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So everyone says plasma pistols are dreadful because they cost as much as a plasma gun and are worse which is true, for a CSM squad, plague marines, chosen ect a plasma gun is a much better choice than a plasma pistol.
But thats in comparison, the guns are used very differently and should be treated as such.
Lets use a chaos lord with a plasma pistol which costs and extra 15 points instead of a bolt pistol.
That single bolt pistol will kill 1 enemy if lucky (unless imperial guard or orks or something but normally that isnt the case), a plasma pistol could kill about 2-3 and maybe inflict a wound but sigil of curroption gives a 4+ invun so a decent chance to negate it.
Killing 1 space marine gives 18 pt so you have just made your pistol a worthwhile investment.
And if you have a plasma pistol unless your enemy HQ has spent points (10 more than pistol for a 50% chance) you are going to have an edge in close combat.
You cant forget that a plasma pistol allows damage against light vehicles which increases the flexability of plans making it useful in more situations it is also a threat to transport like rhinos which makes them less likely to go near the unit.
While I believe its a bad choice on anything other than a HQ with invun and it could be buffed slightly to be a choice in a squad against a plasma gun I still think all this hate on every single use of the plasma pistol isn't needed.

Depends very much on what unit takes them. It's not worth it on anything from the Guard codex. Might as well take the extra 3 bodies, 5 conscripts, or camo netting on a tank. Plus Gets Hot on a 5+ single wound model means there's a 1/9 chance you lose 20+ points of your army by shooting.

I was more on about space marines but I did state "not worth on a model without multiple wounds and an invun save"

Referring more specifically to MEQ in and of itself is kind of an issue, as plasma is available to a lot more than just SM and CSM. Even more so that your examples refer to "MEQ shooting at MEQ," because you even said the bolt pistol is enough vs Guard, Orks, and the like. This makes its value by being able to easily kill a marine situational. If you are shooting a Termagant or guardsman, that 15 point upgrade is super overkill and will need to be getting a kill every turn to be worth it.

A separate point I'll make is that an advantage to the rapid-fire plasma gun is even if you Get Hot with one shot, even if that shot does make you suicide, that second shot can still do something if it lands, and you can also get a single shot off at much longer range. This means that unless you want an AP2 shot specifically before assaulting, regular plasma guns/just holding onto the bolt pistol are objectively superior options.

Furthermore, pistols are already more about the extra hit in CC than they are the shot before charging, so there a bolt/laspistol already suffices. Plasma pistols try to be good at shooting and CC, but in that regard suffers heavily from the "jack of all trades, master of none" issue while still being incredibly expensive. Unless the p pistol goes down to 5 or 10 points rather than 15, I'm calling it a very poor points investment.

Not really, yes it's more towards MEQs but it is still highly effective aginst other things.
Ork warbuggies/mec armour. Tyranid Monstrous creatures. Not sure about imperial guard but eh.
Yes that 15 points are overkill against 3 point models but thats more of an exception, eldar, tau, necrons all have armour at atleast 4+ armour save which the bolt pistol cant get past, and dont forget instant death, im not sure about the toughness of these models but I can imagine imperial guard HQ having 3 toughness.
Calling it a jack of all trades is stupid imo, it gives +1 atk but thats not much, more like a bonus.
Hell its much more viable noe I know you cant take armour saves against gets hot!

Personally, I think they're worth it at 10pts. But 15 feels to high. I'd happily pay 10pts each.


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I'd say 10pts per plasma pistol feels appropriate. 15 is too much. I'd happily pay 10. But not 15.

Your example is terrible because no Chaos Lord is going to buy a Plasma Pistol. They're buying a Power Fist and Lighting Claw are a duo. So it won't appear there.

Also note that 2 Plasma Pistols costs as much as 3 Combi-Plasma. In 12", that's 2 vs 6 shots. You'd have to have your models with the Plasma Pistols live 2 extra turns to try and make the same amount of damage from these one use weapons.

I feel like there are situations where a plasma pistol is an okay buy. Maybe an IC with BS5 and carrying a non specialist CC weapon in the other hand. Assuming they already have a way of getting close to the enemy and are part of a unit killy enough to win a combat and roll on to the next fight

Maybe I just want to like them because they're cool and rarely used. It's a shame when a BS5 character is running around with a piece of gak bolt pistol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Personally, I think they're worth it at 10pts. But 15 feels to high. I'd happily pay 10pts each.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd say 10pts per plasma pistol feels appropriate. 15 is too much. I'd happily pay 10. But not 15.

I think that's about right. I feel a problem lots of people have with the cost of plasma pistols is they think they're too expensive therefore taking a plasma pistol is a waste of 15 points. No, it's more like a waste of 5 points. Maybe 7 points at most. How often is that going to matter? How often is the outcome of a game going to depend on that?

Of course where it does matter is if you're taking the plasma pistol instead of something better, like a lightning claw to go with a power fist. But when the alternative to a PP is a bolt pistol I don't think it's as bad a choice as people often make out

I really like the idea of plasma pistols as they are the weapon that fits right in my wheelhouse of powerful and fairly general purpose but short ranged. I usually work well with those restrictions. I even like the fun of chancing the melting my own guys. To that effect, I have issued them to pretty much any Aspiring Champion that could take one, and two my Raptors before I re-read it's 2 plasma pistols OR a flamer, melta, plasma gun (live and learn or hope the next codex allows for more loadout options). I think something like 1/10 to 1/12 my fairly small collection has some kinda of plasma equipped. Although to be fair, a lot of Dark Vengeance didn't give me the option.

As a Chaos Space Marine player, I have to agree with the idea they are just too expensive for the utility they bring. I have hard time swallowing the cost of a CSM +CCW for a weapon I am likely to use 1-2 times a game at best usually as a pre-assault attack then basically just as another CCW. I am pretty sure I would be better served with the 2-3 CQC attacks and bullet catcher of an extra CSM would bring. Or most of an extra Raptor. Or a sweet Havoc Launcher for one of my Rhinos. Aura of Dark Glory or a Spell Familiar is good too.

Other than the fact I really like the idea of plasma pistols, the main reason I take a bunch is mostly due to my army having very limited anti-armor/vehicle countermeasures. In which I have no illusions that plasma pistols are no stop gap given their price and range. I just cant irl $ afford Havocs, Helldrakes, or even a predator for that purpose at the moment. I have a maulerfiend to also help eventually, but I think huggy-bear might just be a bullet sponge more given the lack of anti-vehicle the rest of my force can bring.

I don't think plasma pistols are a complete waste of 15 points. In the few 1000 points or less games I have played so far, I have managed to get a few good shots off with them which really soften up my targets ( including terminators) before committing the assault. My Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord is proving to be a crack shot with his. But I don't think I have gotten anything more than 10 points of my plasma pistols. This makes equipping power weapons to my aspiring champions tough as that is something like 50 points for a model (more than a 100 points with the upgrades I give my Chaos Lord) to be lost in a challenge gone wrong. Or worse yet a Chaos Boon gone horribly (21-22) wrong.

I am not saying that plasma pistols aren't useful. I just agree that I think they are too expensive for what you get. At 10 points I think I would be okay with the ones I have. At 7 points, I think I would like the ability to change out more Bolt Pistols for them. However, at 15 points I feel like I am being taken for a ride.

I've said before, you should be able to forfeit attacks in CC in order to shoot the pistol in CC.

Ideally this would be forfeit 2 attacks per shot ROUNDING DOWN.

Being able to shoot the pistol isnt a good idea at all, is bette than power weapons at that point.

Practically every pistol upgrade in the game is horribly overpriced, plasma included.
15 is just way, way too much.
At 10,it might be worth considering under special circumstances.
Even if it was just 5,it wouldn't be an auto buy.

Pistols shoots MAYBE once per game. Maybe.
And that one shot, is not that you got for 15 points even, you also gave up another shot, who just might have gotten the same results.
If we compare a plasma pistol to a bolt one shooting at a terminator, for example, it actually only makes ANY difference in 1/6 shots. 5/6 times the results would have been the same.
And that's considering bog standard 5++. It gets even less meaningful with SS, MoT and other invul improvements.

ShadowPug wrote:
Not really, yes it's more towards MEQs but it is still highly effective aginst other things.
Ork warbuggies/mec armour. Tyranid Monstrous creatures. Not sure about imperial guard but eh.
Yes that 15 points are overkill against 3 point models but thats more of an exception, eldar, tau, necrons all have armour at atleast 4+ armour save which the bolt pistol cant get past, and dont forget instant death, im not sure about the toughness of these models but I can imagine imperial guard HQ having 3 toughness.
Calling it a jack of all trades is stupid imo, it gives +1 atk but thats not much, more like a bonus.
Hell its much more viable noe I know you cant take armour saves against gets hot!

Plasma is efective against 2 things - TEQ and MC's - 1 of those is already covered by small arms fire (termies) and the other has enough wounds that a single plasma shot is going to make very little difference. Against armour you're going to want a higher rate of fire to take care of AV11-13 while you can't hurt AV14 without rending and bolters do just fine against AV10.

Plasma doesn't do well against 4+ armour either, since almost everyone who can buy a plasma pistol has krak grenades which are str6 AP4 and 8" range, so that is basically the same profile against Anything not T5 or 3+ armour, and even then, things with a 4+ or worse tend to live in cover, so your ap2 isn't worth as much as you'd like either unless you naturally ignore cover.

A plasma pistol gives +1 attack, exactly the same as a free bolt/las pistol does, so why are you spending 15 points for a single shot that only has a 12" range? Since it does only have a 12" range, you're also not firing it more than maybe twice a game. Once when you come down in a pod (if marines) again when you get into charge range. IF you survive (and since you're more likely than not a character, you're going to need to win a challenge, especially if you're CSM), then you might get to fire it 1 more time before you're combat ineffective or out of range to affect anything. if you are geared for a challenge, you're now a super expensive 1W sarge (14 points for a vanilla marine, 15 for the pistol, at least 15 more for a power weapon = 44 points!) who dies just as easily (if not moreso) than any other marine with 1W. If you're a 2W HQ, then you're already taking enough of a risk via perils if you're a librarian, you aren't doing much outside of combat if you're a chaplain and you don't want to be within 12" if you're a techmarine. When you've got 3 or 4W like a beatstick Captain/CM, then again, you're not achieving much by being out of combat, you're already costing 150-250 points and your only purpose is to punch stuff in the face, so why would you waste your time plinking away with a plasma pistol?

You've also stated that you can't take armour saves against gets hot!, but you definately can.

Plasma pistols would be good for 5 points, something to think about (but probably still not take) at 10 and only for crazy people at 15 points. I think dropping them to 10 would be a good move and then assess from there, but if you want to pay 15 point per pistol, please, be my guest. If only my regular opponents were so generous, maybe I'd win more games...

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Your example is terrible because no Chaos Lord is going to buy a Plasma Pistol. They're buying a Power Fist and Lighting Claw are a duo. So it won't appear there.

Maybe with a relic weapon, that replaces the usual CC option.

Now if normal people could borrow Cypher's trick and make melee attacks with the plasma pistol (the way they could in the leaked early draft of 6th, or in Mordheim)...

What are relic weapons?

ShadowPug wrote:
What are relic weapons?

Weapons purchased off the 'Chaos Artifacts' table (Axe of Blind Fury, Murdersword, Black Mace, all the possibilities in Traitor Legions). Every faction's got a different name for them ('Heirlooms of Conquest', 'Remnants of Glory', that sort of thing), so people tend to use 'relic' as a generic term for the unique items available to generic characters.

Plasma pistols are terrible.

In a generic Guardsman/Tac/CSM squad they're not doing anything useful. Its a pure lottery whether your insignificant pistol ever gets to shoot at something, and whether the target was tough even to make the investment worthwhile, and whether you then killed one model. These units only get 1-2 special weapons so they're not designed to hunt the sort of things plasma is ideal for.

Even in a focused unit like say, Sternguard with combi-weapons, there is no point in taking the pistol. Because almost without exception every single character model that can take a plasma pistol can take a combi-plasma/combi-melta instead. You don't want to see that elite unit locked in combat and one extra AP- attack is not worth losing out on an extra plasma shot you'd get in the same range band, for less points (!!!) and in that particular example, also keeping special issue ammunition.

On a SM statline IC, even with BS5, there is no reason to take them in any list that's trying to be efficient. When you pay 20 points for a 2+ armour save, there's a very likely chance you'll get to actually use that in every game. The plasma pistol might be barely useful in 1 in 3 games, or even 1 in 5. And in every game where the plasma pistol did nothing, you've suffered the opportunity cost of not say, taking a lightning claw to get an extra attack with another SW, or paying for other far more useful upgrades elsewhere.

I mean, particularly with SM for me, the first thing I'd do with spare 15 points is probably get an extra marine in my Devastator Squads to absorb wounds. Because I know those Devastators are going to get shot at, and the fact there's an extra marine will also dissuade or either delay my opponent from destroying my firepower reserves.

Thanks for clearing that up!


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I dont get your point about the tactical squad, yes plasma pistols have half the range of a boltgun but you would want your squad in that range anyway for rapid fire.
I dont get the whole point of combi-weapons, one miss and its wasted and its only 1 shot.
Yes you will likely always us AS +2 but then cripple and punish the AS +2 by going through the armour, and when a plasma pistol is only 15 pts and can easily kill 31 pts in one shot, ya know...
You keep mentioning "when the plasma pistol does nothing" but when does the plasma pistol ever do nothing? Against tau in the first turn while I get into 12" range?
You call plasma pistols a waste and then state that you would get another guy in a devastator squad? One more body aint protecting them enough to justify 13 pts.

If it's a marine IC. for 20 points you can get a Primark's wrath. 3/5 salvo 24" shred ignores cover - yeah - forget the plasma pistol.

Strength? AP?

ShadowPug wrote:
I dont get the whole point of combi-weapons, one miss and its wasted and its only 1 shot.

A game of Warhammer 40K is, what, 5-7 turns? At least one maybe two of the those turns is spent maneuvering to get into initial position. The next two turns are combat of some kind either purely ranged or going to assault. Sometimes close combat can take some time to finish. Assuming your unit still has the numbers to continue to be combat effective, you are going to spend another one to two turn re-positioning mostly in case there are additional turns.

So realistically any given squad is getting about 3 attack turns, right? So the minimal cost of combi-weapons only really getting a chance to be used for 33% of the game is a fair trade off given their cheap price and ability to be taken en masse. Especially if the are effective in eliminating their target which is the only time they need to fire.

Everything above applies to the plasma pistol too. However, for the cost of a single plasma pistol, I can outfit three Chaos Terminators with combi-meltas (or plasmas to keep the comparison the same). That is basically the same amount of attacks concentrated into a single squad made all at the same time for a single purpose. They are going to deep strike and try to melt the biggest, baddest threat they can before being destroyed. Classic Termicide tactic. All things considered, I get to deal all the damage Turn 3 instead over Turn 3, 4 and 5.

I hope I made sense there. What I am getting at is Warhammer 40K doesn't have so many chances for combat over the course of an entire game that single shot weapons are a waste.

Ahh that makes sense now!

I used to take plasma pistols on stormtrooper's sarge back when it was 10 pts. They had 2 meltas, plazma pistol+hotshot pistol sarge, and a krak nade and a hotshot lazgun. Coupled with a re-rollable deepstrike it was a neat unit back in the day.

Anywayz, i'd still buy a 10 pts plazma pistol for something like a sanguinary priest. It's not too bad, really.

Another benefit of combi-bolters is that you can still shoot a bolter part which is safer. For example when you're shooting grots.

No it should stay 15 pts, But 1 of your CC attacks should be with the Pistol Profile.

You have 2 Base attacks, 1 CCW and 1 Pistol. You will still get 3 attacks, but 2 with your CCW and 1 as a pistol profile or 3 CCW attacks.

This should also be treated as specialized.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No it should stay 15 pts, But 1 of your CC attacks should be with the Pistol Profile.

You have 2 Base attacks, 1 CCW and 1 Pistol. You will still get 3 attacks, but 2 with your CCW and 1 as a pistol profile or 3 CCW attacks.

This should also be treated as specialized.

Does get hot, melta, haywire, wall of death, poison, fleshbane, ignore invul and other stuff carry over?

 koooaei wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No it should stay 15 pts, But 1 of your CC attacks should be with the Pistol Profile.

You have 2 Base attacks, 1 CCW and 1 Pistol. You will still get 3 attacks, but 2 with your CCW and 1 as a pistol profile or 3 CCW attacks.

This should also be treated as specialized.

Does get hot, melta, haywire, wall of death, poison, fleshbane, ignore invul and other stuff carry over?

Why would it not? You are basically using the pistol as a shooting attack but in CC.

I see no reason why this isnt a rule and would welcome it, it would give a HUGE reason to take pistols and give us a new style of play.

What about the multi-shot pistols?

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
No it should stay 15 pts, But 1 of your CC attacks should be with the Pistol Profile.

You have 2 Base attacks, 1 CCW and 1 Pistol. You will still get 3 attacks, but 2 with your CCW and 1 as a pistol profile or 3 CCW attacks.

This should also be treated as specialized.

Does get hot, melta, haywire, wall of death, poison, fleshbane, ignore invul and other stuff carry over?

Why would it not? You are basically using the pistol as a shooting attack but in CC.

I see no reason why this isnt a rule and would welcome it, it would give a HUGE reason to take pistols and give us a new style of play.

I can see reasons for and against.
Suddenly having a guy go from 2/3 Str 3 ap- attacks to Str 7 ap2 for the same cost as a power sword/axe etc. would be a bit extreme.

Maybe if they could use it for the "bonus" attack you get for having multiple combat weapons (I.e one shot only)
A little boost but not rendering typical power weapons pointless.

Plasma Pistols are one of those things that people get needlessly worked up over IMO. Yes, they're a poor enough choice that they'll never saddle up over the "Competitive bar" and get seen in a tournament list. But then again, so is 90% of the units and weapon options in the game. The biggest problem I think people have with them is that they're in every. goddang. kit. ever. in place of other weapons that you'd actually want to see included in the sprues. Space Wolf kit has two of them and no freakin' melta guns, come on GW! Half the metal blister pack generic HQs come with them by default, even guys like Commissars where you'd never even dream of trying to use it because of the odds that you blow the head off the fragile unit keeping the platoon held together.

Plasma Pistols have 2 uses. One, as an extra added little bonus on a squad that wants to get into close combat, and two, as a way to make a suicide type squad just a little bit more effective if you want them to be. However, in most instances where they can be taken (on sergeants of shooting focused squads, or on cheaper characters at significant risk from gets hot) they're pretty terrible, and on characters where they are a viable option (HQs) there's usually better ways to spend your points on defenses, mobility, or melee weaponry. A Space Marine captain who spends 15 points on a power axe is going to be way more effective than one who spends 15 on a plasma pistol, as an example.