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With the addition of the Grav gun and the standard options sternguard have I can't see why anyone would use the combi plasma anymore.

Combi Melta destroy's armored vehicles.
Inferno Bolts hurt pretty much any monstrous creature with weight of fire.
Combi Grav takes care of heavy armor infantry.

Combi Plas seems to have taken a step back in the Sternguard arsenal considering what other options they can get. I am just curious what other people think about the role of the Combi Plas in the sternguard squad?

I know they have places in standard marine units and in other area's but it just seems that the combi plas has lost a step.

Plasma still has its place. Grav weapons are salvo and as a result are more effective on units with relentless, like Centurions. I'd honestly take plasma over it, since it's more versatile.

Salvo reduces its range and none of the efficacy. 2 shots that are ap2 and wound on armor save is pretty close to the same as plasma with no chance of model loss and the possibility of an additional shot.

If you're walking, plasma hits at 24" while grav hits at only 9". That's a pretty huge difference.

Plasma takes care of light vehicles better than Grav Weapons, and hurt models with lower armour saves but high toughness like Daemons FMCs, or models with low armour saves in general better than Gravs

I am speaking directly on Combi plas on sternguard only. Not Plasma guns in general.

Sternguard can already weight of fire a demon with their inferno rounds. No one would reasonably waste a 24 inch plasma round from a combi unless it was a dire game situation.

I will not argue at all the plasma guns place in the marine army, just in the sternguard combi situation. If you use em to pop tanks combi melta's will be present for that role. I just don't see the purpose in combi plas for sternguard anymore. This annoy's me since I now have enough combi plas to outfit full units now.

Combi-plasma is an allrounder in comparison to other Combis. Grav's are better at killing high toughness, low save models. Flamers are better for low toughness, high armour hordes. Meltas are better at vehicles. Plasma is best at high toughness, high save models but also decent at high toughness low save, light vehicles or smalltime infantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, are Hellfire rounds (2+ poisoned) been replaced? I haven't got the new dex to see but you keep talking about Inferno Bolts which Sternguard never had before and apparently are good against MCs?

No I mean hellfire rounds. 2+ to wound from bolters on a high armor save model makes it disappear fast.

Yes Plasma has more general versatility but with sternguard special rounds in the arsenal the combi plasma just seems to be left purposeless. If you have the wrong gun type on the model and you have to pop light armor just charge the damn thing and krak grenade it.

Melta for tanks
Grav for low armor heavy infantry and MC's
Hellfire rounds for High armor MC's
Combi flamers for infantry and the basic rounds they get.

Plasma just seems unnecessarily dangerous and gives no benefit. Before it was there to pop termies and heavy infantry at close range with more shots. Grav can do that now with just a 3" range difference. I think the only time combi plas comes in handy is if you happen to be unable to make up that 3 inches.

You are correct. The normal drawback to grav weapons (being worthless against models with bad armor saves) is negated since you have the special ammo which is great against those units. So the choice is grav for killing TEQs, or melta for killing vehicles. And IMO melta is the clear winner since it makes your excellent anti-infantry unit an excellent anti-tank unit as well, while grav doesn't really add that many additional target types.

My friend was wondering about combi-flamers for Sternguard, are they even worth taking? I said no since they already have ammo that ignores cover.

I have a group that will be 6 combi flamers and two heavy flamers with Hestan leading the charge. All those templates should remove whatever they hit. A squad of 10 termies should struggle to survive that many to wound rolls.

spamthulhu wrote:
I have a group that will be 6 combi flamers and two heavy flamers with Hestan leading the charge. All those templates should remove whatever they hit. A squad of 10 termies should struggle to survive that many to wound rolls.

That'd on average kill 5.625 Terminators if we're assuming all the templates manage to hit 5 Terminators, which is beyond generous.