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Firstly what color are they? In DOW they seem to be red, on book covers they seem to be blue and in some IG artwork even yellow. Secondly what do they fire? is it a beam like in DOW or a kind of 'bolt' like in starwars?

Red light has the highest amount of energy so i say they are red.

Red dots on the target.

There is no definitive answer. I would say they fire a bolt like Blasters(it's what they always mention in any Black Library publication when mention). As to color, Black Library(again) and GW artwork tend to use blue. Dan Abnett seems to make a point in mentioning in Ghost Maker that when Mkoll picks up a Chaos laspistol that his Imperial pistol fires blue bolts and the Chaos pistol fires red.

Perhaps different patterns of lasguns use different coloured beams, according to what materials the laser bit is made of on each forgeworld.

Using Gaunts Ghosts as my first mark the Lasweapons are described or portrayed as red bolts for enemy/heretics and bright blue/white for Imperium. They are also described as thick fat bolts about the size of a grown man's middle finger.
However, in DoW they appear as long thin beams of red light regardless of the side you are on.
Also, Lasweapons have different power settings and different sorts. e.g A Lascannon appears to fire more of a beam than a bolt yet Multi/Pulse Lasers fire lots of large bolts at a high rate of fire.

Basically, as with many things in 40K there are many interpretations and portrayels throughout authors and scenarios.

The OC-D

corpsesarefun wrote:Red light has the highest amount of energy so i say they are red.

Sorry, but violet has the highest amount of energy, while red has the lowest (talking visible light).

In my opinion las weapon shoots however you thinks looks awesome, including colour and type.

DoW portrays them as shooting thin red beams, which I think is just fine and looks better than 'bolts' like the ones that Star Wars blaster weapons fire.

Kouldor wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:Red light has the highest amount of energy so i say they are red.

Sorry, but violet has the highest amount of energy, while red has the lowest (talking visible light).

In my opinion las weapon shoots however you thinks looks awesome, including colour and type.

Oh yeah... duh ultraviolet is the most ionising form of light
whoops

Here's my interpretation:
small-arms lasweapons (-pistols, -guns, longlas, etc.) fire 'bolts' and the las moniker is likely an inaccurate holdover since a true L.A.S.E.R. gun would likely be a concentrated beam focused on a target for a period of time to cause damage, instead of a projectile-like 'snap' of fire. Besides, if they were light-based the ammo would move, well, at the speed of light and be near-impossible to miss with. You'd never have to lead targets, the sights could be calibrated 100%, and your only limiting factor would be the loss of energy as it traveled through atmosphere. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but in all likelihood a laser-based weapon would fire on a non-visible spectrum, and would be held on a target until it melted through

things like the lascannon are just a higher 'calibre', firing massive columns of energy, leaving molten-edged holes in tanks and terminators.

Now, the one I've always wondered about was the multilaser. Noting it's ridiculously high rate of fire (as fast as a heavy stubber, which is basically just an up-gunned .50 cal machinegun), I like to think of it as firing an extended coherent beam of cutting light that it sweeps across the enemy. It's a style you see in anime all too often, though I imagine the multilaser not being quite so over the top; it doesn't create a giant crater in pavement, spraying conrete dust and gravel in all directions as it excavates a road or cuts an entire building in half

I think that Dawn of War got it right. All las weapons are single-shot 'beams'. Multilasers and Hellguns both shoot much faster and have thicker beams to represent their high power.

What Cheese said. though I think the color could vary. It is just a beam of light, so my guess is that they use something to give it the distincive red color. Nothing says that they couldn't thus make a blue, purple, orange, or green version

Strictly speaking the Star Wars blaster functions differently than Las Weapons of the Imperium. Blaster Weapons introduce the Laser energy to a medium, gas, and super charge it creating the bolt effect. Where as Las weapons are simply a Laser.

Agreeing with BrotherStynier i think it's like the DoW bolt but color would vary depending on the forgeworld and materials like somecallmejack said.