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It's always bothered me that the only weapons with a low AP (I think there's an excpetion in the Eldar codex, but I don't have one) are ones with high strength.  I understand the reasoning: weapons that can blast a tank to bits are going to make short work of armor worn by infantry.  What I want to know is: why can't they make weapons, like monofilament sniper rounds or something, that can't touch a tank but will pierce any armor.  I think it works from both a fluff and a gameplay perspective.  Fluffwise, you have a gun which will cut right through power armor, but unless you hit a vital organ doesn't do anything.  For gameplay, you need 5+ to wound but then he can't make an armor save.

I'm kind of rambling, as this is an idea I've had for a while.  It first came up when I read the entry for sniper rifles and saw that they were only AP6.  It didn't make any sense to me fluffwise, and then I started thinking how interesting it would be to have S3 AP3, or S2 AP2, stuff like that.  Anyway, tell me what you guys think.

The biggest problem with something like that is that they're not anti-heavy infantry, which is what I assume you're going for; they're just anti-infantry in general.

S2 AP2 kills twice as many Guardsmen as it does Marines, while S3 AP3 takes down one and a half times as many Guardsmen. How do you price something like that? If the gun is any good at taking down Marines, it'll slaughter lighter infantry.

The best strengths for an anti-Marine gun are S5 and S6, with one being better against light infantry and one better against vehicles. Your kill numbers against Marines and Guard are almost identical, which is the best you can hope for, and you don't have that much punch against vehicles.

That said, there's no problem with it if you're looking to make an anti-Guard gun that's not as horrible against Marines as others. An S2 AP2 gun with the same stopping power as the Heavy Bolter against Guardsmen kills almost twice as many Marines as the HB.

As far as fluff goes, I'm not sure it works for anything beyond Sniper Rifles. When you start talking about 3+ and 2+ saves, you're talking about vehicle-class armor. Terminator armor is called Tactical Dreadnought Armor for a reason. If your gun penetrates armor that easily, it'll work just as well against a vehicle.

In general, it?s not a bad idea. However simply inserting such a weapon into the existing 40k system probably wouldn't be such a good idea, but it would work as a general rebalancing idea (like in a new codex).

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The bigger factor that could come into play there would be rate of fire. Sure a S4 AP2 weapon would kill more T3 models than T4 models regardless of armor, but if you consider options like a Assault2 S4 AP5 weapon or a Assault1 S4 AP2 weapon, you will find that they each have their role. The first kills (assuming no misses, which comes out as a wash with reduced numbers across the same BS) ~1.33 guard per round but only ~.33 marines while the second kills ~.6 guard and .5 marines. So the first is obviously better against light infantry while the second excels at heavy infantry killing. You should also consider the relative value of your targets. The guardsman is only 5 or 6 points while the marine is 15. So for each marine you kill, you have to kill 3 guardsmen to get your money's worth. I think balance is more likely to be achieved by trading shots for ap rather than strength, but you can be the judge.

Neutron Blaster. Made specifically to kill marines.

But they can't use it with anything but vespid and a firefight between marines and vespid results in a lot of dead vespid and a few dead marines...

They aren't going to introduce weapons capable of cutting down marines but not vehicles in anything but rare and fragile units. Doing otherwise will ruin their moneymakers. Sad, but true.

Have you looked at the rules for the eldar ranger sniper rifles.
4+ to wounds.
Roll a 6 to hit and it's ap1.