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like, modern day equivalents and stuff. I know it doesn't seem powerful on the table top, but from what i've read of Cain, it seems they are actually pretty powerful against humans.

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Stronger than the modern assault rifle. A single shot can kill a space marine, too, if he isn't wearing his helmet like a good little boy.

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Yup, the reason its weak on the table-top is because anything that can absorb heat is pretty effective against it.

It also cauterizes the wound, meaning a wound that itself wasn't fatal but would have caused death from blood loss doesn't kill the target.

The energy is only delivered in 1 form, heat. Not in shock waves that reverberate across the body, not in physical damage such as tearing or crushing, etc... Some of this damage can be caused by the water in the target's body rapidly boiling, but that is dependent on how much energy was lost getting to the flesh through any clothing and body armor.

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Sheffield

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yup, the reason its weak on the table-top is because anything that can absorb heat is pretty effective against it.

It also cauterizes the wound, meaning a wound that itself wasn't fatal but would have caused death from blood loss doesn't kill the target.

The energy is only delivered in 1 form, heat. Not in shock waves that reverberate across the body, not in physical damage such as tearing or crushing, etc... Some of this damage can be caused by the water in the target's body rapidly boiling, but that is dependent on how much energy was lost getting to the flesh through any clothing and body armor.



However this is assumption. Yes I can say some lasers can cauterise. However today's surgical lasers such as those used in laser eye surgery do not. They vaporize. They hit with higher energy causing vaporization of tissue rather than authorising burns.
If the Laguna hits at this vaporization then it would just remove 'chunks' a neat hole created still capable of bleeding but without debris.

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They are strength 3. Effective lasgun hits are usually enough to kill a human equivalent.


Regarding lasgun wounds, they are primarily thermal, but the flash vapouriation of the flesh also causes physical trauma due to the difference in thermal expansion between the heated site and the surrounding flesh. So cauterisation cannot be guaranteed.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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Grey Templar wrote:The energy is only delivered in 1 form, heat. Not in shock waves that reverberate across the body, not in physical damage such as tearing or crushing, etc... Some of this damage can be caused by the water in the target's body rapidly boiling, but that is dependent on how much energy was lost getting to the flesh through any clothing and body armor.
The 6E rulebook has, on page 406, a fairly good description of the effects of how a lasgun operates and the damage it causes:

"A las-pulse will shear through flesh producing a cauterised hole surrounded by blister-burns. When first striking flesh, a las-pulse will cause a flash-burn effect upon impact, as the heat of the discharge causes the immediate surface area of the target to be vaporised. This can, to the untrained eye, take on the same wound aspects as those produced by high-density explosives, but there are major differences when it comes to field-dressing las-wounds. While the brief exploding flash of initial contact is highly visible, it is rarely the concern of aid givers. It is typically the continueing projection of the las-beam boring into the body that causes the most extensive damage. The beam will puncture through any internal organs and is capable of severing limbs. [...] The extreme heat cauterizes the wound, leaving minimum bleeding. However, rapid swelling will begin immediately, making later diagnosis more difficult."

As for a lasgun's power, a single shot has a chance of about 10-20% in the tabletop and GW's Inquisitor RPG to penetrate Marine-level power armour and injure (not necessarily kill!) the occupant. Alone, this may not look like much, but when you consider how many barrels the Guard can bring to bear on a target ...


Obviously, other sources of fluff (-> novels) and rules (-> FFG's RPG) may depict the lasgun differently, however, making it stronger or weaker, or even describing completely different effects upon hitting a target, all depending on the ideas of the author. As with all things 40k, everything and nothing is true - meaning, pick the option you like more.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/13 18:29:11


 
   
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That's GW being stupid. Any laser that's cold enough to merely cauterize a wound (instead of, say, causing the blood to flash-boil and effectively explode out of the skin in a bloody, burning mess) isn't going to be able to cut through flesh and bone much, either.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2013/07/13 19:10:17


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not really

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Not really, what?

Kind of odd statement without context.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/13 19:32:56


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Melissia wrote:That's GW being stupid. Any laser that's cold enough to merely cauterize a wound (instead of, say, causing the blood to flash-boil and effectively explode out of the skin in a bloody, burning mess) isn't going to be able to cut through flesh and bone much, either.
"Instead"? Flash-boiling and exploding has always been part of the lasgun fluff in GW's writings, and is in fact referenced in this quote as well ("flash-burn effect", "surface area vaporised", "same wounds as by explosives").
The cauterisation is merely a side-effect of the intense heat that comes with the shot. It won't simply "disappear" together with the globs of superheated flesh that get hurled out of the wound, but melt whatever remains as it is slowly equalised with the body temperature.

That's how I'm reading it, anyways.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/14 02:19:41


 
   
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Well, IIRC something like 20% of people shot with a modern firearm are killed.

Lasguns seem to be 50/50 against the humans of the future. Take what you want from that.

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A lot of how lethal firearms are depends on access to medical attention. If you can get to a competent medical center right away then you have a pretty good chance to survive anything that doesn't turn major parts of your body into mush (I think it was something like a 2/3 survival rate for shots to the heart even).

I'm guessing lasgun hits might be more difficult to treat medically, since with a traditional firearm you can generally close up the wound and expect things to grow back, but depending on how much cauterization gets done you might have to even cut away and open the wound further so that the body is capable of regrowing the damaged bits. I would imagine that a perfectly cauterized scarred over hole through (insert body part here) wouldn't heal particularly well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/14 02:49:00


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From every combat scene in books like the Gaunt's Ghost's series, battles with lasgun-wielding troops are just as visceral and lethal as modern conflicts with assault rifles. The penetration seems about equal, too.



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Depends on who is carrying it. Is it a whiteshield or a PDF trooper? Barely a scratch. Is is Mkoll? Can destroy a Dreadnought.

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dementedwombat wrote:I'm guessing lasgun hits might be more difficult to treat medically, since with a traditional firearm you can generally close up the wound and expect things to grow back, but depending on how much cauterization gets done you might have to even cut away and open the wound further so that the body is capable of regrowing the damaged bits. I would imagine that a perfectly cauterized scarred over hole through (insert body part here) wouldn't heal particularly well.
Yeah, especially with all the swelling. Again looking at the 6E rulebook, field-dressing a las-wound sounds very tricky. You're not supposed to remove bits of clothes or armour that have melted into the flesh, you can't break blisters, and you're even forbidden from applying ointments to the burns.
The way it sounds like, if you're lucky, you'll only lose an arm or a leg (can be replaced by cybernetic limbs). If you get hit in the body, however, there's a high chance that "the swelling that follows is bound to cause catastrophic bodily failures". Medics are instructed to cover up the wound as quickly and completely as possible, though this doesn't actually help anything and merely serves to hide the lethal wound from other soldiers and "may also allow the victim some false comfort", as the text says.

Really ugly.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/14 03:48:43


 
   
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 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Depends on who is carrying it. Is it a whiteshield or a PDF trooper? Barely a scratch. Is is Mkoll? Can destroy a Dreadnought.

To be fair, it wasn't a las-round fired by Mkoll, but rather an exploding lasrifle with a rigged/over-charged power cell. Also, the Dread' was already severely wounded from the local flora, iirc.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/14 04:27:07


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 Anfauglir wrote:
 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Depends on who is carrying it. Is it a whiteshield or a PDF trooper? Barely a scratch. Is is Mkoll? Can destroy a Dreadnought.

To be fair, it wasn't a las-round fired by Mkoll, but rather an exploding lasrifle with a rigged/over-charged power cell. Also, the Dread' was already severely wounded from the local flora, iirc.


Or more like the Lasgun blew off the sarcophagus so the plants could finish the job.


And really in-game stats shouldn't be used to compare to modern firearms. If it was a straight comparison, even orks would beat people in firefights today. Even US soldiers can fire hundreds of rounds and not hit anything in a real fight. Covering fire is something that burns through a lot of ammo. A guardsmen hitting half his targets in the heat of battle would be a miracle by today's standards.

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 Grey Templar wrote:
 Anfauglir wrote:
 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Depends on who is carrying it. Is it a whiteshield or a PDF trooper? Barely a scratch. Is is Mkoll? Can destroy a Dreadnought.

To be fair, it wasn't a las-round fired by Mkoll, but rather an exploding lasrifle with a rigged/over-charged power cell. Also, the Dread' was already severely wounded from the local flora, iirc.


Or more like the Lasgun blew off the sarcophagus so the plants could finish the job.


And really in-game stats shouldn't be used to compare to modern firearms. If it was a straight comparison, even orks would beat people in firefights today. Even US soldiers can fire hundreds of rounds and not hit anything in a real fight. Covering fire is something that burns through a lot of ammo. A guardsmen hitting half his targets in the heat of battle would be a miracle by today's standards.


The shooting rules are an abstraction and do not equal one round fired per to-hit roll made. Guardsmen are probably firing hundreds of rounds over the course of the game and the to-hit and to-wound rolls are made to see if the fire is effective, not to see if individual round hit their target.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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exactly. Shuriken catapults fire hundreds of disks per second, so if they're assault 2, 40k is having a really short time-span.

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That's basically what I said.

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Really powerful lasers are actually visible, not as a beam ala 'Star Wars' but because the highly ionized air molecules will spark. Such a beam would most likely be fatal because it would superheat the flesh to the point of creating a bloody steam explosion and would cook the surrounding tissue to a fair depth. My guess is the laser carbine is a bit weaker than that. ; )
   
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It's possible that with the technology involved in creating a viable Lasgun, the designers also added in a way for the coherent light to be visible as a color to aid in aiming, as a tracer.



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amanita wrote:Really powerful lasers are actually visible, not as a beam ala 'Star Wars' [...]
Star Wars blaster and laser cannons are actually plasma-based weapons hurling a glob of laser-supraheated Tibanna gas through a magnetic accelerator.

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If I recall correctly, the old 3rd Ed. Guard Codex said that the normal power setting was 17 "megathules" which of course is a random-word from the fluff.

If we make the (admittedly dubious) step of equating "megathules" to "megajoules" then that would place the mid-range setting on a Cadian lasrifle at about the same energy as the muzzle energy of a .50 BMG round.

Don't also forget that the lasguns can be dialed in power, as well as firing substantially more rounds with substantially less recoil from a substantially smaller platform with substantially better accuracy than a .50 BMG rifle.

They're actually quite scary weapons IMO.


EDIT: WAIT OH HOLY feth - the .50 BMG only outputs 17 KILOJOULES of energy. So either a lasgun is three orders of magnitude more powerful than a .50 BMG or "megathules" is a meaningless word.

Probably the latter. My bad. Sorry lads.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/07/15 06:55:04


 
   
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I've always seen autoguns as being very similar to 20th century assault rifles, and the basic Las-gun has been described as having roughly equivalent stopping power to an 'Autogun', over several iterations of the table-top game, in specialist games, and third-party games. Penetrating power has tended to vary though.

So, yeah, about as strong as an AK-47 or M16, or within that ballpark of a 'modern' assult rifle.

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Autogun comparison is apt. We know from descriptions the Autogun is like slightly better than modern (probably more reliable) AR.

Lasguns would be like a modern Battle Rifle, but more accurate and possibly having a better fire rate and stopping power too, but nothing that moves it onto the level of power of an HMG (heavy stubber).


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A lasgun can blow off a limb and vaporize large chunks of the body, so that would be M60 round level firepower.

In terms of absolute energy? Dozens of megajoules, but lasers aren't terribly efficient kill systems.

Now microwave beams can do pretty funky stuff to an organic body. As in make you explode hilariously into a wet, gory fountain of blood, meat chunks, and bone chips.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/15 11:21:37


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 Kain wrote:
A lasgun can blow off a limb and vaporize large chunks of the body, so that would be M60 round level firepower.

In terms of absolute energy? Dozens of megajoules, but lasers aren't terribly efficient kill systems.

Now microwave beams can do pretty funky stuff to an organic body. As in make you explode hilariously into a wet, gory fountain of blood, meat chunks, and bone chips.

Yes, but the Lasgun fires more like a semi-auto battle rifle rather than fully automatic at 550+ RPM. Because of that, it averages out as the same as an Autogun as a small arm.

Even today, a battle rifle is generally more powerful per shot (in terms of energy) than an assault rifle, but both are used depending on situation.

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 Daba wrote:
 Kain wrote:
A lasgun can blow off a limb and vaporize large chunks of the body, so that would be M60 round level firepower.

In terms of absolute energy? Dozens of megajoules, but lasers aren't terribly efficient kill systems.

Now microwave beams can do pretty funky stuff to an organic body. As in make you explode hilariously into a wet, gory fountain of blood, meat chunks, and bone chips.

Yes, but the Lasgun fires more like a semi-auto battle rifle rather than fully automatic at 550+ RPM. Because of that, it averages out as the same as an Autogun as a small arm.

Even today, a battle rifle is generally more powerful per shot (in terms of energy) than an assault rifle, but both are used depending on situation.

That depends entirely on the depiction, much as how the BL can't decide if lasguns fire beams or bolts, although I'd say beams is closer to how GW envisioned them originally (and also what relic goes with).

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We know the 40k stats for a Lasgun and Autogun, and we know what an autogun represents (futuristic/better version of a modern assault rifle type firearm) so we know they are in the same ballpack of weaponry.

The Lasgun is probably favoured by Guard due to the targets needing better stopping power and long range shots over Autoguns which would be for human targets, but they are similar enough to be the same class of weapon whereas a Bolter has quite a bit more power.

An M60 direct analogue is the Heavy Stubber, which has more 'killing power' (due to a mix of continuous fire, rate of fire and stopping power combined) but is much less mobile.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/07/15 12:36:18


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