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Thunderhawk has like a piggy back D-Cannon?

Its a Turbolaser Destructor or a Battle Cannon - Only Eldar have D-cannons.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Aren't there Sniper Rifles in universe that use a invisible laser to propel a poisoned needle? The laser's to pierce armor, and the needle- well...it's poisoned, right?

That could be why he's adjusting for windage and all- in order to make sure the needle hits the target instead of veering off to the side.

There are sniper rifles that extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target, pierce the skin, and then inject posion into the blood stream.

GW has terrible writers.

 Exergy wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Aren't there Sniper Rifles in universe that use a invisible laser to propel a poisoned needle? The laser's to pierce armor, and the needle- well...it's poisoned, right?

That could be why he's adjusting for windage and all- in order to make sure the needle hits the target instead of veering off to the side.

There are sniper rifles that extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target, pierce the skin, and then inject posion into the blood stream.

GW has terrible writers.

Do you have a source for that? I wouldn't put it past Black Library, but I'd be very surprised to see that in a Codex.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Aren't there Sniper Rifles in universe that use a invisible laser to propel a poisoned needle? The laser's to pierce armor, and the needle- well...it's poisoned, right?

That could be why he's adjusting for windage and all- in order to make sure the needle hits the target instead of veering off to the side.

There are sniper rifles that extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target, pierce the skin, and then inject posion into the blood stream.

GW has terrible writers.

Do you have a source for that? I wouldn't put it past Black Library, but I'd be very surprised to see that in a Codex.

I believe thats the old fluff on Space Marine sniper rifles. They used a laser and a propelled needle combination. The laser could penetrate armor to allow the poisoned needle to connect with flesh.

You mean this needler description (wargear I believe, 2nd edition 1993):

The needle pistol or needler is a smaller less powerful but no less deadly, version of the sniper needle rifle. The weapon is based on the same design as the laspistol and fires bursts of laser energy which propel tiny toxic darts into the target. When the target is hit the laser blasts a hole and the needles slam home, delivering their toxin into the target's flesh.
..
The rifle [needle sniper rifle] fires small darts made from a deadly neuro-toxin chemical. The liquid chemical is frozen into a dart or sliver by the gun before it is fired.

Unerring accuracy is afforded by a low power beam of invisible laser light which drives and guides the chemical dart to its target. If the target is armoued the beam automatically pulses when the rifle is fired, punching a tiny hole which allows the toxic dart to penetrate.

The funny part is that it also implies that the weapons are effective against inorganic targets (its just the laser doing the damage.) So apparently needlers are basically just like lasguns except they fire an invisible-armor piercing beam (and lasguns don't.. for some reason.) I actually liked the explanation in the 3rd edition necron codex better:

Codex Necrons 3rd wrote:Necrons are largely mechanical creatures, and as such it might seem inappropriate that weapons such as sniper rifles, which normally use poison to achieve their effect, and agonisers, which work against an enemy's nervous system, should be effective against them. In practice, anyone using these weapons against Necrons would make adjustments to counter the Necrons' defences. For example, using acid rounds insted of poison rounds or altering the charge from an agoniser to affec the Necrons' power systems. Because of this, Necrons do not receive any special immunities in this regard.

Still 1st/2nd edition was when you had laspistols that could punch through brick walls (or was Cityfight 3rd? I might be misremembering) and lasguns that punched fist sized holes through a human torso


Incidentally when it comes to EM guns (coil or railguns) they do have recoil, its just less than a conventional solid propellant gun because you lack the propellant needed to 'push' the projectile. Although there are various ways (ilke muzzle brakes) that can be used to mitigate recoil that can't be used with EM guns so its not a total one-sided advantage.

Also bigger, heavier guns CAN mean less recoil than lighter guns (for the same impulse that means higher mass and lower velocity, which means less force and energy. Heavier tanks and heavier turrets/mountings tend to be harder to move than lighter tanks/turrets - which is why mounting a 120mm gun on an Abrams works better than it does on a 20 ton light frame generally.)

Needle rifles are silly, but not quite "extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target" silly. The greater penetration over a lasgun could be because the beam is a lot thinner but only has to make a tiny hole in the armour for the also-tiny needle (so much so that, despite traveling at great speed, it penetrating the skin can not be felt) to pass through, and it doesn't need to be sustained for long (one "pulse", as it says). This, of course, utterly breaks down when used to explain why they work on metal targets, but so do all attempts at explanation there. "Poison works on Necrons because they brought acid" is incredibly dumb, not only by falling into the nonsensical "poison is acid is poison" trope, but also the equally-silly "acid can eat anything" one. There's an acid that reacts with necrodermis, wraithbone, ceramite/adamantium (in the case of the Dreadknight and the latest Mechanicus robots, cyborgs, and Skitarii), and Tau nano-composites (all battlesuits)? Why aren't we loading this into bolt shells, again? Why are the Dark Eldar only using these acids (that are totally compatible with their fancy block-of-magicpoison weapon systems) on targets that are immune to their poison, even though such super-acids would be much more effective? It's a dumb, failed attempt of an explanation.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Also bigger, heavier guns CAN mean less recoil than lighter guns (for the same impulse that means higher mass and lower velocity, which means less force and energy. Heavier tanks and heavier turrets/mountings tend to be harder to move than lighter tanks/turrets - which is why mounting a 120mm gun on an Abrams works better than it does on a 20 ton light frame generally.)

They can, but they don't have to. Also, higher mass and lower velocity does not mean less force/energy. Doubling velocity and halving mass results in the same amount of force, which is why Tau weapons firing relatively miniscule projectiles at incredible velocities can still have a lot of recoil. I'm not sure what you mean by "the same impulse". Do you mean that a heavier gun, being host to the same force (so the same mass to velocity ratio), would suffer less recoil? At first I thought you meant gun mass by "lower mass", but that wouldn't make sense with "that means lower velocity".

EDIT: Also, with needle-lasers there is the question of why the sniper doesn't use the laser to slice their target's throat (when applicable), or something. Which, thinking about it, would be cooler than needle rifles are. They read like someone was trying too hard to make sniper rifles different and high-tech, an impression that I first got when I was around 9, reading a White Dwarf my sister had (my first exposure to 40k, though I didn't get into it until much later) and maintain upon reading about them again.

Funny enough I am re-reading the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, and in the second book lasguns being fired underwater are described as projecting "minnows of light" through the water, followed by streams of the bubbles of flash-boiled water. So at least there las-shots are described more like blasters in star wars, rather than beams of light connecting the barrel with the target.

Why aren't we loading this into bolt shells, again?

If they aren't still around, those are the Hellfire shells of Heavy Bolters.

Those exist but, for the most part, the standard bolter round is more than sufficient for the vast majority of targets organic and otherwise, that a Space Marine is likely to encounter.

Raven911 wrote:
Thats what I would think, but In one of the GG novels it mentions the sniper adjusting for windage, which shouldn't be a problem with a laser beam. I guess its just creative license with the writers.

IIRC Larkin was using a slug thrower in GG.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

Raven911 wrote:
Thats what I would think, but In one of the GG novels it mentions the sniper adjusting for windage, which shouldn't be a problem with a laser beam. I guess its just creative license with the writers.

IIRC Larkin was using a slug thrower in GG.

He has used both a traditional sniper rifle and and a long-las.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
Aren't there Sniper Rifles in universe that use a invisible laser to propel a poisoned needle? The laser's to pierce armor, and the needle- well...it's poisoned, right?

That could be why he's adjusting for windage and all- in order to make sure the needle hits the target instead of veering off to the side.

There are sniper rifles that extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target, pierce the skin, and then inject posion into the blood stream.

GW has terrible writers.

Do you have a source for that? I wouldn't put it past Black Library, but I'd be very surprised to see that in a Codex.

I believe thats the old fluff on Space Marine sniper rifles. They used a laser and a propelled needle combination. The laser could penetrate armor to allow the poisoned needle to connect with flesh.

DE Hexrifle in the 5th edition codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Needle rifles are silly, but not quite "extend a tube of glass the full distance to the target" silly. The greater penetration over a lasgun could be because the beam is a lot thinner but only has to make a tiny hole in the armour for the also-tiny needle (so much so that, despite traveling at great speed, it penetrating the skin can not be felt) to pass through, and it doesn't need to be sustained for long (one "pulse", as it says). This, of course, utterly breaks down when used to explain why they work on metal targets, but so do all attempts at explanation there. "Poison works on Necrons because they brought acid" is incredibly dumb, not only by falling into the nonsensical "poison is acid is poison" trope, but also the equally-silly "acid can eat anything" one. There's an acid that reacts with necrodermis, wraithbone, ceramite/adamantium (in the case of the Dreadknight and the latest Mechanicus robots, cyborgs, and Skitarii), and Tau nano-composites (all battlesuits)? Why aren't we loading this into bolt shells, again? Why are the Dark Eldar only using these acids (that are totally compatible with their fancy block-of-magicpoison weapon systems) on targets that are immune to their poison, even though such super-acids would be much more effective? It's a dumb, failed attempt of an explanation.

Yup the DE fluff is terrible. Also if they really were using posion, why wouldnt it be the 2+ posion that they use in Venom blades or that SM Sternguard use in their bolter shells?


I always thought that the point of DE splinter weapons was to inflict more pain than actually killing people. If they wanted to kill people, they would use 2+ posion. That said why would it work on constructs that feel no pain.

Hardly. "They just replace their poison ammo with acid, problem solved" explanation is ludicrous for many reasons, but, going by that logic, this means they have magic acid that deals with, at the very least, necrodermis, adamantium, ceramite, and wraithbone. Yet Sternguard poison ammunition (which is 2+, so very strong) isn't AP2 and can't be used on Dreadnoughts, Rhinos, Eldar Titans, or Necron vehicles despite them all being made out of the same stuff as the ones that happen to have a toughness value.

It really isn't something they should even try to explain. It's a game mechanic at best. They could do with upping most poison weapons in strength, giving Necrons and other sensible things immunity, and stop making every robot and mech a Monstrous Creature.

Also, the Hexrifle doesn't extend a tube the whole way to the target, it fires a cylinder as a projectile. That's not the silly part, the "Glass Plague" is.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Hardly. "They just replace their poison ammo with acid, problem solved" explanation is ludicrous for many reasons, but, going by that logic, this means they have magic acid that deals with, at the very least, necrodermis, adamantium, ceramite, and wraithbone. Yet Sternguard poison ammunition (which is 2+, so very strong) isn't AP2 and can't be used on Dreadnoughts, Rhinos, Eldar Titans, or Necron vehicles despite them all being made out of the same stuff as the ones that happen to have a toughness value.

It really isn't something they should even try to explain. It's a game mechanic at best. They could do with upping most poison weapons in strength, giving Necrons and other sensible things immunity, and stop making every robot and mech a Monstrous Creature.

Of course it's a game mechanic, and a weak one at that.

but then it wouldn't be a very fun game if you say gave on race all poison weapons, making it so only 1/10 of them can take anything other than a posion weapon and then make entire armies immune to those weapons.

Sure they could balance it out, make DE posion do more damage against living infantry and less or none against unliving constructs, but then you would have a rock paper scissor army even more than DE already are.