom right is the weapon type markings. Grav guns are the concentric black/white rings.

(The pic is the first one google popped up on my search)

Silly, silly rules...

Somehow artificer armor is super vulnerable to gravity attacks but big ole ogryn and monserous creatures are not?

Silly.

It should cause auto pinning or something.

Wait, so they cause damage now? I just checked the RT rules and they just used to reduce movement. They could only damage flyers by making them crash.

I like to think they can make terminator Vets into Cans of Cambell soup.


Now with 99% more Marine!

They excel at tickling my Daemons and causing Smurf players to cry tears of sweet nerd-rage once they realise their shiny new toys cannot hurt anything in my entire army!
(well, unless I graciously give a DP power armour or roll up the 3+ save Greater Reward and decide to keep it simply to stop the inevitable whining...)

Oh okay, I guess they're not totally useless against any of my chariots and/or Soul Grinder... 16% chance to take damage isn't something I'm too worried about though.

The way I hear it is that they use the target's save as their to wound roll. So an Ork boy will be wounded on a 6+, a Firewarrior on a 4+, Space Marines on a 3+, and Termies on a 2+.

Experiment 626 wrote:
They excel at tickling my Daemons and causing Smurf players to cry tears of sweet nerd-rage once they realise their shiny new toys cannot hurt anything in my entire army!
(well, unless I graciously give a DP power armour or roll up the 3+ save Greater Reward and decide to keep it simply to stop the inevitable whining...)

Oh okay, I guess they're not totally useless against any of my chariots and/or Soul Grinder... 16% chance to take damage isn't something I'm too worried about though.

Jajaja! still a great addition... don't worry, there's bazillions of plasma, promethium, bolt rounds and all the etceteras to deal with the demons, i don't think a long time player would deploy that kind of weaponry if he doesn't need it...

i know a friend of mine that will cry rivers when facing this gun in the near future

Does it hurt something that doesn't have an armor save? (I.e. most daemons)

Experiment 626 wrote:
They excel at tickling my Daemons and causing Smurf players to cry tears of sweet nerd-rage once they realise their shiny new toys cannot hurt anything in my entire army!
(well, unless I graciously give a DP power armour or roll up the 3+ save Greater Reward and decide to keep it simply to stop the inevitable whining...)

Oh okay, I guess they're not totally useless against any of my chariots and/or Soul Grinder... 16% chance to take damage isn't something I'm too worried about though.

At which point they unveil their grey knight allies at which point you're crying all over again. That "lol no gifts for you" power is absurdly mean, as is the abundance of mid-high strength shooting and instant death and a general boatload of Daemon fething special rules. Damn you Draigo and your S10 vs Daemons Force sword.

Rumors are great for general overviews, but for corner cases and specifics, the book is what you need. I don't recall any of the rumors addressing the no armor situation.

I think one of the earlier rumors also said they were concussive. Haven't seen it lately.

In general, if you are not planning on moving, or are relentless, I think grav weapons are better then plasma. On the move, plasma is better. They fill a similar role in my mind. Very high T targets can also skew which one would work better.

 Flinty wrote:
Wait, so they cause damage now? I just checked the RT rules and they just used to reduce movement. They could only damage flyers by making them crash.

This would be a interesting take for marines to become a good anti-air capability. Defiantly give tau a run for the money on that.

I really like what I've heard about grav gun. Seems like a good way to discourage riptide spam.

ironic, 6th ed made 2+ saves viable and actually very powerful.

3 codexes in a row capable of spamming AP2 or pseudo-rending to the point of why even bother taking 2+ untis now? Yes tau had plasmas before but they were unable to take dual plasmas, their AP2 power doubled in the new dex. That and the riptide being AP2 obviously.

The only 2+ save things that are going to cry are those without an inv save and/or FNP save. As the gun will never be double toughness, FNP will always apply. Hammernators will still get their 3+ save. The Riptide will have its nova inv. save and or FNP save, so it looks like to me the only real guys who are boned by this weapon are ummm... MC nids. Deamon Princes don't have an armor save. Mega armor nobs have two wounds. Sanguanary guard can get the FNP bubble. Terminators come with a 5+ inv save. Heck, you still can get your cover saves from them for those in a pinch.

It seems like their only advantage over plasma is the rate of fire of the heavier variant. Otherwise, I'm just not seeing them all that game changing.

Well, the question is how many grav weapons can you bring to bear against a single target? Causing a single wound on a DP, Wraithknight or Trygon will not be enough.

Heck if it wounds against armour saves then me and my Dark Eldar are going to throw a party!!

 Wilytank wrote:
Does it hurt something that doesn't have an armor save? (I.e. most daemons)

Wounds on a 6 if the target doesn't have an amour save so not much cop against demons. I think it glances vehicles on a 6 regardless of AV as well, so better than a heavy bolter, heavy flamer and plasma against AV13+, worse than them for AV12 or lower.

I think grav has its place, you just aren't going to spam it in an all comers list as you can get some really poor match ups like Demons or Orks. A couple of units with Grav could really help particularly the heavy armoured MCs were you'd normally be struggling to wound them outside of poisoned weapons.

I think I could forgive grav weapons of their sin (they came back out after hl2 so I still am a bit upset at them, I hold grudges irrationally ),

That being said a weapon like that seems a bit... odd... I guess it would function best against MEQ armies though imo. Afterall, taking out the troops is one of the easiest ways to stop your opponent. And it's a bit easier to use than plasma and vengeance rounds (assuming it doesn't have Gets Hot! as well).

 DrSchwartz wrote:
Heck if it wounds against armour saves then me and my Dark Eldar are going to throw a party!!

But don't celebrate too much. A Tactical squad can have about two grav weapons (grav gun for a unit member and grav pistol or grav combi-weapon for the Sergeant). This is what the sprue says.

 laginess wrote:

That being said a weapon like that seems a bit... odd... I guess it would function best against MEQ armies though imo. Afterall, taking out the troops is one of the easiest ways to stop your opponent. And it's a bit easier to use than plasma and vengeance rounds (assuming it doesn't have Gets Hot! as well).

Yes and no. Mowing down Marines isn't really too hard these days, so they might be rather expensive for what they do against MEQ (with the exception of some units that are hurt very badly such as Sanguinary Guard and, ironically, the new Centurions if they have no Inv. Save).

But other obvious targets are high-Toughness stuff with a decent armour save. Wounding Eldar Wraithguard/lord/knights on 3+, no save, is sure to annoy people for example.

I wonder if when a group of grav type weapons sure a vehicle, on a result of two, 6's is the vehicle wrecked? Immobalized and a HP, and then Immobalized again is +1 HP and a HP.

Grav weapons are competing directly with plasma. Plasma, being S7, already wounds a lot of stuff on 2's.

Here are the break even points.

T5 w/ 2+ save
T6 w/ 3+ save
T7 w/ 4+ save
T8 w/ 5+ save
T9/10 w/ 6+ save

If you are shooting at something with a lower T then that armor save, plasma is better. If shooting at something with a better armor save then the listed T, go grav. Now since most non-monster stuff is T5 or less, plasma will always be wounding on a 2+, where grav weapons may not, depending on the save. Big game hunting is more the realm of the grav.

For vehicles, it's a little closer. Against AV13, the plasma can only glance, but the grav can immobilize. S7 just bounces off of AV 14, so again point grav. AV 12 or less, plasma starts to get better.

Now this is all on a shot-for-shot basis. But they are different types. Last I checked, grav rifles were Salvo 2/3 with an 18" range. Compared to plasma's 24" rapid fire. Salvo is unusual for us marines. When standing still, you get the full range, and the number after the slash. Moving is half range, and the first number.

So standing still:
0"-12" G=3, P=2, advantage grav.
13"-18" G=3, P=1, Big advantage for grav.
19"-24", G=0, P1. Plasma wins at long range.

On the move, the numbers look a lot different.
0"-9" G=2, P=2, tie
10" -12" G=0, P=2 The half range while moving really hurts.
13" -24" G=0, P=1 Plasma still gets a single shot

So to sum up, if you are relentless or standing still, you probably want a grav gun. Plasma works better overall on the run. If you are taking a drop pod down, you can enter play in the 9" range. So sternguard should be able to get some milage for combi-gravs. But for footsloggers, I'd stick with plasma. Bikes I think are going to be the preferred deployment for grav weapons. They also have the advantage of the TL bolters if they need to take shots at low T, low save targets.

And there is still the fact that plasma Gets Hot! for your risk/reward evaluation.