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I am considering getting one of these two superheavies from Forgeworld. However, they are the same price and look equally cool and it is proving to be almost impossible for me to choose between a huge plasma cannon of doom or a huge laser cannon of death.
So now I need your help with this, Dakka. What is better, plasma or laser?
Which one is cooler and which one is the most useful on the tabletop? And why?

Both have their uses.

The D weapon Shadowsword will crack open enemy armor and pockets of troops (no matter what they are) but it has a smaller blast (only large). It will bring Monsters and machines to their knees should the D rolls strike true. If you want something to absolutely and utterly DIE then the Shadowsword is the machine you need.

the Stormblade, has the bigger blast and is better at smashing large concentrations of stuff. it has plenty of power to open up tanks but it doesn't have the brute force of the D weapon. Its best at wiping swarms off the table. Large groups of Termi's fall just like a mob of Orks under the wrath of the Stormblade.

in short,
Swarms die in droves to the burning vengeance of the Stormblades plasma blast gun.

The Shadowswords wrath will devastate single or smaller numbers of targets.

Wait cant you build all Baneblade variants from the GW kit?

Yes, you can, but the Forge World versions are less customisable but more distinctive.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, you can, but the Forge World versions are less customisable but more distinctive.

actually no.

you can build all of them but the Stormblade. The GW kits are missing the huge Plasma Blast Gun. you can make every other baneblade though.

Huh, you're right. My mistake.

For the coolness, I think the plasma blast gun looks the most awesome. Also, although I have never used a baneblade varient in a game of 40k, it seems that the plasma blast gun is more useful than the volcano cannon (bigger blast, can rapid fire with still a bigger blast etc.)

Am I correct in saying that the Stormblade also allows you to have an extra hull-mounted heavy bolter and an extra 2 lascannons compared to the Shadowsword? It definitely seems the better choice

If you're set on Forge World go with the Stormblade.

If you're after a Shadowsword go with the much cheaper plastic one.

Is it possible to buy the Plasma Blastgun weapon from FW and mod the plastic kit to mount it?

 Ifurita wrote:
Is it possible to buy the Plasma Blastgun weapon from FW and mod the plastic kit to mount it?

Its possible to buy a FW titan blastgun. But I don't think you can buy the tank mounted one.

 Gashrog wrote:
If you're set on Forge World go with the Stormblade.

If you're after a Shadowsword go with the much cheaper plastic one.

The plastic one does not look so cool though.

The super plasma cannon looks SOOOOOOO cool. I wouldn't be able to resist buying that if I wanted one.