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Brother Coa wrote:

Melissia wrote:You haven't used the argument yet. Your argument is that it needs to be good against everything.
A basic weapon does not need to e good against everything. It needs to be good at what it will primarily be used for.

This.
Take AK-47 for example - basic weapon of most Earth military forces.
It's good against infantry, but can it take down an M1 Abrams or F-22 Raptor?
Basic weapons are made just for troops, not vehicles.



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Castiel wrote: I've said on several occasions things like: what if you're dropped in against tanks, and don't have any support weapons? then having a gun that can take out tanks is pretty damn useful.

Same for Necron warriors, it have a CHANCE to go trough vehicle armor.
It's not build for vehicles, Blaster and Tesla carbines are.

The whole point that I am making is you don't know what you are facing and what kind of support you have. With the information we have the Flayer is the best choice on offer, as it can kill everything. Sure you can play the percentages, but if your luck is out then that armoured division is going to squash you without breaking a sweat.

I'm not saying it is the best in all situations, just that with the information available at this point the Flayer is the more sensible choice.

If a squad of necron warriors is dropped in front of a few leman russ tanks,that's a dead squad of necron warriors, flayers or no.


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Castiel wrote:The whole point that I am making is you don't know what you are facing

We know what we are overwhelmingly more likely to face.

Do you bring 500 dollars in cold hard cash with you as you walk down a dark alleyway thinking "hey, there might be someone selling me something here taht's really good for 500 dollars!"?

Melissia wrote:If a squad of necron warriors is dropped in front of a few leman russ tanks,that's a dead squad of necron warriors, flayers or no.

Depends on how many there are in the squad and how close you are to said tank , rapid fire range(so a CQB environment) and I would say the Necrons would win that fight, remember every shot past the first from each unit reduces the AV by 1, so 20 warriors in rapid fire range would melt a Leman Russ, however if it was any good distance at all the Leman Russ would win.........that said how the did tanks get brought up in this, this is about basic weapons, not heavy weapons.

I'm a bit curious as to what a Gauss Flayer wound would look like after reading this thread. If you're hit in the shoulder or something what happens, do you just have a clean but big gapping hole in your body?

Wardragoon wrote:
Depends on how many there are in the squad and how close you are to said tank , rapid fire range(so a CQB environment) and I would say the Necrons would win that fight, remember every shot past the first from each unit reduces the AV by 1, so 20 warriors in rapid fire range would melt a Leman Russ, however if it was any good distance at all the Leman Russ would win.........that said how the did tanks get brought up in this, this is about basic weapons, not heavy weapons.

Ehhh.....in fluff all Leman Russ fire at once and blow them sky-high. They don't even hat to hit them directly - just near them.


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Castiel wrote:
The whole point that I am making is you don't know what you are facing and what kind of support you have. With the information we have the Flayer is the best choice on offer, as it can kill everything. Sure you can play the percentages, but if your luck is out then that armoured division is going to squash you without breaking a sweat.

I'm not saying it is the best in all situations, just that with the information available at this point the Flayer is the more sensible choice.

That all stand, our point is that basic weapon doesn't have to be good for anything.
Gauss Flyer are good but they are slow firing and have shorter range then most basic weapons.

Lasgun is the best. Reliable, easy to maintain, good damage, excellent accuracy, ability to kill most tough troops with few shots ( HIGH setting ) and ability to blow up armored vehicle by overcharging ( you destroy the weapon, but hey - you destroy a vehicle to ).

Ehhh.....in fluff all Leman Russ fire at once and blow them sky-high. They don't even hat to hit them directly - just near them.

Then, they stand back up, and melt the Russ.

That all stand, our point is that basic weapon doesn't have to be good for anything.
Gauss Flyer are good but they are slow firing and have shorter range then most basic weapons.

Lasgun is the best. Reliable, easy to maintain, good damage, excellent accuracy, ability to kill most tough troops with few shots ( HIGH setting ) and ability to blow up armored vehicle by overcharging ( you destroy the weapon, but hey - you destroy a vehicle to ).

What? The only basic weapon with a longer range than the Flayer, is the Pulse Rifle. The Gauss Flayer has a longer range, or is equal to the rest of the choices. It's also rapid fire, which is the same as Bolters, Lasguns, Pulse rifles, etc etc.

Melissia wrote:If a squad of necron warriors is dropped in front of a few leman russ tanks,that's a dead squad of necron warriors, flayers or no.


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Castiel wrote:The whole point that I am making is you don't know what you are facing

We know what we are overwhelmingly more likely to face.

Do you bring 500 dollars in cold hard cash with you as you walk down a dark alleyway thinking "hey, there might be someone selling me something here taht's really good for 500 dollars!"?

Until they stand back up.

And there's a difference between carrying money and bringing a weapon to a fight. Gauss flayers have the same rate of close in fire as a shoota, are more accurate (an ork weapon is still an ork weapon no matter who's wielding it, they aren't accurate at all) and can start putting down opponents further away, with less chance of them getting back up. Your arguement is shaky at best.

And yet again you can't provide a good reason as to why in the unknown situation a shoota is a better choice. All forces have tanks. If you''re fighting in the 41st millenium a tank is probably not that far away. Saying you are likely to be facing a horde army doesn't change the fact that there is still a chance that you are going up against an armoured unit. And even so, there are still APCs and tanks in horde armies that need to be taken down. I'll say again: You don't know what you are facing, the support available, or the odds against you. Therefore you want the weapon that can cope with anything. And even if its a horde army, you are still better off with a bolter for accuracy, Rate of fire and range. The shoota is short ranged and inaccurate. You wouldn't want to face a horde with that.

Is it odd that the shoota's biggest mentioned strenght is vs hordes when it a weapon used by and only works for hordes(orkz)..

Flesh borer. They fire bugs that will eat you from the inside out. Reminds me of the s scarabs in the mummy.

Draigo wrote:Is it odd that the shoota's biggest mentioned strenght is vs hordes when it a weapon used by and only works for hordes(orkz)..

That is a very good point.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:Flesh borer. They fire bugs that will eat you from the inside out. Reminds me of the s scarabs in the mummy.

Fleshboerers fire a beatle that burrows through flesh/armor/whatever in the last few moments of it's life. Devourers are the ones that fire Worm like Parasites that eat you from the inside out.

Siriously the gauss flayer,........desintegration at atomic level.....doesn't matter if you wear a super-thick-adamantiun-neutronium-1meter-whide-power-armour plate or go naked..................you end up bad....................who can argue with that?? (and with a shoota!!.....pffff......please be (a bit) sirious,.........)

An image is worth more than 1000 words.......



As you can see it goes through some tiranid creature,.............and instantaneously.........as you can deduce with the posture of the daying bug,........

Lasgun, because of its reliability and power.


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Castiel wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Melissia wrote:You haven't used the argument yet. Your argument is that it needs to be good against everything.
A basic weapon does not need to e good against everything. It needs to be good at what it will primarily be used for.

This.
Take AK-47 for example - basic weapon of most Earth military forces.
It's good against infantry, but can it take down an M1 Abrams or F-22 Raptor?
Basic weapons are made just for troops, not vehicles.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Castiel wrote: I've said on several occasions things like: what if you're dropped in against tanks, and don't have any support weapons? then having a gun that can take out tanks is pretty damn useful.

Same for Necron warriors, it have a CHANCE to go trough vehicle armor.
It's not build for vehicles, Blaster and Tesla carbines are.

The whole point that I am making is you don't know what you are facing and what kind of support you have. With the information we have the Flayer is the best choice on offer, as it can kill everything. Sure you can play the percentages, but if your luck is out then that armoured division is going to squash you without breaking a sweat.

I'm not saying it is the best in all situations, just that with the information available at this point the Flayer is the more sensible choice.

You could kill a tank crew with a bolt action if you had the shooting skill and were concealed.

Well if you have the skill any weapon can be lethal, however to an average joe, I would say the Flayer would be a good weapon, followed closely by the lasgun.

What context is the discussion even supposed to be in? Best weapon to equip a military force or best weapon to outfit, say, your bodyguards with?

Fluff gauss flayer wins the latter hands-down, but the former is trickier.

No contest, There is only one basic weapon that kill just about any thing in less than 5 seconds, destroys tanks AND, never needs reloading/recharging. The Gauss Flayer. IT. IS. THE. BEST.

Oh I also forgot; no maintenance, each one comes with a close combat attachment, never runs out of ammo, only works in the hands of your army, has -afaik- a continuous beam of fire, phases out if the one wielding it is destroyed/incapacitated and many more reasons.


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Harriticus wrote:I'm a bit curious as to what a Gauss Flayer wound would look like after reading this thread. If you're hit in the shoulder or something what happens, do you just have a clean but big gapping hole in your body?

In the old Codex -which is what I have- if your caught under the destructive power of the Gauss Flayer then in the first second your torso is merely a rib cage and the next...what torso?

Not in the poll, but I'd say the storm bolter for Grey Knights. Much better than a bolter, and with the addition of psybolt ammo it can even be a threat to light vehicles.

The shoota is out for me, as they only work with an ork holding it, Mork (or Gork) keeping the thing from exploding.

I straight up looked at lethality, there are so many factors any other comparison would be too subjective and situational.
Ultimately it was between bolter and flayer for me and in the end went with bolter because it has a greater 1-shot kill chance;
Hit to torso or head:
- Flayer: end of story
- Bolter: end of story

Hit to limb:
- Flayer: the flayer's molecular dissembly will stop before being lethal and will leave a relatively clean wound. (source: Ciaphas Cain getting half his hand vaporised in Echoes of the Tomb)
- Bolter: will leave a nasty ragged wound and give shrapnel damage to head and torso.

Therefore, bolter wins it for me.

Harriticus wrote:I'm a bit curious as to what a Gauss Flayer wound would look like after reading this thread. If you're hit in the shoulder or something what happens, do you just have a clean but big gapping hole in your body?

There is nothing at all. Your molecules are stripped away, until tere is nothing left of what is hit AFAIK.

yup, no trace besides a pile of dust, usually all equipment held by the user is disintegrated as well so you can't loot their ammo when a teammate gets hit. From what I understand this was why the novel, Dead Men Walking, was heavy with flayed ones until the situation became more or less hopeless. The flayers made it feel even more hopeless because they destroyed the smallest traces of their targets. I'm still saying lasgun though.

A pulse rifle seems to be as reliable and easy to use as a lasgun and hits much harder. So I picked that.

That being said, there's something sexy about a 90mm automatic RPG launcher that can be loaded with variable ammunition for any situation.

TiB wrote:The shoota is out for me, as they only work with an ork holding it, Mork (or Gork) keeping the thing from exploding.

I straight up looked at lethality, there are so many factors any other comparison would be too subjective and situational.
Ultimately it was between bolter and flayer for me and in the end went with bolter because it has a greater 1-shot kill chance;
Hit to torso or head:
- Flayer: end of story
- Bolter: end of story

Hit to limb:
- Flayer: the flayer's molecular dissembly will stop before being lethal and will leave a relatively clean wound. (source: Ciaphas Cain getting half his hand vaporised in Echoes of the Tomb)
- Bolter: will leave a nasty ragged wound and give shrapnel damage to head and torso.

Therefore, bolter wins it for me.

There is one flaw in that logic, If you got hit in the hand with a bolter the bolt would go right through leaving a rather large but relatively clean wound. just as a flayer would -well, with a flayer you'd probably loss most your hand rather than having a hole- where as if a bolter hit your arm/leg you would receive wounds as stated above, however if you got hit in the arm/leg by a flayer you would lose the limb and probably bleed out almost immediately -more so with the leg.-

Pulse rifle is pretty good, with its extra range you won't be anywhere close that silly gauss flayer short range and the shoota will hit you once in a blue moon.

The main problem I see with the Pules Rifle is, if they get to close then your screwed. after all that's one big and probably very heavy rifle to try and whack things with. And in 40k people get REALLY close REALLY fast.

Bolter. Running around with a LMG that fires fires rockets that are easily capable of blasting a man-sized target to bits is AWESOME!

Shoota are the beast bc thay just are and pules rile is just a poor gun sure it has a good rang and if a ork
Gets to close and he will one way or a nother the tau will die a pain full death and a good one

NL_Cirrus wrote:The main problem I see with the Pules Rifle is, if they get to close then your screwed. after all that's one big and probably very heavy rifle to try and whack things with. And in 40k people get REALLY close REALLY fast.

I though we were comapring basic ranged weapon vs eachother, IMO being able to punch a hole though many thing while still being out of range of retaliation is a pretty good thing.

Bobthehero wrote:

NL_Cirrus wrote:The main problem I see with the Pules Rifle is, if they get to close then your screwed. after all that's one big and probably very heavy rifle to try and whack things with. And in 40k people get REALLY close REALLY fast.

I though we were comapring basic ranged weapon vs eachother, IMO being able to punch a hole though many thing while still being out of range of retaliation is a pretty good thing.

true as that may be, it is somewhat -if not completely- mitigated by the fact if you get charged or caught in melee combat you'd either have to just die or drop your gun and pull a knife or something and since the pulse rifle is so big and-presumably- heavy you can't just slap a melee weapon on it with duck tape as it would be to unwieldy. so with such a weapon you'd be effectively crippled in CC and seeing as charges and close combat encounters are common place among the battle fields of the far future it should not be taken lightly.

NL_Cirrus wrote:

Bobthehero wrote:

NL_Cirrus wrote:The main problem I see with the Pules Rifle is, if they get to close then your screwed. after all that's one big and probably very heavy rifle to try and whack things with. And in 40k people get REALLY close REALLY fast.

I though we were comapring basic ranged weapon vs eachother, IMO being able to punch a hole though many thing while still being out of range of retaliation is a pretty good thing.

true as that may be, it is somewhat -if not completely- mitigated by the fact if you get charged or caught in melee combat you'd either have to just die or drop your gun and pull a knife or something and since the pulse rifle is so big and-presumably- heavy you can't just slap a melee weapon on it with duck tape as it would be to unwieldy. so with such a weapon you'd be effectively crippled in CC and seeing as charges and close combat encounters are common place among the battle fields of the far future it should not be taken lightly.

Wouldn't a simple bayonet or spike on the end of the weapon suffice, wouldn't affect the weapon's balance terribly and enemies would fall onto the blades as they charge.

If you had a spike/bayonet on the end of the gun you might, with a phalanx type strategy, be able to kill or injure a couple of guys but when they get past that then, like all pike-men or spear users, your guys would be helpless and would get slaughtered lest they abandon their weapons. like I said for actual CC fighting they'd be useless.