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I know the standard practice is to keep Grav weapons on Relentless units but is there any perk to using Gravs over Plasma in a drop pod?

Considering you'll need an average of 18 shots to get two damage results against a vehicle, plasma seems to be far better at killing light armor so the preferred target would be MCs with either a 2+ or T7+ as plasma performs the same as Grav against weaker MCs.

Don't even consider using them against vehicles. Grav Centurions are the only grav unit that is any good at that job.

Against MCs... it sort of depends. They both do a lot of damage, but the Grav Gun's very short range inhibits it's effectiveness. On the first turn you come down on the drop pod, you can pretty reliably get into the 9" threat range to shoot at an MC with a grav gun, but in following turns your mobility is going to be seriously hampered. With Plasma Guns, you can at least re-position your squad 6" every turn without sacrificing range or firepower.

You mentioned light armor, and plasma is clearly a better choice against that. I just feel that plasma is so much more flexible - better to leave gravguns to bikes.

Agressive drops vs. exceptionally high T units. So vs. nids in apoc games? We are really looking for edge cases here. On the move, plasma is almost always better. Stripping HPs off of high AV ceramite armored tanks might be another spot they could see use.

If you are talking about grav command squads, rather then sternguard combi-spam, you can think about the second turn of fire. Drop and take your first, less effective, shot. Try to survive the return fire (this is the tough part), and then take your second, much stronger shot.

Within 9” vs. 2+ targets, grav guns are better then plasma, even on the move. The problem is that plasma is better against more targets, with a larger range. You are more likely to run across 3+ armor then T7+ units in your average game. So once you step outside the optimal conditions, plasma hold up better.

Once you have a chance to stand still, the grav gets a lot better. But that brings us back to the “only on relentless” rule of thumb.

That's all I can come up with as well, is fringe examples.

Feels that plasma will out perform grav in the majority of drop pod situations.

 minigun762 wrote:
That's all I can come up with as well, is fringe examples.

Feels that plasma will out perform grav in the majority of drop pod situations.

It’s still good to ask the questions again from time to time and re-evaluate our “known facts". New codexes get released, metas shift. While the edge cases are on the fringe now, they might be mainstream in some future codex.

But at this point, I don’t see grav taking over from plasma in drop pods and other non-relentless spots.

I think the current view of trying to keep grav with relentless units still makes the most sense. Salvo is extremely limiting, and with 9" being you're firing range, a bad scatter roll can leave the grav gun useless. As well, with only a 2/3 chance to hit and a mere two shots (4 shots with combi) it just seems unreliable. Or, should I say, unreliable for taking out multiple types of units.

However, one thing that could be very cool is trying to use grav guns + drop pods for later turn pre-assault units. Grav IS concussive, so it can give a unit (like TH/SS termies, or your warlord) an advantage over a scary multi-wound threat. As you only need the one hit, it's almost a guaranteed wound + I1 for the rest of the turn against a scary target.