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So I like the idea of the new Las Rifle variants in Gaunt's ghosts. If we extend that out to normal squads, it would add a lot of flexibility. It would be hard to model effectively though.

Carbines 18" Assault 2 S3 AP0 D1.
Long Las 36" Heavy 1 S4 AP2 D1 (MW on 6)

You could break it up by saying the entire squad has to take it, ala Astartes Bolter options. Entire squad gets Regular Las, Long Las, or Assault Las.

Thoughts?

SM scouts can swap bolters for sniper rifles, shotguns, bp/ccw and that’s not particularly broken.

Whole deployment zones full of long las seems it might be prone for abuse. Especially with the low cost of the base guardsman.

Nah, my Catachans won't use proxy guns.

A Long Las is a Sniper Rifle so, no on that count.
The difference between what would be a Lascarbine and Lasgun isn't enough to justify a whole new profile IMO and it's kind of a rule that anything that isn't a Lasgun in the Ghost's series is less effective and therefore not worth it. Laslocks for example are basically Las-Shotguns but since a Lasgun can up its power levels or increase ROF at close range, a Laslock isn't needed.

 Gert wrote:
A Long Las is a Sniper Rifle so, no on that count.
The difference between what would be a Lascarbine and Lasgun isn't enough to justify a whole new profile IMO and it's kind of a rule that anything that isn't a Lasgun in the Ghost's series is less effective and therefore not worth it. Laslocks for example are basically Las-Shotguns but since a Lasgun can up its power levels or increase ROF at close range, a Laslock isn't needed.

One could argue that marines don’t need all the bolters we have, yet here we are.

Honestly we probaby need a lot less weapons across a lot of armies. The level of crunch distinction between a lot of them should be left to RPGs, or maybe Kill Team. Not a game where you are putting the greater part of a company on the table.

But if someone wants to add it? Go for it. 3 slightly different profiles for everyone!

The difference is that a Stalker Bolter is better for armour penetration and has better range compared to the standard Bolt Rifle but is then a more unwieldy weapon in combat. An Auto-Bolt Rifle has increased ROF but far less armour penetration so is useful against soft horde targets like Tyranids, Cultists or Orks but struggles against hardier enemies such as other Astartes or T'au Battlesuits.
A Lasgun is the best variant of all the handheld Las weapons that fit the rifle profile. Veterans can also take Shotguns and Scions have stronger armour-piercing weaponry.
Yes, in RPGs and novels different patterns of Lasguns exist with different benefits and drawbacks but like when most Guard armies are dropping 50-60+ Guardsmen, compared to a SM army where you'll maybe get 30 tops, multiple Lasgun variants is a pain in the butt both from a gaming perspective and a modelling one.

Yeah, but I don't think we should ever make decisions based on whether or not something could be abused. Otherwise you could kiss half of 9th goodbye.

Check out the models, Cadians have Lasrifles. They have more stock and less barrel. Catachans have carbines, lighter with more barrel exposed.
Long-las is just a different sniper rifle, would be cool to take them as special weapons.

Steel Legion have lascarbines too, whilst Vostroyans have much longer rifles even than Cadians.

And there is lore evidence for there being more differences between regimental lasguns/lasguns doctrine than between some of the Marine bolters.

Isn't the long-las just the sniper rifle in the command squad kit?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Isn't the long-las just the sniper rifle in the command squad kit?

Yes.

It's a yes-and-no situation.

The "sniper rifle" unit entry was meant to cover a lot of different weapons initially. The Long Las is a specialized piece which could potentially see its own unique rules.

Anyways, the "trio of lasguns" would be lascarbines->lasguns->heavy lasguns.

This Vitrian Dragoon is using a "heavy lasgun".

Whole deployment zones full of long las seems it might be prone for abuse. Especially with the low cost of the base guardsman.

A Guard squad can take 1 sniper rifle per squad for 2 points. A single long-las wouldn't break the game. Also BS4+ rather than 3+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anyways, the "trio of lasguns" would be lascarbines->lasguns->heavy lasguns.

This Vitrian Dragoon is using a "heavy lasgun".

Looks exactly the same as a Cadian Kantrael lasgun.

Also, when was this posted? Is it new?

What I would like to see would be to give lasguns the ability to be used when the unit charges, after overwatch and charge distance has been determined, but before melee strikes. This would at least give guardsmen some minimal ability to deal damage in the assault phase of the game, and I like the idea of a unit assaulting a position with their small arms.

I'd also like to see a lmg style lasgun like the stoner 63, or Knights Armament Company LMG.

Jarms48 wrote:

Looks exactly the same as a Cadian Kantrael lasgun.

It's a bit bulkier than the 'standard' Kantrael pattern.

Also, when was this posted? Is it new?

Not new. It was part of the preview for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade book. Lotta good art in there.

 necrontyrOG wrote:
Check out the models, Cadians have Lasrifles. They have more stock and less barrel. Catachans have carbines, lighter with more barrel exposed.
Long-las is just a different sniper rifle, would be cool to take them as special weapons.

And since all the weapons are lasers, it makes no dang difference to their performance since lasers don't have "recoil" to speak of and have no real use for "barrels" since light isn't being propelled by exploding gas like a bullet.
Of course bolters also have basically no recoil or need for long barrels since they're rockets that need just a little bit of of initial spin and their main propulsion kicks in once they leave the barrel, but that never stopped GW from talking about the "kick" of a bolter because none of the blessed british nerds spent a second thinking about how weapons work.

Wouldn't the difference come from the type of battery and the type of mirror a las weapon would be using?

Bolters propel the projectile out of the barrel quickly enough for it to deal real damage even point blank. The rocket motor is more to improve long range performance than as the primary means of propulsion. It makes sense that they kick.

I think the difference between different lasguns is too minimal to represent in game. Realistically a carbine should be strictly worse than a rifle because the slightly reduced weight and barrel length just isn't represented in game. Going from rapid fire to assault is a way bigger change than that should warrant.

Laslocks are bolt-action rifles, not shotguns. Loading small magazines and cycling coolant or whatever. Or sometimes even using single shot AAA batteries. Sometimes a laslock's purpose is to be really cheap and simple. Sometimes they pack a much greater punch than a standard lasgun instead.
Praetorians for example use laslocks because they're Rorke's Drift in space.

If I were to make rules for carbines I'd make them rapid fire 18".
I don't think laslocks can work at all; neither assault or heavy fits. 40k needs a 'basic' type that does nothing.

Ah, so bolter has the worst of both worlds. Kick, and complicated rocket projectile with smaller warhead than a purely gas-powered round would have, gotcha.
Like I said, it's 40k, nothing about it's weapons makes a damn shred of sense, so having an assault laser shotgun would work just fine.

30k man-portable longarm laser weapons include:

Laslocks (18" Strength 4 AP - Assault 1) - note that Assault just means you can shoot it after moving and then charge (i.e. a "default" weapon in 9th, if such a thing existed), not that you can run and shoot with it in 30k.
Lasguns with Collimator (36" Strength 3 AP- Heavy 2)
Lasguns with Blast-Chargers (18" Strength 6 AP6 Heavy 1, Charger Burnout)
Lasrifles (30" Strength 3 AP- Rapid Fire)
Lascarbines (24" Strength 3 AP- Rapid Fire)
Mitralocks (8" Strength 3 AP - Assault 2, Shred) - these are the shotgun equivalents

Ironic that the game that's "All Space Marines" has more variants of lasgun than it does bolter, while the game that includes everyone else has more types of bolter than it does lasgun - additionally, army abilities (such as Survivors of the Dark Age) can affect these profiles to make an even wider variety of lasgun, depending on how your homeworld produces them / modifies them to equip its troops (with associated points costs/points bonuses).

I really think the lasgun should be kept "as is" simply because of what it is, IE the garbage of garbage guns. Gaunts ghosts got the special rules because they are a weird one off unit. Guard with lasguns were never meant to be good except in large numbers. Even with hot shots they are still fairly lack luster. If anything they could change orders and the like to reflect this kind of weapon profile instead of a whole new weapon type (as in, FRFSRF is now Rapid Fire 2 for automatic settings, and Take Aim! is now Heavy 1 AP -1, etc, to represent a High power setting. The lasgun is always capable of this, naturally but guard need orders to expend ammunition lest they be....disciplined. You could even give special units like vets the ability to do this on their own if the Sgt is still alive.

The absolute last thing that 40K needs is Bolter Syndrome spreading to other weapons.

Sorry, but we had variant lasguns before variant boltguns.

Boltguns had variable ammunition.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Sorry, but we had variant lasguns before variant boltguns.

Boltguns had variable ammunition.

So...because unnecessary bloat on lasguns predates unnecessary bloat on boltguns that means it's less unnecessary?

I do think the guard need some form of update or balance, and the easiest and simplest way to do that is through modification of Lasgun stats. They have already completely re-done the Hellgun, now called "Hotshot" in an attempt to sound worse. They did it through regiment types. This regiment gets Assault HS las, this regiment gets long ranged(+6" range) HS, this regiment is ALWAYS ap2. It's not hard to say, replace cadian Pew Pew with HS profile, and then make the HS something even stronger.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I do think the guard need some form of update or balance, and the easiest and simplest way to do that is through modification of Lasgun stats. They have already completely re-done the Hellgun, now called "Hotshot" in an attempt to sound worse. They did it through regiment types. This regiment gets Assault HS las, this regiment gets long ranged(+6" range) HS, this regiment is ALWAYS ap2. It's not hard to say, replace cadian Pew Pew with HS profile, and then make the HS something even stronger.

I'd be worried about power creep if you try rebalancing stuff only with buffs like that. If the lasgun is AP-1 what's left that should be AP-? If everything is at least AP-1 are the writers devaluing armour saves?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I do think the guard need some form of update or balance, and the easiest and simplest way to do that is through modification of Lasgun stats. They have already completely re-done the Hellgun, now called "Hotshot" in an attempt to sound worse. They did it through regiment types. This regiment gets Assault HS las, this regiment gets long ranged(+6" range) HS, this regiment is ALWAYS ap2. It's not hard to say, replace cadian Pew Pew with HS profile, and then make the HS something even stronger.

We've been over this hundreds and hundreds of times.

It's time for different types of Infantry Squads to become the norm.
Grenadier Squads--carapace(which should be a 4+ with an extra wound), hellguns, no special deployment methods, extra special issue weapons rather than a heavy weapon.
Light Infantry Squads--Lascarbines, flak vests(5+), infiltration, limited special issue weapons and limited heavy weapon options.
"Line" Infantry Squads--Lasrifles, Flak Armor(4+ save), no special deployments, 1x special, 1x heavy option.
"Conscript" Infantry Squads--Improvised Armor(6+), no special deployments, Autoguns, grenade launcher and heavy stubbers as the only options.

We don't even have to worry about going crazy "balancing" everything. Locking the weapon to the Squad type(and hell, we can even had unique Veteran entries too!) goes a long way.

Also, special/heavy weapons need to be raked over the coals. Same with Sergeant+Officer options.