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To the OP, the main problem with firewarriors is the utter lack of upgrade options. Their small arms may be really good, but a unit of firewarriors has an awful lot of gaps in its killing power with no way to remedy them. But wait, what about army synergy? Sure, but you've got to note that practically every codex that's come out since tau has both individual troops choices that can be kitted to handle most things AND army synergy, while tau has only one or the other. I'd much rather take a guard infantry platoon than a squad of firewarriors, because the firewarriors can only ever be effective against enemy troops choices and monstrous creatures (and AV10), while a guard infantry platoon can be kitted to handle anything in the game just by itself, what with the ability to take power weapons, stubborn, flamers, meltaguns, and a variety of heavy weapons, etc.

As for army-wide effectiveness, I'd probably give it to the grey knight's storm bolters. Not only are storm bolters pretty good in their own right, but if they had a worse small arm, grey knights would be pretty screwed against horde armies (unless they took a LOT of purifiers). The necron guns are also really great, but seem a lot less necessary than the storm bolter to a grey knight. Gauss and tesla weapons make a necron model good - a storm bolter rounds out the ultimate killing machine.

If fluff is taken into consideration at all, then of course its the lasgun.

Although, on second thought there is some real quality to things like shootas and lasguns in their own right.

That storm bolter costs 20 points at the cheapest. For 20 points, assuming an officer is nearby, you can throw down 12 lasgun shots to the stormbolter's 2. Per point, the lasgun is twice as effective against marines, and over twice as good against guardsmen out of cover (for nearly five times better if they do).'

Savageconvoy wrote:I'm going to say the Pulse Rifle. It can take down light armor, wound Space Marines on a 3+, and it's the standard/only weapon for the baseline troops. So it doesn't get the back up of special weapons in the squad. I hate that there isn't much fluff for how reliable Tau weaponry is compared to the IG. I know you can rub the battery pack against your neckbeard and your virgin will rub off on it and give the battery an electron boner (Kidding... kinda) but that doesn't make the Pulse Rifle less reliable. I'm not aware of it breaking all the time in the fluff.

If people are going to bring up Fluff then I want to bring up it's stats in the Rogue Trader game. where a Lasgun will give you 1D10+3 damage at Pen3, the Pulse Rifle does 2D10+4 at Pen 5 (I believe I've got the numbers right.), can fire much farther than the lasgun without penelty, and can fire 4 times faster than the lasgun.

Fluff wise you can use the lasgun to brain your foes, drag it in a swamp, cover it in sand or take a swim in the ocean with it, and at the end of the day give it a good clean and voila, it's still ready to be used the next day to actually shoot things. And in case anything gets broken on it, never mind ! Even the lowest savage in the guard would be capable of changing the parts. Thats why I consider it to be the best weapon.

Now if you meant the most powerful weapon then yes, the pulse rifle packs a punch. But that does not make it the best imo.

Pulse Rifle and Storm Bolter are my votes

I don't agree with some of the logic people are using in this thread in regards to the lasgun's reliability, personally. How is dragging it through a swamp and still being able to fire it going to help you when lasbolts bounce off the armor of 90% of the foes you'll be fighting? Being able to "bludgeon" a chaos space marine with it and not break it in the process isn't really going to help you all that much.

One could argue that a gun with better stopping power is also useless if it jams in the middle of a firefight, but I'd respond by pointing out that you very rarely ever hear about people's weapons jamming in WH40K period. Bolters are high-maintainence but in combat they almost never jam, for example. The way people are describing lasguns in here, you'd think every other type of gun was some temperamental device prone to randomly shutting down or blowing up in your face. xD I've never seen anything that gives evidence to that, though.

It's academic. A bolter or a pulse rifle might jam 1 out of a 1000 times, whereas the las gun will jam once out of a million, but I'd rather take a 1/1000 chance that my gun might jam over a 90/100 chance that my guns ammo won't even do anything to what I'm shooting at...

Just pointing out that you can beat cultists, heretics, rebels, orks (to some extent) etc. to death with lasgun. And obviously a lasbolt does nice amount of damage to these foes, which are about 90 % of what the guard will be fightinh (fluffwise ofc).

I would have to say the Combi-flamer.

Hard answer for me, but if I had to narrow it down to a few it'd be:

1) Storm bolter, (especially with psybolt? C'mon.)
2) Splinter Rifle, (O herro wraithlord, your T means nothing to me.)
3) Pulse Rifle

also for consideration, the avenger catapults with the mandatory exarch w/ blade storm is pretty deadly.

Just because the fluff doesn't explicitly say the weapons jam, doesn't mean they don't.

The British standard issue rifle jams quite often, yet in stories or films with them in, they never do.

Surely its the plasma gun. It doesn't run out of ammo, It'll kill almost anything, and it getting hot and killing you is way better then being taken captive by DE. Just saying.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Just because the fluff doesn't explicitly say the weapons jam, doesn't mean they don't.

The British standard issue rifle jams quite often, yet in stories or films with them in, they never do.

And, how does that make you feel?

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Just because the fluff doesn't explicitly say the weapons jam, doesn't mean they don't.

The British standard issue rifle jams quite often, yet in stories or films with them in, they never do.

It's not impossible for a lasgun to jam, but various fluff sources emphasize how rare this is relative to other weapons. One of the main reasons the lasgun is used, after all, is its reliability and logistical efficiency. It would be easy for the Imperium to outfit the Imeprial Guard with more powerful and exotic weapons, but the lasgun truly is one of the most efficient, reliable weapons out there, and it is quite strong enough for most purposes.

The reason that the lasgun is often disparaged is that, in 40k, Guardsmen with lasguns often have to go up against Space Marines, Necrons, and other powerful foes for whom lasguns are nonideal weapons. However, in fluff terms, such engagements represent only a rare fraction of Imperial Guard encounters. The most common enemy that the Guard has to fight are renegade/traitor/cultist humans, for whom lasguns are quite good, followed by Orks, for whom lasguns are underpowered but serviceable thanks to the general lack of armor for most Ork forces.

If I remember correctly, one of the Cain books mentions that the Tau's guns jam much more frequently than the lasguns. Also, the pulse rifle requires the use of 2 separate clips, one holding the plasma "bolts" launched by the gun, and the other serving as the power source for whatever focuses the plasma bolt, something to do with ferromagnetics.

Best default gun on a troop choice?

Wraithcannon

Always wounds on a 2+, inflicts instant death on a 6, glances on 3-4 and penetrates on 5-6. Oh, and its AP2.

Sure, it's 12" Assault 1. But, that still is an amazing gun on a troop unit.

Plasma weapons run out of ammunition all the time... or, rather, they can. They're fed by large tanks of some sort of fissile material, which is not limitless in volume.

Grakmar wrote:Wraithcannon

Oh, nevermind. I change my vote to that.

Pulse Rifle, because Gauss Flayers aren't Rifles

Actually, for it to be a rifle, it needs rifling... Which only the bolter/storm bolter and the shoota have.

I disagree that a Storm Bolter is the 'standard' rifle for any army.. It's always portrayed as a heavy weapon, if the lowest rung, and one that Terminators can juggle with ease.

Splinter rifle here.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Actually, for it to be a rifle, it needs rifling... Which only the bolter/storm bolter and the shoota have.

1. The pulse rifle is rifled (it shoots a solid bolt enveloped in energy)
2. Neither the bolter/storm bolter/shoota have the word rifle associated with the name
3. Where does it say that any of those weapons have a rifled barrel??

Can't remember the source, but I remember it stating somewhere that bolter rounds spin to increase accuracy, presumably this is cased by rifling.

Where does it say the pulse rifle is rifled?

Its inherent to the name, it cant be called a rifle if it doesnt have a rifled barrel

Ailaros wrote:

Grakmar wrote:Wraithcannon

Oh, nevermind. I change my vote to that.

Aye, I'd agree. Hell if they ever go plastic, I'd struggle not to head off to Eldar again, even if I have failed to find painting enthusiasm on them as a army twice.

Finally the warith cannon turns up the amount of nids tremys and grey knight cheese they throw into the war at bs 4 gut who are also S5 and T6 you dont beat that good for 35 points

IcedAnimals wrote:The Gauss blaster is infinitely better a gun on basic troops than the gauss flayer. It gains 1 str and 1 AP value. So in terms of the gun itself it is the better of the two. The only reason why guass flayers are nice is because they are much cheaper to field as they are on a much cheaper troop choice.

Really, these are the top 3 rifles. (In no particular order)

Tau Pulse Rifle. Str 5 Ap 5 with a 30 inch range and can rapid fire. Its biggest weakness isn't in the gun itself but in the troop that carries it. However you can get those troops BS4 with the use of a marker light.

Necron Gauss Blaster. Str 5 AP 4 but 24 inches compared to the pulse rifles 30 inches AP5. I would give the edge slightly to the tau, since their range is better than an AP value that still doesn't effect marines. That is until the Gauss special rule comes into play. The ability of a basic rifle to glance a vehicle to death is a huge edge over the competition.

The last of the top 3 and honestly its here on a technicality is the Grey Knight Storm bolter. In other books the weapon is considered strong enough to be a special weapon. But the GKs field them instead of the usual marine weaponry. Str 4 Ap 5 assault 2 24inch range. Unlike the other weapons which require you to hold still unless you are rapid firing, you have a much further mobility range. Effectively giving your unit a 30 inch range to match the tau but you get twice as many shots.

The only other gun that even comes close to "top 3" material is the dark eldar splinter rifle. So lets give it an honorable mention. With no str value but always wounding on a 4+ the rifle can kill monstrous creatures just as easily as marines. The downside is of course is it makes killing smaller targets just as hard as killing anything else.

Believe the question was which STANDARD rifle is better. Gauss Blaster is a step up from the Flayer, therefor no longer a "standard gun."

Least that was my interpretation in this thread

Winterkit wrote:I disagree that a Storm Bolter is the 'standard' rifle for any army.. It's always portrayed as a heavy weapon, if the lowest rung, and one that Terminators can juggle with ease.

Except that it is a standard rifle for Grey Knights. Even power armoured Grey Knights.

Cryage wrote:

IcedAnimals wrote:The Gauss blaster is infinitely better a gun on basic troops than the gauss flayer. It gains 1 str and 1 AP value. So in terms of the gun itself it is the better of the two. The only reason why guass flayers are nice is because they are much cheaper to field as they are on a much cheaper troop choice.

Really, these are the top 3 rifles. (In no particular order)

Tau Pulse Rifle. Str 5 Ap 5 with a 30 inch range and can rapid fire. Its biggest weakness isn't in the gun itself but in the troop that carries it. However you can get those troops BS4 with the use of a marker light.

Necron Gauss Blaster. Str 5 AP 4 but 24 inches compared to the pulse rifles 30 inches AP5. I would give the edge slightly to the tau, since their range is better than an AP value that still doesn't effect marines. That is until the Gauss special rule comes into play. The ability of a basic rifle to glance a vehicle to death is a huge edge over the competition.

The last of the top 3 and honestly its here on a technicality is the Grey Knight Storm bolter. In other books the weapon is considered strong enough to be a special weapon. But the GKs field them instead of the usual marine weaponry. Str 4 Ap 5 assault 2 24inch range. Unlike the other weapons which require you to hold still unless you are rapid firing, you have a much further mobility range. Effectively giving your unit a 30 inch range to match the tau but you get twice as many shots.

The only other gun that even comes close to "top 3" material is the dark eldar splinter rifle. So lets give it an honorable mention. With no str value but always wounding on a 4+ the rifle can kill monstrous creatures just as easily as marines. The downside is of course is it makes killing smaller targets just as hard as killing anything else.

Believe the question was which STANDARD rifle is better. Gauss Blaster is a step up from the Flayer, therefor no longer a "standard gun."

Least that was my interpretation in this thread

It is still the standard gun given to a troop choice in the necron codex. Its like saying bolters don't count because scouts come with shotguns.

Cryage wrote:

Believe the question was which STANDARD rifle is better. Gauss Blaster is a step up from the Flayer, therefor no longer a "standard gun."

Least that was my interpretation in this thread

It comes on a standard troop. Just a bit more expensive standard troop.

I'm not disagreeing with you guys, I'm just saying I read the question as which most basic gun (the "staple weapon" if you will) for each army is the best.

Shoota. Half of them dont even have a way for the Ammo to get to the chamber, but they ALL fire, EVERY time.

Ive got to say either tau pulse rifle or Necron Gauss blaster.