The forgotten weapons.

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**Breton**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Wasn’t entirely sure if this belonged in General or Background. If I’ve placed it wrong, I’ll know where to find it

Anyways. 40K is rushing headlong into being 40 years old. In fact that’s next year, 2027.

And over the years, not all weapons have continued to be a thing on the tabletop. I felt that might make an entertaining thread. I’ll kick us off with some.

Harpoon Missile

A Titan Grade support weapon, intended for use against opposing Titans. Whilst it would of course cause some damage to the superstructure, its real trick was allowing control of the target Titan to be overridden until the Titan was destroyed, or the warhead was dislodged.

Warp Missiles

At least, I don’t think they come up much. Again, a Titan Grade support weapon, with a miniaturised warp engine onboard. This allowed the missile to skip in and out of reality, bypassing any kind of shielding, and ideally appearing inside the target for its grand finale. Not terribly accurate of course, but an absolute menace. Not to be confused with the Vortex Missile.

Eldar Psychic Lance

Gosh, there’s a theme occurring, because it’s yet another Titan Grade weapon, a unique to the Warlock PSI-Titan. Essentially a scaled up, souped up Neurodisruptor Pistol. Used against a vehicle crew? It would wipe their minds, leaving them as drooling mindless shells. Against an enemy Titan that makes use of Mind Impulse Units it could be catastrophic, burning their brains out entirely. And oddly, I don’t think we’ve seen that technology replicated in any size other than Pistol and Titan Grade. That feels like a very real oversight, and a niche for a terrifying Aspect Temple.

Right, that’s some low hanging fruit out there way, anyone else got any to add?

The Thudd Gun. It had its own template. And something like 4 rolls of a D12 or something.

**Andykp**

Is this thread really showing us that apart from specific grenade types, and the load of dark ELDAR stuff that has been gutted, most weapons still exist if not renamed slightly or not as interesting or complicated as they used to be? Even the thud gun above is represented in the new guard artillery pieces, witch blades still exist, the ork guns except the hop splat all are still in game if not renamed a bit, the pulse rocket is back in the tank bustas squad.

In 40K they have been tapping into nostalgia massively last few years so all the stuff I loved from 1st or 2nd edition is knocking about now but as characterful as it was, even grenade names are making a come back as special rules or strats.

**Charax**

well a lot of powerful single-use effects like Vortex grenades or Orbital Bombardments are more suited to being stratagems than one-shot weapons, and situational non-damaging grenades like Antiplant and Tanglefoot work better as rules than as weapons too so I'm not surprised a bunch got carried over.

In the same vein, I miss the attacker/defender armouries from Cityfight, a great opportunity to model up urban warfare specialists

**Karol**

Thunder hammers, falchions, halbards, psykout grenades, digital weapons, scarab shackles , storm shields. And if those count as "weapons" psychic powers.

**Ashiraya**

Breton wrote:

The Thudd Gun. It had its own template. And something like 4 rolls of a D12 or something.

The Thudd Gun is living a comfortable life over in its retirement home in Horus Heresy, at least.

**kirotheavenger**

Tau Ethereals used to be equipped with their 'symbols of office' that counted as paired close combat weapons, with the option to replace those with an Honour Blade.

Nowadays Ethereals are simply armed with an Honour Blade and any mention of their prior 'symbols of office' has simply gone.

**Pariah Press**

Back in 3rd edition an inquisitor could take a power stake, which was like a power weapon but wounded psykers on a 2+ as it burst into flame.

**Adamantium Dodecahedron**

Related to that, was not there a combi bolter-crossbow? Is it still a thing now?

**Wyldhunt**

Adamantium Dodecahedron wrote:
Related to that, was not there a combi bolter-crossbow? Is it still a thing now?

I believe that's the condemnor boltgun which is actually more available than ever(?) on sisters units.

**Tyel**

The fact the Harlequin Kiss has its own damage table on vehicles in 2nd edition, and now functionally just doesn't exist is a bit wild.

Not sure "Harlequin special weapon" profile is really cutting the mustard.

**Luke82**

Is the Graviton Gun still around? Nothing like having your Hive Tyrant pinned to the spot for the entire game by a crazed, jump pack-ing Squat Engineer with one of those bad boys.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Yes. After a fashion. Marines have a spangly new variant. The tracked Servitors have Grav Torsion Cannons, there’s a rogue Tech Priest model in Necromunda who’s back mounted homonculus has a Grav Gun.

**kirotheavenger**

Gravguns ( and cannons, et al) are also fairly standard fare in the Horus Heresy

**Daba**

Ashiraya wrote:
Heavy plasma gun was renamed to plasma cannon afaik.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plasma_cannon

Does this mean the Plasma Cannon is the forgotten weapon?

Originally, it was a higher category weapon like the Defence Laser and Marco Cannon.

**kirotheavenger**

Daba wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Heavy plasma gun was renamed to plasma cannon afaik.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Plasma_cannon

Does this mean the Plasma Cannon is the forgotten weapon?

Originally, it was a higher category weapon like the Defence Laser and Marco Cannon.

Plasmas of that size still exist, such as the Sunfury Plasma Annihilator or Plasma Obliterator or similar.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Interestingly, there’s no Reaver Titan Sized Plasma weapon.

Warhound? Yes.

Warlord? Yes.

Warmonger? Yes.

But nothing Reaver sized.

**kirotheavenger**

There's quite a lot of weapons that skip titan scales

There's not warhound scale heavy-ballistic weapon for example.
Most of the newer forgeworld weapons like the conversion beam, graviton, and volkite, all skip the reaver scale

No reaver plasma weapon is definitely the biggest gap though, given how ubiquitious and iconic plasma is

**A.T.**

Photon flashlights - 2nd edition terminators answer to banshee masks

**Adamantium Dodecahedron**

Wyldhunt wrote:
Adamantium Dodecahedron wrote:
Related to that, was not there a combi bolter-crossbow? Is it still a thing now?

I believe that's the condemnor boltgun which is actually more available than ever(?) on sisters units.

That is the one! I am fully aware of the Bolter-with-crossbow the Canoness can have, but for some reason my brain completely skipped over it.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Interestingly, there’s no Reaver Titan Sized Plasma weapon.

That is a very strange gap.

**Dysartes**

Do the weapons on the Imperator count as forgotten? Or the ones on the original Warmonger (another Emperor-class Titan, as opposed to the smaller one we have today)?

**Ashiraya**

Dysartes wrote:
Do the weapons on the Imperator count as forgotten? Or the ones on the original Warmonger (another Emperor-class Titan, as opposed to the smaller one we have today)?

Only if they feature without them. The Titans still exist and appear from time to time, so I don't think they have had the chance to be forgotten, per se.

**A.T.**

Adamantium Dodecahedron wrote:
That is a very strange gap.

It goes all the way back to the epic/titanicus era.

It wasn't so much that the reavers were missing a weapon, rather that only the warlords had a reactor capable of supplying the large plasma weapons and anything smaller (reaver/warhound/superheavy tanks) mounted the blastgun.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Hold on! Not sure that’s entirely accurate!

2nd Ed Space Marine had three Titan Grade Plasma Weapons. And I’ll preface that I’m not necessarily getting the names right.

But? Plasma Blastgun for Warhounds. Plasma Cannon limited to Carapace Mount for Reavers, and Heavy Plasma Cannon (Maybe Plasma Destructor?) for Warlords.

Titan Legions introduced the Imperator class Emperor Titan and its….i want to say Plasma Annihilator?

In modern epic scale? We’ve no Imperator for now so let’s put that in its own box labelled “maybe”. But Plasma Blastgun absolutely exists. And can be a Carapace mount for a Reaver. And the big Warlord Plasma is now the Annihilator.

Sod it. Had some beers and can’t be arsed to go review my historical rulebooks. But I’ll be back with more definite terms!

**Flinty**

Reavers could use the Destructor and the biggie was the Executioner IIRC

**Charax**

In Titan Legions the Reaver explicitly could not mount a Plasma Destructor because its reactor couldn't handle it.

It could manage 3 plasma blastguns though

**kirotheavenger**

Interestingly Reavers can't mount a plasma blastgun anywhere in Titanicus now (despite being able to mount most other WH weapons on their carapace)

Which is a shame because, due to GW balancing, the plasma blastgun is probably better than most guns it *can* mount, including the arms

Also interesting to hear the lore about the plasma weapons overstressing the reactors. They don't reallt stress the reactors these days (unless overloaded for more firepower), it's volcano cannons that usually do that.

**kaotkbliss**

Are hand flamers still a thing?

**Ashiraya**

Absolutely yes. They're very plentiful in 30k and Necromunda, Sororitas use them in 40k, Primaris have them aplenty. You get them in the jump pack intercessor box for example.

**kaotkbliss**

Ashiraya wrote:
Absolutely yes. They're very plentiful in 30k and Necromunda, Sororitas use them in 40k, Primaris have them aplenty. You get them in the jump pack intercessor box for example.

Cool. I wasn't sure what was left after they simplified everything from 2nd ed.

**OldeSword**

Luke82 wrote:
Is the Graviton Gun still around? Nothing like having your Hive Tyrant pinned to the spot for the entire game by a crazed, jump pack-ing Squat Engineer with one of those bad boys.

Graviton made a comeback with the Leagues of Votann. Brokhyr Thunderkin can take graviton blast cannons, and their leader, the Brokhyr Iron-master, has a graviton rifle. No neat pinning hijinks though. They get Anti-Vehicle 3+ and Anti-Monster 3+

And there's this weird beserk character, Berehk Stornbrow, who has "graviton strikes," but his weapon doesn't look like a graviton weapon at all and it'd be better to match it with the concussion mauls of the regular beserks. I'm going to have to do work fixing his miniature if I ever get around to it.