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How penetrative are pulse weapons in the fluff? I know the "pulse" part comes from the fact that pulse weapons fire particles that break down into plasma as they leave the barrel, and the Ulumeathi plasma symphony affects them as well, so why is plasma more penetrative? What's the catch?

Power armor can withstand some hits but even Astartes and Sororitas are advised to take as little pulse fire as possible.

A standard plasma gun presumably fires a hotter and more substantial burst of magnetically bottled superheated matter than a pulse gun does, so it's both more energetic and more massive.

From what we know, Pulse weapons tend to leave horribly mangled corpses when used on lightly armored targets, and can be mistaken for full plasma fire by untrained eyes.

Ultimately I'd say the main difference is scale. A Tau Plasma rifle puts much more juice and matter into it's shots than a pulse rifle .

It's the difference between a weapon geared for light infantry and that for heavy infantry. IOM (and probably Eldar as well) plasma is around the 20 million degree mark, getting upwards to around twenty-seven, so it's pretty damn hot (solar flare actually), which is why it can turn a full grown man to a pile of ash and completely incinerate either the limb of a space marine or a massive chunk of his torso.

Tau Pulse plasma on the other hand is a lot cooler and less overall destructive. As mentioned above it still leaves mangled corpses on light infantry like guardsmen can can blow a limb off, but PA can stand up to numerous hits, albeit it's unadvised. Pulse weapons are less powerful in exchange for being more ammo efficient and not having the rare nasty side affect of overheating and blowing up in your face.

Eldar star weaponary and Dark Eldar disintegrators also have less force behind them than Imperial weapons at the benefit of being entirely reliable.

Notably, the Tau plasma rifle is a fair deal bigger than it's Imperial counterpart, which can be used as comfortably as an assault rifle while the Tau weapon needs to be mounted on a minimech.

But that fits with the Tau having a higher median of technology than the Imperium, but the Imperium has higher outliers.

Also interesting: Pulse weapons are noted as having quite gentle recoil. A burst cannon's kick could be controlled easily by a kroot or fire warrior by hand. The weapon itself would be hefty and awkward as an infantry gun, but the recoil is nearly nonexistant.

 Kain wrote:
Also interesting: Pulse weapons are noted as having quite gentle recoil. A burst cannon's kick could be controlled easily by a kroot or fire warrior by hand. The weapon itself would be hefty and awkward as an infantry gun, but the recoil is nearly nonexistant.

Okay, that's awesome. When I get bored and write a Tau story, I'm going to have to use that. If you don't mind me asking: where did you hear that?