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Okay, so everyone knows that plasma guns (and their equivalents) are kind of the end all be all of killing small, tough infantry units. Now what I want to know, from anecdotal evidence, and possibly maths, is how they stand up against tanks of varying armor values. I don't want to know how or why melta guns or lascannons are better or more efficient, just, if you had the ability to put 6-7 plasma shots into the side or rear armor of a tank, how well do you fare in removing it as a threat?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer on this front.

Plasma is horrible at killing land raiders.

Plasma guns need a 3 to glance and 4 to pen the rear armor of most other vehicles (AV10). That's pretty good. Add +1 to the damage table for being AP2 and that's even better.

Situating yourself behind the rear armor of a tank with plasma is the hard part. I've rarely seen it done short of drop pods.

Gets hot.
only 50% chance to pen rear armor 10
1/3rd the chance to explode with ap2

Vs Melta guns which don't get hot.
even without melta range gives 2/3% the chance against rear armor. way way better with melta range
50% chance at a explode result.
and is also cheaper by 5 points (in general)


Edit: damn you ninja kronk!

For AV 10-12 vehicles, it's pretty good, and you can do good stuff to av 13 with that number of shots, but obviously it's useless against Av 14.

Personally, I take plasmaguns to take out enemy transports/light vehicles, rather than having my heavier payloads waste shots on them.

Desubot, I'll grant you all of those points, but you get 2 shots with plasma.

Plasma, in my book, is meant for monstrous creatures, space marines, and terminators. If a target of opportunity is there (rhino, dreadnought), then take it.

Otherwise, melta is for tanks, as Desbot said.

I would never hesitate to shoot at AV 10 or 11. AV 12 I would fire plasma if I was in a pinch but I would try to bust it with something else first. AV 13 I would only shoot if it was down to its last hull point and I had nothing else to use.

Plasma is where its at when you need to take down a MC, terminators, and space marines, melta is good for those 2d6 armor pen rolls, while plasma lacks that in its anti tank department....going against Nids and they have lots of MC, id you take plas you get more shots off before they get to you, with melta guns more often then not your going to have to move up pretty close to be able to get some shots and and they will likely assault you after, plasma you still get s 24' single tap and you can take out your big nasty foes at 2x the distance

Okay, specific example for a general question. Wave serpents are scary, and if they don't use their shield to shoot, they can down grade pens to glancing hits, so say I'm playing Blood Angels and facing Elder. Their wave serpents are obviously tearing me up, so I take an assault squad with two plasma guns, a plasma pistol on the sarge and a Sanguinary priest with combi plasma, deep strike behind the serpent to get rear armor and double tap plasma guns into it. What are my chances of removing that tank as a threat entirely? I.e. wrecking/glancing it to death or exploding it. What about versus the same squad equipped with melta, combim and infernus? (which is much more dangerous on the deepstrike since you have to get a lot closer)

Shots in the rear can't be downgraded by the shield so the melta squads are going to be significantly more effective.

 bocatt wrote:
Okay, specific example for a general question. Wave serpents are scary, and if they don't use their shield to shoot, they can down grade pens to glancing hits, so say I'm playing Blood Angels and facing Elder. Their wave serpents are obviously tearing me up, so I take an assault squad with two plasma guns, a plasma pistol on the sarge and a Sanguinary priest with combi plasma, deep strike behind the serpent to get rear armor and double tap plasma guns into it. What are my chances of removing that tank as a threat entirely? I.e. wrecking/glancing it to death or exploding it. What about versus the same squad equipped with melta, combim and infernus? (which is much more dangerous on the deepstrike since you have to get a lot closer)

Assuming you get all the relevant weapons within 12"...

You get 7 plasma shots at BS 4.
That gives an average of 4.67 hits.
Which in turn gives you an average of 2.33 penetrations (with +1 to the roll) and 0.78 glancing hits.
So, on an average result, seven plasma shots will really mess up a wave serpent if you manage to drop close behind it.

EDIT:

Three BS4 S8 AP1 shots will kill an AV 10, 3HP target a little over half the time.
Seven BS4 S7 AP2 shots will kill the same target about 80% of the time.

Get the melta squad within 6" and you will have similar odds to the plasma squad at 12", at a slightly lower cost and with a rather less safe deep strike roll. Getting within 3" to get the extra dice on the infernus pistol will make little difference.

Plasma will also be better against the shielded side of the WS.