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I'm curious. It seems that 40k suffers from a distinct lack of AP 3 weapons. Now admittedly I only play Tau and have a limited familiarity with other armies, but it seems like most of our weapons jump straight from ap4 to ap 2 (or ap1...) and ignore ap3 altogether.

I was interested in people giving their thoughts on the matter. The only AP3 weapon I can think of right off is that giant fireball on the Helldrake (which admittedly might be classified as "enough ap3 for every faction in the game and then some extra just to rub it in", but I really don't want this to turn into a helldrake hate thread.)

The reason I'm asking is because the lack of things that "stop" at ap3 seems to make terminators pretty useless. People don't take ap3 weapons to deal with space marines, they take ap2. For the extra points cost you really aren't getting all that much more survival out of your teminators unless you take storm shields, in which case you're effectively paying for 3++ instead of anything else having to do with the armor.

Just a random thought I had. Feel free to discuss/ignore as you please.

grenadiers and stormtroopers have standard AP3 weapons.

I'd love to see more AP3 but its either super strong singular shots that negate armour saves or lots of flashlights. Sadly not a lot in the middle ground but does make IG a good choice against power armour

Krak missiles, rokkits, battle cannon, boom gun, staff of light and power weapons, to name a few, I'd say that ap3 or better is far too common.

There's a reason for that. The more popular AP3 weapons become, the less popular Space Marines are.

And even on the tau side of the field:

Ion cannons
Seeker missile
Neutron blaster


Its not that they are not THERE, they are just rare picks because you will usually just go all the way and take an AP2 gun.

The whole point is, either you got AP2, or the AP value is mostly ignored from the firstplace.

Nobody looks for AP4, it just happens to be the AP of common hige S gun.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I'm curious. It seems that 40k suffers from a distinct lack of AP 3 weapons. Now admittedly I only play Tau and have a limited familiarity with other armies, but it seems like most of our weapons jump straight from ap4 to ap 2 (or ap1...) and ignore ap3 altogether.

I was interested in people giving their thoughts on the matter. The only AP3 weapon I can think of right off is that giant fireball on the Helldrake (which admittedly might be classified as "enough ap3 for every faction in the game and then some extra just to rub it in", but I really don't want this to turn into a helldrake hate thread.)

The reason I'm asking is because the lack of things that "stop" at ap3 seems to make terminators pretty useless. People don't take ap3 weapons to deal with space marines, they take ap2. For the extra points cost you really aren't getting all that much more survival out of your teminators unless you take storm shields, in which case you're effectively paying for 3++ instead of anything else having to do with the armor.

Just a random thought I had. Feel free to discuss/ignore as you please.

You obviously don't Play Marines.
As a Marine Player there is almost to much.
I have had two games were I never even got to even make my 3+ Saves thanks to Genestealer Rending and Gaurd Pie.

badgermeister wrote:
grenadiers and stormtroopers have standard AP3 weapons.

I'd love to see more AP3 but its either super strong singular shots that negate armour saves or lots of flashlights. Sadly not a lot in the middle ground but does make IG a good choice against power armour

Just stormtroopers; veterans with carapace armor are still just using lasguns. Even then, they're S3 shots so they're not doing much damage anyway. I feel like there's a decent amount of AP3 with power swords and especially krak missiles, which are pretty prevalent. I play IG often so I don't feel like there's much of a shortage of AP3 weapons. Even then, The Heldrake, one of the star units of this edition, is rightly feared for its AP3 Torrent flamer.

As Necrons I have access to 3" Marine Hunting" weapons and only one of them is available in decent quantities:

- Necron Destroyer's Gauss Cannon

- Monolith's Particle Whipe

- HQs gear, Staff of Light

Granted, we lack AP2 as well. We kill stuff thanks to high rate of fire (Yay, Tesla!)

What I honestly feels there's a loooooot of, is AP4 weapons. I rarely use Necron Warriors anymore because I felt they were just dropping like flies. With 3+, Immortals survive a lot longer.

All i can think of that has AP3 is either a few choice special weapons (rare as hell to be AP3), most pi plates (us Tau have one as well), or rokkits.

I think Orks are able to get the most non-pi plate AP3, but its on a rancid and pathetic model so noone uses it (plus orky BS makes it not as scary)

Swooping Hawk Exarch lasblaster and Dark Reapers launcher are the ones I recall from eldar

 dementedwombat wrote:
I'm curious. It seems that 40k suffers from a distinct lack of AP 3 weapons. Now admittedly I only play Tau and have a limited familiarity with other armies, but it seems like most of our weapons jump straight from ap4 to ap 2 (or ap1...) and ignore ap3 altogether.

your argument seems to fall apart right here. There are plenty of AP 3 weapons.

Therenare essentially three kinds of AP3 weapons, those meant for killing MEQs (1k sons, baleflamer), MC/Medium vehicle killers (krak missiles, kannons), and blast weapons that try to do both (charged ion guns, battle cannons).

Quite a lot of variety for this one AP category.

I think what the OP is getting at is that the AP of weapons should be on a scale

AP -/6/5 - 52%
AP 4 - 24 %
AP 3 - 12 %
AP 2 - 8 %
AP 1 - 4 %

just guessing at these percentages btw

But currently there are more amounts of AP 2 and 1 weaponry available, than Ap 3, that nullify the reason for taking Elites with 2+ armour.

The other thing I think with the trend for the new Codex’s on have a 2+ Unit [usually a single model] so they focus on AP2 and 3+ is the casualty.

2+ armour is a lot rarer than 3+, you only find it on HQ's and Elites, and several MC's

Yet why do they put out AP 2 infantry killers like the wraith guard flamer? Your meant to use anti-tank weapons on these guys to take them down, not have multi hit template stuff that negates their armour.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
2+ armour is a lot rarer than 3+, you only find it on HQ's and Elites, and several MC's

Yet why do they put out AP 2 infantry killers like the wraith guard flamer? Your meant to use anti-tank weapons on these guys to take them down, not have multi hit template stuff that negates their armour.

Because what the Eldar didn't tell you is that Isha's tears are not the only way to create soulstones, they discovered that the tears of marine players are a worthy substitute.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
2+ armour is a lot rarer than 3+, you only find it on HQ's and Elites, and several MC's

Yet why do they put out AP 2 infantry killers like the wraith guard flamer? Your meant to use anti-tank weapons on these guys to take them down, not have multi hit template stuff that negates their armour.

Because Grey Knights. Yes, I know that is vague, but my point still stands

Bloodletter's Hellblades are ap3 MEQ killing machines

AP3 specifically is one of the rarer AP's in the game. There's more AP1 weapons than AP3 weapons, the only AP's rarer than 3 are AP6 and AP"-". There is a very intentional gap between 3+ and 4+sv's and AP4 and AP3, particularly amongst anti-infantry heavy weapons (in order to make Space Marines look cooler) so much so that it usually just goes straight to AP2 instead.

 Vaktathi wrote:
AP3 specifically is one of the rarer AP's in the game. There's more AP1 weapons than AP3 weapons, the only AP's rarer than 3 are AP6 and AP"-". There is a very intentional gap between 3+ and 4+sv's and AP4 and AP3, particularly amongst anti-infantry heavy weapons (in order to make Space Marines look cooler) so much so that it usually just goes straight to AP2 instead.

You obviosly are not a Marine Player. Some games it seems every Weapon pointed at me is AP3, AP2 or AP2.

Anpul - are they AP3, or just AP Ignores Your Armour? Do you normally bother to distinguish?

 Tyranidcrusher wrote:
Bloodletter's Hellblades are ap3 MEQ killing machines

\
Is there any difference between that and a power sword?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Anpul - are they AP3, or just AP Ignores Your Armour? Do you normally bother to distinguish?

Ok, then I seems like all I have pointed at me is AP3 or better. The point is till the same, at times is seems Tau have a Better Armor Save than Space Marines, at least they seem to get an Armor Save vs our Weapons most of the time.

You should be saving against his pulse rifles and carbines. Only things he has that ignore your armour are railguns, plasma rifles, fusion guns, seeker missiles and over-charged ion cannons. Of those, the railgun and fusion gun can only kill one model per turn, the seeker missiles are the same but one-use-only, the plasma rifles are just like your plasma guns, and the ion cannon Gets Hot .

I know I get my saves vs. to “Small Arms”, but that is not the complete picture.

Thank back to when the first time the rumor came out about Power Swords going to AP3. The cries were that Terminators were now Invulnerable to everything and all we were going to see on the field were Grey Knight, Deathwing and Wolf Guard Terminators.
So the response was everyone started to pull out AP Weapons, for Marines and Guard that was Plasma. Everyone now though that “Gets Hot” was now worth the risk [Like I have for Decades]. Then they saw what it could do to MEQs. So when they saw they did not “NEED” AP2 weapons they saw what they were capable of and just kept them.
Now also look at most AP3/2 Weapon, they are usually high Strength which is good for taking out Vehicles and MC's.
If a Codex had just one High Strength AP3 weapon that is what is going to get used, because it is Useful.
How many out there would take a S5 AP3 Weapon over a S10 AP4 Weapon, most because unless you know you are playing a GEQ you figure there are going Marines out there and the best choice is the AP3 Weapon.
This has the effect of now there is a lot of the weapon on the field. I field a 2k Marine force with 33 Plasma Weapons in it [and for years]. Most units just Melt away in front my Army.
If Marine Plasma Weapons were S6 AP3 24” Rapid Fire Gets, Hot I still think you will still see a lot.

The same goes for every other army out there. So there is only 3 AP3 weapons in a Codex, those are the 1st choice of everyone.

"gets hot" has allways been worth the risk.
Its not a sudden change of anything.

This really was not caused by power swords going to AP3.
If you were relying on pure CC weapons to kill anything with a 2+ then theres an issue somewhere.


Plasma is fun though.
In a recent 2k game i decided for some reason that running 5 dev squads all with plasma cannons and as much plasma as i could fit into troops was agood idea.

The carnage was amazing, and i didnt actually lose all that many marines to it.

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
AP3 specifically is one of the rarer AP's in the game. There's more AP1 weapons than AP3 weapons, the only AP's rarer than 3 are AP6 and AP"-". There is a very intentional gap between 3+ and 4+sv's and AP4 and AP3, particularly amongst anti-infantry heavy weapons (in order to make Space Marines look cooler) so much so that it usually just goes straight to AP2 instead.

You obviosly are not a Marine Player. Some games it seems every Weapon pointed at me is AP3, AP2 or AP2.

You seem to have missed the gigantic "Iron Within, Iron Without" in my sig. Yes I play a marine army. I also play IG and many other armies. Yes, AP3 weapons exist, and yes, some armies will have boatloads of AP3/2/1. That said, if you've ever tried to play an army without 3+sv's, you'll be surprised at just how much that 3+sv comes into play.

I don't think anyone mentioned Redeemers and the Flamestorm cannon yet...?

In any case - there aren't an awful lot of AP3 shooting weapons it must be said. There are an absolute megaton of AP3 *close combat* weapons, though. Just about every special power weapon from the various Codexes became AP3 by dint of having a special rule attached.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
AP3 specifically is one of the rarer AP's in the game. There's more AP1 weapons than AP3 weapons, the only AP's rarer than 3 are AP6 and AP"-". There is a very intentional gap between 3+ and 4+sv's and AP4 and AP3, particularly amongst anti-infantry heavy weapons (in order to make Space Marines look cooler) so much so that it usually just goes straight to AP2 instead.

You obviosly are not a Marine Player. Some games it seems every Weapon pointed at me is AP3, AP2 or AP2.

You seem to have missed the gigantic "Iron Within, Iron Without" in my sig. Yes I play a marine army. I also play IG and many other armies. Yes, AP3 weapons exist, and yes, some armies will have boatloads of AP3/2/1. That said, if you've ever tried to play an army without 3+sv's, you'll be surprised at just how much that 3+sv comes into play.

I get a chuckle when Marines I play get mad when they fail an armor save.... I look at them and say "Troops rolling armor saves? Whats that?"

 Vaktathi wrote:
AP3 specifically is one of the rarer AP's in the game. There's more AP1 weapons than AP3 weapons, the only AP's rarer than 3 are AP6 and AP"-". There is a very intentional gap between 3+ and 4+sv's and AP4 and AP3, particularly amongst anti-infantry heavy weapons (in order to make Space Marines look cooler) so much so that it usually just goes straight to AP2 instead.

Looking at every weapon in existence is pointless since many things are not balanced and many weapons are never taken. What matters is what's commonly fielded. And that means AP3 is very common due to the Heldrake and AP2 due to plasma. Seems like all armor saves are irrelevant nowadays.