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When news of Grav hit, I was rather nonplussed. When would other armies get them? Marines are already the favorite child, how is this balanced?

But the more I try to find a use for them, the more I fail. In most situations a plasma seems the better choice. To me, its mostly the range. Especially range on the move.

Except for going against MC (admittedly a concern in modern meta) I go plasma.

I'd rather almost see more Imperial Armies get unique weapons like a lot of Xenos have. Guard getting a Mole launcher would be fun.

Grav is just another tool in the kit. It has a lot of 'shiny new toy' syndrome that inflates its hype a good deal.

This isn't to say it is bad, grav excels at its specialty, which is MC hunting.

Grav is awesome on Relentless or S&P platforms - Bikes or Centurions.

It's meh on anything else though.

 curran12 wrote:


This isn't to say it is bad, grav excels at its specialty, which is MC hunting.

Which I find funny because if people are bring Gravs to hunt MC, they are still most likely fighting other SM armies that have no MCs.

In which case, grav weapons vs marines don't shine that much at all. You would be much better off taking plasma. I see Grav weapons as a list tailoring device. You bring them if you know you will face something that it excells at. Otherwise, your probably better off with the always useful plasma.

Best application I think is on bikes due to relentless, or drop pod sternguard, they make a nice alpha strike for removing something you really want gone.

Grav is actually pretty balanced. It competes directly against plasma. It's better vs. some things (MCs) worse against others (soft targets) Plasma is better on the move, grav gets more shots standing still (or relentless/S&P) For the most part, it's a coin toss.

Except on bikes. Then Grav is just better. You mitigate the salvo rules by being relentless, and the weakness vs. soft targets by having the TL bolters to fall back on.

Since the last few codexes have had some big MCs, it makes sense that people are drooling over a gun designed for big game hunting. While plasma can work vs. those, it's what grav was made for. I don't think grav-spam lists are going to be a long term thing, but it's a nice tool to have in the box for list building, and I suspect we will see them used in moderation for a while.

The obvious place for them is on bikes for sure.

They are the middle ground between melta and plasma,

AP2 with decent wound chance, fire rate and the chance to actually damage av14. and with bikes you cover the armor 5+ with TL Bolters.

I dont think its worth the 15 dollar per that is floating around ebay though.

I definitely prefer Grav over Plasma, mainly because I roll way too many ones. I actually stopped taking Plasma in place of Grav Weapons. They just eat up anything with a 2+ save and most importantly I don't melt my own face off.