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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
...Didn't they give the tanks less armour than WW2 tanks at one point when they tried to delve into specifics?

Yes, they did, back in Imperial Armor 1. IIRC they made it even worse by referencing modern armor standards instead of wibbly-wobbly spacey-wacey magicsteel, though that might've been in a different source (assuming I'm remembering that right in the first place).

I often find it comforting, when faced with questions such as these, to consult my copy of 2nd Edition Wargear book. Regarding the lascannon's anti-tank capabilities, this authoritative tome tells us that "The lascannon is designed to knock out armoured vehicles and in this role it is so effective that it is simply known as the "tank buster", or simply as the "buster."

As for why they are effective anti-armour weapons, the book patiently explains to us that "The laser chamber is larger, the power-build heavier and the shot is a single cannon blast rather than a machine-gun like hail of lower intensity laser blasts."

So there you have it!

Wargear book for the win! Pretty much always

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

BuFFo wrote:The metaphysics of the 40k Universe is different than ours. One is fantasy, the other is reality.

You cannot do a 1 for 1 comparison. Any attempt is based on feelings, not physics, since the 40k Universe has contradictions built into it's metaphysics, of which, there are no contradictions in the real Universe. So whatever you feel happens in 40k, can. It's pure imagination.

The "facts" of the 40k Universe changes as the needs of the company changes, and authors delete/create new fluff.

So if you want Lascannons to not hurt armor, then play a game with 0 AP on your weapons all you want. I'm sure your opponent won't mind.

I can do what I like, lol.

As mentioned above, a fair few 40k weapons try to factor real-life physics into their theoretical operation. So... some fantasy, some reality. And while imaginative, a lot of that imagination is grounded in real-life physical laws. Try not to think of things in such absolutes.

Besides, even a "fantasy" universe can (and should) have internal logic.

Good thing you don't have anything to disagree with me about then.

You can use your imagination in a fantasy setting all you want.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Lascannons are effective? Aren't they still single shot, D6 damage? Or did they all get the Cognis Lascannon change?

Correct. Lascannons and Missile Launchers are very bad right now. Autocannons are worse than Heavy Bolters, and with Armour of Contempt, Heavy Bolters are worthless again. Now the only good heavy weapons are Plasma Cannons and Multi-Melta.

Personally, I'd give all Lascannons and Missile Launchers (as well as equivalents) D6 damage minimum 3. That way Cognis Lascannons can still be better, but the regular AT weapons aren't so trash.

All the people saying there shouldn't be realism, do you mean that the world shouldn't use our real world logic, or that it doesn't have to follow its own in world logic? I can understand the first, and agree. But if you mean the second, I strongly disagree. Even Warp Shittery has limits. Even Ork Waagh power has limits.

I always had more realism problems with imperial projectile weapons... where does the Leman Russ Punisher store all that ammunition to not run out in seconds? Where do Marines for their bolters, when they seem to have thousands of shots in the lore? Has a Autocannon Sentinel just the shots in that small drum before the pilot has to stop, get out and change drums? How many parts has a Leman Russ battlecanon shell that a human loader is capable of lifting it into the turret and ram it in the breach of what looks like a 30+ cm caliber gun?

I mean if you are going by game stats consider that the effective range of las weapons is tiny. Like, absurdly short range. Maybe it's simply that outside of that range the weapon still deals damage, but not anything of note.

It makes sense if you don't think about it!


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 Pyroalchi wrote:
I always had more realism problems with imperial projectile weapons... where does the Leman Russ Punisher store all that ammunition to not run out in seconds? Where do Marines for their bolters, when they seem to have thousands of shots in the lore? Has a Autocannon Sentinel just the shots in that small drum before the pilot has to stop, get out and change drums? How many parts has a Leman Russ battlecanon shell that a human loader is capable of lifting it into the turret and ram it in the breach of what looks like a 30+ cm caliber gun?

I still have that issue, though it was somewhat alleviated by the realization that attacks made is an approximation of offense, not a literal measure of shots/swings. It isn't like every marine lines up and makes exactly three swings of the chain sword, no more no less.

Games are an abstraction. If you want to play with realistic ranges you are playing epic scale. If you want to have weapon range as a limitation in 28/32mm scale then you are either playing zone mortalis style so there are no sight lines, or accepting that weapon ranges look a bit janky.

Ultimately, the whole package of rof. Strength, toughness, armour, line of sight, range and cover smoosh together to determine if unit a is successful in causing unit b to be combat ineffective, give them a significant emotional event, or leave them largely unharmed.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
All the people saying there shouldn't be realism, do you mean that the world shouldn't use our real world logic, or that it doesn't have to follow its own in world logic? I can understand the first, and agree. But if you mean the second, I strongly disagree. Even Warp Shittery has limits. Even Ork Waagh power has limits.

It should be internally consistent, yes. The thing is, it's rare to see any actual stats or information going too deeply into real-world analogues or genuine mechanisms for anything in 40k (wisely so). That's why it's enough to simply know that Imperial laser technology is sufficiently advanced that they can make a man-portable laser cannon capable of killing tanks. The mechanism isn't that important.

Remember in Empire strikes Back, when the one guy on hoth shoots his radar dish looking Laser, which is twice the size of the planes buzzing around, at one of the AT ATs? And it basically does nothing? But then later, one of the planes shoots it's much smaller lasers at the face of the AT AT, and it explodes like Hiroshima? That's 40k Lascannons. They can do zilch or a hell of a lot. But it's all based on the RNG of a d6 system.

Jarms48 wrote:
Now the only good heavy weapons are Plasma Cannons and Multi-Melta.

I was going to quibble about that because the Plasma Cannon is hot garbage compared to the Grav Cannon, but not everyone has access to that. Basically what heavy weapons are valuable depends on what you have access to and what your special rules are.

I think the Lascannon still has a place due to it's range. I know what conventional wisdom says about board sizes and contesting the midfield, but being able to soften up backfield objective campers and/or counter-charge units with your own backfield objective campers has value, and AoC raises the value of that Ap 3 even with just the one shot.

I also think Heavy Flamers have value for the armies that can actually take them.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
Also the wikis mention hellguns/hotshots having longer range than regular lasguns, so beats me why they decided to strip 6" off them. A 6" pistol?... IMO they should go up 6" in range regardless of any other changes.

I'm fairly certain GW are likely to buff lasgun range to 30 inch, then remove the 18 inch RF doctrines and replace them with something else. Then they'll buff hotshot lasguns to 24 inch and hotshot laspistols to 12 inch.

My headcanon is that las weapons are not pure lasers but laser-coupled particle accelerators. As such, even the simple lasgun can do some very nasty things provided the firer can place the needle-thin beam right on target. A hit from a lasgun compares to a hit from a 5.56 like a 5.56 compares to a gentle poke. A lascannon shot probably carries enough energy to power a small city, and the radiation blast it generates on impact literally cooks the crew of the vehicle. Oh, and that huge muzzle on the gun is the backscatter suppressor so that firing the weapon doesn't cook the wielder too.