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I am seeing many people talking about plasma overheats as a really common thing to be worried about. I am concerned that people are seeing the overcharged plasma as the default option, not really considering if it is a good idea. For instance, calling the Executioner trash because it can melt itself rather quickly. I think people need to see the overcharge as a rarely used bonus, instead of the standard. Use it when you really need to, don't waste it when not necessary. Against meq it'll take you from a 3+ to a 2+ to wound, but the double damage is useless. Is that really worth the 1/6 (or 1/3 if in cover) chance of taking damage for an extra bit of wounding? Last turn of the game maybe, but not every time.

Plasma got cheaper this edition (as much use as comparing to 7th really is anymore). I reckon it is a fairly effective weapon system on normal power. Yet I have seen very little discussion of the massive buff of losing overheating, and lots of lamenting over the overcharge wounds.

Anyone else think that standard mode is the way to go, saving overcharge for dire circumstances?

Agreed.

To me overcharge is only in the presence of character rerolls or last ditch suicide efforts. That said I'll probably want to OC them fairly often since then the double tap is more comparable to melta and can even drop multiple primaris or termies, something melta cannot do. Khorne help me I love it..

Considering there are like 103 ways to reroll 1s...

Also, Cover doesn't affect Hit Chance.

dominuschao wrote:
Agreed.

To me overcharge is only in the presence of character rerolls or last ditch suicide efforts. That said I'll probably want to OC them fairly often since then the double tap is more comparable to melta and can even drop multiple primaris or termies, something melta cannot do. Khorne help me I love it..

It can be very deadly. Double tapping OC plasma at a unit in cover has a 2/3 chance of killing the shooter. That is not a risk to be taken lightly.

Cover is +1 to saves, not -1 to hit.

-1 to hit is things like shooting at aircraft, shooting through smoke, or shooting a plasma cannon after moving.

Edit: This does also indicate though, that a +1 to hit grants complete immunity to Gets Hot. If you can get a +1 onto a plasma gun somehow, you can proceed to over charge with complete impunity!

 ross-128 wrote:
Cover is +1 to saves, not -1 to hit.

Hmmm, I think that my 2nd edition knowledge jumped to the front of my brain somehow. What other common -1 to hits are there? I know smoke launchers do it, and hard to hit fliers. A night fight would be horrible to overcharge on (because night is hot?).

I was going to reply and say that, while obviously you don't overcharge your plasma just to get 25% more wounds on tactical marines unless you have a re-roll ability, you should probably be overcharging against vehicles and two-wound models.

But I took a look at it and you might be right in some cases.

Your plasma dude costs about 26 points (less for Guard). If you're shooting dirt cheap 10 point-per-wound primaris marines, overcharging increases the expected value of your double-tap by about 13.5 points while costing you an average 7.9 points in dead plasma dude. It's not a bad trade. But it's not great, especially keeping in mind that to some extent the other dudes in the squad are just a tax to let you take the special weapons.

If you're shooting a 100 point Razorback, overcharging gets you only about 9 extra points' worth of dead Razorback, which is not a good deal. It gets you about 14 extra points against 15 ppw T7 3+. We're back to okay but not great.

So I'd say that you do it if the squad is vulnerable and likely to get wiped out next turn anyway, but probably hold off otherwise unless your target really needs to die.

That said, this doesn't apply nearly as much to Scions. A Scion with a plasma gun is only 16 points, and you're paying much less tax to bring him, and so you get a pretty good trade against primaris marines or dreadnoughts or whatever, just probably still not Razorbacks.

And of course if you re-roll 1s you should overcharge all the time. You are even getting positive expected value out of overcharging against tactical marines, though it's not much.

 Trickstick wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
Cover is +1 to saves, not -1 to hit.

Hmmm, I think that my 2nd edition knowledge jumped to the front of my brain somehow. What other common -1 to hits are there? I know smoke launchers do it, and hard to hit fliers. A night fight would be horrible to overcharge on (because night is hot?).

A few "Stealth" models

I don't mind overheat. I used to play 99% plasma Dark Angels before going grav spam in 7th. I'm already using Guilliman and a bunch of overcharged Plasma Incinerators.

Fire for maximum effect!

I totally agree.

You use plasma on safe until you either NEED the extra umpf or you know you're going to lose the model anyway and want to take a few more wounds/models with it before it does.

 Otto Weston wrote:
I totally agree.

You use plasma on safe until you either NEED the extra umpf or you know you're going to lose the model anyway and want to take a few more wounds/models with it before it does.

The Rhino Primaris is your friend and guarantee no death on at least 1 squad.

 Otto Weston wrote:
I totally agree.

You use plasma on safe until you either NEED the extra umpf or you know you're going to lose the model anyway and want to take a few more wounds/models with it before it does.

Right, which is a matter of targeting. If you aren't zapping basic marines.. you're.. uh... hmm. Probably doing far too little to big stuff.
But at least you can kill guardsmen on 2s and leave them with no save, even in cover.

The Sgt in devastator squads has the signum ability. A single model near the Sgt can add 1 to hit rolls for it's shots that round.

So I guess a single plasma cannon is both safe and quite valuable in a devastator squad. With the cherub you could throw up to six super charged plasma shots from a single gun...once per game with optimal rolls...but still

 GrimDork wrote:
The Sgt in devastator squads has the signum ability. A single model near the Sgt can add 1 to hit rolls for it's shots that round.

So I guess a single plasma cannon is both safe and quite valuable in a devastator squad. With the cherub you could throw up to six super charged plasma shots from a single gun...once per game with optimal rolls...but still

Having an Ancient and Apothecary around is also a fun thing to do for overcharging plasma. If they die, they might shoot again, and then you can bring them back with the apothecary.

Overcharge is useful, but absolutely not essential. When to-hit penalties are involved overcharging is a waste of time and space (I had an amusing discussion about this today where we concluded that the worst possible case was a unit moving and firing an overcharged plasma cannon (or advancing and firing an Assault plasma weapon, i.e. Plasma Talons on Black Knights) against a target that gave -2 to hit, say by being a Hemlock with Conceal up, or a Vindicare in cover, at which point you're overheating and dying on a natural roll of 4 or less).

But yes. You can choose to not overcharge. It helps. You die less. And there are a lot of targets you might not need the bonus against.

I'm a guard player, everything but my Executioner was rolling overcharge throughout the game, but then again all those models had ways of rerolling ones.

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen

Either A: The guardsman will kill what he is shooting at

or B: He will be horrendously murdered by the thing he is shooting at next turn.

Getting hot and exploding honestly just takes the middleman out of the equation


Don't underestimate that extra strength for wounding, comes up more than one would think.

obviously the degree you can be risky with gets hot is going to vary on how easily you can afford to lose the unit yeah

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm a guard player, everything but my Executioner was rolling overcharge throughout the game, but then again all those models had ways of rerolling ones.

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen

Either A: The guardsman will kill what he is shooting at

or B: He will be horrendously murdered by the thing he is shooting at next turn.

Getting hot and exploding honestly just takes the middleman out of the equation


Don't underestimate that extra strength for wounding, comes up more than one would think.

It's going to be one of those odd "sweet spot" weapons. For T3 or 5 units it's of less use (both option would still be 2+ / 3 +) but for a T4 unit it's more of a choice. Most Plasma seem to base S7 being upped to S8 when over charged so with a T4 unit the wound roll goes from 3+ to 2+. Also for some units like Primaris now go to being one-shot kills on 2+ from needing a double tap on 3+.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm a guard player, everything but my Executioner was rolling overcharge throughout the game, but then again all those models had ways of rerolling ones.

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen

Either A: The guardsman will kill what he is shooting at

or B: He will be horrendously murdered by the thing he is shooting at next turn.

Getting hot and exploding honestly just takes the middleman out of the equation

Basically this.

That said, I probably wouldn't bother overcharging them against stuff with only 1 wound. As I see it, the main benefit of overcharging is the 2 damage apiece. This also means that I can use FRFSRK instead of the reroll 1s order, and not have to worry about my plasma gunners all killing themselves as a result.

 vipoid wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm a guard player, everything but my Executioner was rolling overcharge throughout the game, but then again all those models had ways of rerolling ones.

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen

Either A: The guardsman will kill what he is shooting at

or B: He will be horrendously murdered by the thing he is shooting at next turn.

Getting hot and exploding honestly just takes the middleman out of the equation

Basically this.

That said, I probably wouldn't bother overcharging them against stuff with only 1 wound. As I see it, the main benefit of overcharging is the 2 damage apiece. This also means that I can use FRFSRK instead of the reroll 1s order, and not have to worry about my plasma gunners all killing themselves as a result.

That's why Harker is so great. You get both!

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm a guard player, everything but my Executioner was rolling overcharge throughout the game, but then again all those models had ways of rerolling ones.

The way I see it, one of two things is going to happen

Either A: The guardsman will kill what he is shooting at

or B: He will be horrendously murdered by the thing he is shooting at next turn.

Getting hot and exploding honestly just takes the middleman out of the equation


Don't underestimate that extra strength for wounding, comes up more than one would think.

I like this mentality. Our trusty guardsmen will be doing the killing today, all of the killing! Better to explode yourself than let the filthy xenos touch you with their impure weapons!

Is it confirmed then that hit a malus can trigger overheat results without a natural 1?

I expect most plasma to be taken in specific squads with a HQ providing reroll buffs to compensate for poor rolls. That's how I will use mine - one squad of plasma chosen and a lord buffing them.

So what are the things that a Space Marine army can take to hand out +1 to hit? Plenty of rerolls, but I haven't seen many to hit modifiers.

 Luciferian wrote:
So what are the things that a Space Marine army can take to hand out +1 to hit? Plenty of rerolls, but I haven't seen many to hit modifiers.

Well devastator sergeants can have a signum, that gives +1 to a single model within 3".

I don't have a single guy on foot. Though if there were a model that had a 6" +1 to hit aura it would be an auto-include in my list.