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Even the clip isn't necessarily to standard, as illustrated in one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, the Munitorum having deployed about a bazillion Mark 3 power cells... but the Ghosts need Mark 5.


... or something along those lines. At any rate, the Ghosts were left desperately short of ammo due to a supply-chain clerical error.

Granted, this is something I'd just leave in the "Abnettverse" ...

... lack of standardisation for charge packs kind of circumvents the whole idea of why the lasgun is the Guard's weapon of choice in the first place.

Of course it can still happen that the Munitorum won't send you any chargepacks at all... *coughValhallanscough*

Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.

It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
You know I saw it in the NYC GW store and thought it looked cool. Asked my parents to pick it up for me for Xmas a year or two back. I had no clue the damn thing cost around $80 new.

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=350713107860&index=1&nav=SEARCH&nid=76048126885 still going for $50 on eBay.

I wouldn't ebay it then...

http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/imperial-infantrymans-handbook-the.html

Psienesis wrote:[...] the Storm Trooper battalion [...]

You mean the regiment? *scnr*

Psienesis wrote:It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.

They're batteries - the only way they could differ is perhaps through the speed and "volume" by which they dispense the energy stored within; the weapon does all the rest. This also means that, or so I think, there is no actual sense in creating an artificial lack of standard just to achieve the effects you mentioned. If you want a stronger punch, the gun can have a capacitor which draws enough energy from the battery until it's ready. Same for auto-fire. Just use the best battery for all your rifles and you're set.

Why would we truly "need" special charge packs to explain variable fire-patterns? That's kind of like saying you "need" different batteries for a lamp that's always on and another which only blinks once every two seconds. They can have, but certainly it's not a requirement.

I get what you mean, and we cannot say that Abnett's idea is "wrong" ... but to me, the standardisation is too important an aspect of this weapon.

On a sidenote, something from the 3E rulebook - just in case anyone 's interested:


Hmm, reading it again, I never noticed the "single shot" bit. Fits to the Inquisitor rules, however - the Necromunda-pattern lasgun notes "single, semi (2/3)" rather than "full" like the multilaser ... which I guess means it just has a capacitor capable of faster recharge or something...

The 6th ed rulebook has an awesome fluff update in Appendix 1. It's on pg 406 in the middle of the page if you're interested. It describes in length the damage a lasrifle can cause, and how to treat their grizzly wounds....

 Psienesis wrote:
Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.

It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.

IIRC the main problem with the marks of las ammo was that the clip wouldn't fir into the slot for it or if it did they wouldn't stay in, either way in the end each Ghost had about three clips to storm the Blood Pact fortress

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Though it would also explain variable fire-patterns between different types of lasguns, possibly even up to and including the hellguns of the Storm Trooper battalion, which are powered not by cells but by a backpack power-source.

It could be that, say, the Type 3 cell allows for a more-concentrated blast of fire which provides increased lethality, but its in-built thermal regulator prevents burst or automatic fire, whereas the Type 5 offers reduced armor penetrating capabilities, but allows for staccato bursts or continuous, pulsed autofire until the cell is depleted.

IIRC the main problem with the marks of las ammo was that the clip wouldn't fir into the slot for it or if it did they wouldn't stay in, either way in the end each Ghost had about three clips to storm the Blood Pact fortress

That was the issue in the novel, yes, but I'm not so sure that it should be that surprising. When you are really only concerned with supply lines on a sector or sub-sector level, universal support for a range of weapons is pretty well assumed, but once you start mixing in units from other parts of the Imperium, who may be using weapons of different patterns, different Forge Worlds, etc. that's when you might run into problems. While a las-gun is a las-gun, there's just certain aspects to its design that might not be 100% compatible with other models. Shoot, even in our own world, 2 cellphones of similar models from the same manufacturer might not be able to share a battery.

One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.

... I wonder if I can make one

 Tower75 wrote:
One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.

... I wonder if I can make one

are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.

I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IG HW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).

So when a lasgun hits something it heats it up very quickly. we are made mostly of water. when water gets heated up very quickly it turns into steam... explosively (this is why you shouldn't throw water on a grease fire. the water will heat up so quickly that it will expand many times greater than it's original volume) So I think that the small explosion is a good description of what a lasgun would do to someone

I would figure though that it would be similar to a las cannon which only uses a back pack sized cel pack. i don't know the full fluff of the las cannon.

Lascannon descriptions probably depend on which book you're looking at, too, like all details in 40k.

For the multilaser, surprisingly the Inquisitor game does feature a portable one, slightly lighter than the heavy bolter. However, it also deals less damage, is less accurate and has less ammunition, though with a greater rate of fire.
I used to think that they'd only be vehicle-mounted, but I guess I will reconsider this position. Compared to the heavy bolter, though, they seem to be fairly crappy guns - a "one trick pony" best used for suppressing enemy infantry.

Abnett, despite otherwise being the single greatest author to write for the black library, consistently portrays lasguns in a manner akin to blasters in star wars, with shots being discrete slower-than-light bolts that often ricochet off walls and the like. Other fluff more or less unanimously portrays them as laser guns.

One thing thats always bugged me is the fact that people often say that lasguns have a recoil yet it shoots a beam of light so why does it? I mean does a flashlight have a recoil? No. Also they are acclaimed to be able to smash their target back and blow them of their feet. As they are essentially an uprated laser pointer i cant see how.

To get around this i have given my Khantonians small calibre mass accelerator weapons that utilise a magnetic force to hurl a needle of metal at incredible velocitys.


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watchamacarcess wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:
One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.

... I wonder if I can make one

are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.

This is a great idea. I mean we have lascannons and heavy bolters and the likes so why not multilasers. That has always bugged me.

Psienesis wrote:I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IG HW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).

I will refer you to the lascannon-the only difference is that the lascannons fire a single focussed blast where as the multilaser fires a flurry of low focus beams instead. both use a series of capacitors charged by an external powerpack. The only difference is that where as the lascannon discharges all the energy in a single focussed beam and then has to recharge the multilaser disharges the energy in pahases allowing the spent capacitors to recharge as the others are discharging.

Oh and if your talking of impractical sizes then take a look at the IG Heavy Weapon Teams lascannon-its fething ridicolus

 master of ordinance wrote:
One thing thats always bugged me is the fact that people often say that lasguns have a recoil yet it shoots a beam of light so why does it? I mean does a flashlight have a recoil? No. Also they are acclaimed to be able to smash their target back and blow them of their feet. As they are essentially an uprated laser pointer i cant see how.

Superheated air at the end of the gun causing something mimicking recoil, and a steam explosion or just a general flinching reaction when struck on the part of the target. Also bad/overly-dramatic writing for the second: real guns don't knock people backwards, they punch holes in them, tear up their innards, and cause hydrostatic shock.

watchamacarcess wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:
One thing I'd like to see is the Guard field multilasers, or a machine gun-type of las weapon in lieu of autocannons and heavy bolters.
I don't mean mounted on vehicles, but as section and squad support weapons.

... I wonder if I can make one

are you saying as part of a heavy weapon squad because that would be quite cool, I think a squad of multi lasers would be quite cool, not that great in game but quite cool to model.

Yup, that's what I meant. A Heavy-weapon-team weapon. A tripod, or bipod mounted multilaser. Of course, it would just be cosmetic, and for legality you'd treat it as, and use the stats for a heavy-bolter.

If I get brave one day I may attempt it.


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 master of ordinance wrote:

Psienesis wrote:I think the problem with trying to have a man-portable multi-las is that its powercells are not rechargeable, so an IG HW team porting one would have to have an attached ammo train or a generator (rendering the unit Immobile) or be able to fire only once a game. This is why they attach multi-las weapon systems to vehicles, they can run it off the vehicle's power-plant (or dedicate the vehicle to transporting the generator, too).

...I will refer you to the lascannon-the only difference is that the lascannons fire a single focussed blast where as the multilaser fires a flurry of low focus beams instead. both use a series of capacitors charged by an external powerpack. The only difference is that where as the lascannon discharges all the energy in a single focussed beam and then has to recharge the multilaser disharges the energy in pahases allowing the spent capacitors to recharge as the others are discharging.

Oh and if your talking of impractical sizes then take a look at the IG Heavy Weapon Teams lascannon-its fething ridicolus

I agree, would a mutilaser be any different to the Guard fielding man-portable lascannons?

The MP LasCannon fires a single shot of energy from a power-cell the size of a car battery. Heavy? Yes. Impractical? Yes. Rechargeable? No.

However, the MP Lascannon's primary function is for tank-sniping (or making sure one guy is really, really, *really* dead). It's a really crappy anti-infantry weapon, as it only fires in a straight line... step to the side and you don't get hit by it. A multi-las is intended to blanket an area in las fire, kinda like an assault cannon or a heavy bolter. While each shot of the multi-las is weaker than the concentrated beam of a lascannon, it strikes with dozens as opposed to one.

That said, for the Cannon, having 3 to 5 dudes lugging around this beast of a weapon and 2 batteries each is not so bad for its assigned role as a tank-killer. If there are more tanks, field more lascannon teams. For the Multi-Las, its role as an anti-infantry weapon requires a sustained fire rate, which is not feasible with 30 shots per clip that it empties in about a second, then requiring whatever rites and rituals are involved in reloading the damned thing. Even with a backpack power-pack, like the hellgun, you might get, what, three seconds of sustained fire? And now you need a new backpack. For an infantry-denial weapon, it simply makes more sense to set it up as an emplaced gun, attached to a generator, or into a vehicle, which provides a practically inexhaustible ammo supply, as well as protecting the crew and, more importantly, the weapon itself... at least until the enemy lascannon team sights in on you.

 Psienesis wrote:
The MP LasCannon fires a single shot of energy from a power-cell the size of a car battery. Heavy? Yes. Impractical? Yes. Rechargeable? No.

However, the MP Lascannon's primary function is for tank-sniping (or making sure one guy is really, really, *really* dead). It's a really crappy anti-infantry weapon, as it only fires in a straight line... step to the side and you don't get hit by it. A multi-las is intended to blanket an area in las fire, kinda like an assault cannon or a heavy bolter. While each shot of the multi-las is weaker than the concentrated beam of a lascannon, it strikes with dozens as opposed to one.

That said, for the Cannon, having 3 to 5 dudes lugging around this beast of a weapon and 2 batteries each is not so bad for its assigned role as a tank-killer. If there are more tanks, field more lascannon teams. For the Multi-Las, its role as an anti-infantry weapon requires a sustained fire rate, which is not feasible with 30 shots per clip that it empties in about a second, then requiring whatever rites and rituals are involved in reloading the damned thing. Even with a backpack power-pack, like the hellgun, you might get, what, three seconds of sustained fire? And now you need a new backpack. For an infantry-denial weapon, it simply makes more sense to set it up as an emplaced gun, attached to a generator, or into a vehicle, which provides a practically inexhaustible ammo supply, as well as protecting the crew and, more importantly, the weapon itself... at least until the enemy lascannon team sights in on you.

Why would a man-portable multilaser only have a three-second sustained-fire capability? That's quite a specific time.

Plus, I'm guessing that you'd fire it in bursts, like with all fully automatic weaponry in the military.

A 3 second burst does seem excessively short. I remember that the WWII British fighter planes would go up to defend the skies with only 12 -17 seconds worth of rounds to fire and that's very short.

Why would a man-portable multilaser only have a three-second sustained-fire capability? That's quite a specific time.

Well, a lot of those numbers are simply for illustrative purposes...

...but using the stat-line that Lynata posted above, it's got a clip capacity of 30, but cranks out 12 shots a "round" (however long that is). An M16A2 with a 30 round clip and burst fire, spitting 3 rounds as fast as you can squeeze the trigger can empty the magazine in about 5 seconds, and a multi-laser is designed to hose an area with las, as it's a suppression weapon. The old, fully-automatic M16 could empty its 30 round magazine in about 3 seconds... assuming it didn't jam (which was likely).

So with ROF 12, you've got 2.5 rounds of sustained fire. Given the abstract nature of time on the tabletop, you'd probably (rules-wise) get to use it 3 times, but, in reality, it'd be empty before the shooting phase was over on the first pull (given that people run a hundred meters in the same amount of time that everyone gets to shoot, fight, cast spells, teleport into the battle, etc).

Burst fire is not fully-automatic fire. While you're not trained to just hold the trigger down and spray with a GP machine gun, when faced with, say, a 50 man blob coming to kill you... that's what you're going to do. 7 to 9 round bursts are an ideal you're not going to attain when you suddenly find yourself in a world of gak. The multi-las (at least the MP version) offers a burst-fire setting, which is going to better-insure hits against a point target, but is fairly worthless for area-denial or suppression against large mobs, especially if said mob can shoot back at you.

Fair comment. But when I originally mentioned it, I was thinking of a man-portable mutilaser that had a heafty battery/power-cell mounted or connected to it. I'm thinking each one gives you a few hundred shots. Plus, why wouldn't it be rechargeable? Anyway, even if it's not, that wouldn't affect it on the battlefield. Anyway, it's all fuff.

But the main reason for short bursts on gpmgs is to prevent recoil knackering your aim and I suppose to reduce overheating. Assuming the multilaser has magical cooling abilities there is no problem with recoil. It would be the ultimate ambush weapon. Pre-program a fire pattern annd wait for a platoon to wander by before massacreing them in one fell swoop.

 Tower75 wrote:
Fair comment. But when I originally mentioned it, I was thinking of a man-portable mutilaser that had a heafty battery/power-cell mounted or connected to it. I'm thinking each one gives you a few hundred shots. Plus, why wouldn't it be rechargeable? Anyway, even if it's not, that wouldn't affect it on the battlefield. Anyway, it's all fuff.

It's not rechargeable because the fluff for lascannons says that their power-cells aren't rechargeable. That's all there is to that. In DH, the MP Lascannon packs 5 shots per cell, though each cell weighs in at something like 5kg a pop, so most characters don't hump many of them (the weapon itself weighs 50kg iirc)... but against a single target, it does an absolutely rude amount of damage.

For the multi-las, the backpack power-cell that normally powers hellguns and other battle-rifles might just not provide enough juice to support the withering rate of fire a the ML pumps out for very long. This could simply be a limitation of Imperial technology. Using the stats that Lynata provided, I'm assuming that its using a similar powercell as the MP Lascannon, which provides it a 30 shot capacity. Though I note that the Lascannon from Inquisitor is slightly weaker, a lot heavier, than the DH one, but has four times the ammo capacity. Hell, they probably are using the same battery in the ML as in the LC. If a backpack power supply can triple that to 90... well, you're better off, but not that much better off, given the number of rounds it spits out. If you compare it to a mini-gun, capable of 6000 rounds per minute, if all you can carry is 1000 rounds of ammo for it, you've only got 10 seconds of total firing time. You could scythe down an entire infantry company with it in those 10 seconds... but once you're dry, you're dry.

But the main reason for short bursts on gpmgs is to prevent recoil knackering your aim and I suppose to reduce overheating. Assuming the multilaser has magical cooling abilities there is no problem with recoil. It would be the ultimate ambush weapon. Pre-program a fire pattern annd wait for a platoon to wander by before massacreing them in one fell swoop.

Oh, indeed. With a sufficient supply of ammo, a multi-las is hell on wheels against massed infantry. Though las weapons do seem to have recoil for some reason. Space Magic, I assume.

Lasweapons (or any form of DEW) would be more useful at extreme ranges than projectile weapons. At close ranges, the situation is reversed.

As one Forumite has pointed out, light doesn't lose velocity. Coupled with its near instantaneous speed, a long range laser weapon should almost never miss. However, this doesn't make much difference at close range, as:

1) It is impossible to dodge a bullet anyway. It's possible to disrupt the firer's AIM, yes, but not to actually "see" a bullet incoming and move out of the way. As such, there's fairly minimal difference between firing a laser and firing a bullet, at ranges of less than 400 metres. It would matter if you're hitting moving targets a kilometer away though.

2) Lasers emit distinct flashes and, on occasion, a direct line to the firer's position. This is the worst conceivable weapon when launching an ambuscade, as the enemy will reposition faster. Again, irrelevant at long ranges (where you can't ambush anyway). You also lose the impact of sound, which can be useful on rookie troops.

All in, laser sniper rifles are a great idea. But for shock troops, lasers aren't the best choice.

3) One advantage of lasers is that you can vary the "impact area". You can widen the blast area to several metres, or narrow it to a specific point. That has nice applications on a huge battleship. On a small laser rifle, you're pretty much stuck with a beam that hits one small area. That's precise, but might lack stopping power (based on what you hit). There is also no stun or knockback, which amplifies the value of the enemy's body armour.

All this aside, other disadvantages of lasers are:

- Ceramite or ceramic based armours would turn them into a joke. The surface would simply burn away to absorb the laser's heat, and a guardsman would have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get any penetration (but hey, maybe that's why the AP sucks!)

- On a related note, lasers take time to "heat" a particular area and burn through it. Realistically, guardsmen would have to "train" their weapons on a particular spot for some time, especially when hitting a tank.

- Lasers always require line-of-sight. Then again, so do any non-ordnance weapons.

- Lasers are not actually more durable than a standard assault rifle. Yes, there are fewer moving parts. However, laser weaponry tends to involve a circuit board of some sort. An assault rifle (like an AK 47) is basically a bunch of springs. You can clobber someone with it, and it'll fire fine. But misalign the circuit on laser equipment, or get even one speck of dirt in it, and it may stop firing.

- You may not need "ammo", but you'll need to carry a bunch of coolant tubes; particularly in hot environments. The coolants would run out at a ridiculous speed, and you'd probably be carrying replacements as if they were ammo clips. Or at least, the poor engineseer would have to.

Tyranidfreek01 wrote:Ceramite or ceramic based armours would turn them into a joke. The surface would simply burn away to absorb the laser's heat, and a guardsman would have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get any penetration (but hey, maybe that's why the AP sucks!)

Naw, at least not as per the rules GW released for "Inquisitor". Ceramite provides a variable level of protection (1d6 points of additional damage negation, rolled each time a protected region is hit) against plasma, meltas and flamers. It doesn't confer any special protection against las weapons, although this trait is often coupled with ablative armour points, which would result in the coating still having an effect on incoming damage of any sort.

For example, Space Marine power armour is listed as having 3 points of ablative ceramite coating on the breastplate, which means that against the first hit, the armour would negate a total of 13 damage - and if the attack comes from a plasma, melta or flamer weapon, the ceramite would reduce the remaining damage even further. After this attack, however, the ablative ceramite is "used up" and the breastplate now has only 10 armour points, and stops being specially protected against any further attacks from flamer, plasma or melta weapons.
Unless of course the first attack only dealt 1 or 2 points of damage, thereby having 1-2 points of ablative ceramite remain in place.

Tyranidfreek01 wrote:On a related note, lasers take time to "heat" a particular area and burn through it. Realistically, guardsmen would have to "train" their weapons on a particular spot for some time, especially when hitting a tank.

That depends on how much energy/heat the pulse would "convey", and how fast. If a las round merely lasts a split-second but has an extreme intensity, then it would be perfectly sufficient to achieve something like the result described in (some) fluff.

People have been and are working on stuff like this in the real world. Have you never heard of the PEP/PIKL?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/09/pulsed-laser-fi/

I think another reason that hasn't been addressed for the lack of MP multilasers in the setting (discounting MULTILAZORS of course) is wonderfully inflexible doctrine. I recall the Multilaser being described in the 2nd ed wargear book as 'too reliant on vast power supplies to be man-portable' or something to the same effect. And points being made about sustained fire versus single shot are extremely valid.

A Chimera might have enough spare power storage to last for an 'average engagement', whatever that is, plus if it's got enough fuel it can gradually recharge its batteries, and it can always run away. The Guardsman on the ground, he's gotta lug those cells about in serious amounts, and anti-infantry weapons are always used more liberally than anti-vehicle. So a 30-shot supply for a MP Lascannon might be very useful - 90 shots per HWS, if you're facing more than 30 tanks with only 3 lascannons you're screwed anyway - while a multilaser in the same time might fire off 10000 shots, most of which will have little or no effect due to the relative elusiveness of human targets compared with AFV's.

Anyway I've wandered away from my original point, which is that it's quite likely the IG doesn't issue Multilasers to infantry fire teams because the IG has never issued Multilasers to infantry fire teams. There might be good reasons for that, there might not.

Oh, and to refer back to an earlier discussion of guardsmen flak armour - it's all about the blast. Tin helmets were introduced in WW1 because the highest proportion of injuries were from Artillery, and an appalling number were fatal head wounds. The fact that the Guard has standardised, widely available armor at least on a par with what first world infantry have today is, in fact, fantastic, and an incredible act of kindness on the part of the Munitorum, considering our ancestors walked into IG-like firepower in nothing more than a metal (non-bulletproof) hat.

Mind you, I suppose some Administratum pen-pusher simply totalled up the cost to the Imperium of all those warp-miles and man hours invested in training and shipping a guardsman to the front line, weighed against the potential benefit of universal flak armor and it's cost, and realised one can pack those vests in real tight in an admech transporter and save 0.0004% efficiency over the course of a single terran standard year in sub-sector angeles 9zC...


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Additional: And the humble lasgun, she's all about logistics, as has been said beautifully above.

Universal flak armour? The Guard has no need for such luxury!

I do like the possible explanation for such standards tho.

Sorry, and old-ish thread now, but I thought I'd share, as we're on the subject of las-tech.

A real "lascannon" ??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20944726