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So, playing gaurd regular gaurd the cheap dudes with lasguns sucks.
"I throw 300 dice"
5 minutes later
"ha, got one" (a marine falls to the ground)
Gosh, every order I issue is frfsrf, every grenade launcher is a wasted slot (cause frfsrf can put out 4 of the 6 shots for free), every flamer is a stupid choice (wow, d6 hits but the frfsrf costs less and shoots near as much).

Autoguns are absolutely stupid, becuase nobody gonna use em at all, eh?

So.
Let lasguns be an actually almost good weapon. Assault 1, s3/-1/2. Get rid of the frfsrf command entirely, scrap it, and replace it with "bunker down" (a command that allows any gaurd infantry that didn't assault, charge, or fall back to be eligible for overwatch without the strategem. The strategem, if used, would permit the overwatching gaurd infantry to hit on a 5+ rather than 6+, if you stacked the strat with the order.

Now greande launchers' frag mode is useful to gaurd again, flamers have a purpose that is better than just saying "and the lasguns fire" ... and gaurd lasguns sort of don't suck so bad to use. They might just as rarely affect marines, and be less useful against hordes, and be less able to bring things down by weight of fire, but the combination of a little ap and extra damage would make them a logical weapon for the empire to mass produce after all, and you can roll 9 dice in a heartbeat and move on to the next unit without wasting the world of time...

Autoguns would be an option gaurd might actually take -- suddenly 18 autogun shots and a laspistol (oh! my laspistol got lucky and I did TWO wounds, aren't sargents GREAT?) would have a different feel from a gaurd unit firing its 9 lasguns and 1 laspistol at the enemy about to charge. Ditto on overwatch. But the 18 shots of lasgun with less ap would, statistically, do less to marines than lasguns would, so it becomes an optimizing choice.

And the diceroll nightmare that is runnning gaurd? Or watching them roll for 18 infantry units while your aggressors nap furtively and wait for turn 2? Gone.

I know its not making gaurd BETTER, per se. and I know that most people would probably play their gaurd with lasguns anyway, but it would sure potentially speed up a game where gaurd feels like all it can do is hold objectives and why bother with the dice?

That statine is WAY too good. Every reference to the lasgun in lore has it as a cheap, easy to manufacture weapon that anyone can use with the bare minimal of training. The lasgun is fine where it is, it's meant to be a weapon where weight of fire is what causes the damage. If you actually think that guard are supposed to be shooting marines dead, then you're in the wrong mindset. Guard fill force organisation slots, sit on objectives and occasional pick up a kill when they shoot, unless you're shooting something that isn't just a MEQ in which case they might actually score something. a Guardsmen would have to be about 10pts to make what you're trying to implement even anywhere near fair, at which point they just sink into obscurity again.

With that stateline guardsmen should be like 12-15ppm though. They already deserve to be 7-8ppm.

Marines aren't the appropriate targets of lasguns, especially those ones that have 2+ wounds. Against orks, aeldari, tyranids, etc current S3 ap- lasguns DO a lot of damage for their cost.

If you want to kill aggressors or other tanky stuff AM is plenty of options. First role of humble guardsmen is to sit on objectives and screen shooty units, not to kill stuff from distance. And they're extremely good for their role at the moment.

The plasmagun and heavy weapon are there to do the heavy lifting, not the lasguns.

The lasguns are just there to soak wounds and fill space. GL and Flamers *are* traps, in most cases.

They’re either cheap space filler to block enemy movement, or wound markers for more expensive upgrades. Just the nature of the beast.

Not a fan of lasguns having the same AP and damage as a heavy bolter. O_o

It sounds like some of your frustration with lasguns comes from FRFSRF causing you to simply roll too many dice. Would it speed things up to simply make FRFSRF grant an extra hit on a hit roll of 6+ instead of its current effect? You'd technically be adding a step to the process (counting up 6s and grabbing more dice), but you wouldn't have to physically collect as many dice in the first place.

Alternatively, I pitched a "combined fire" rule a while back where you basically traded 6 hits for 1 automatic wound. The idea being that, rather than fishing for 6s against Toughness 6 and higher, you could just take the statistical average. You could probably do the same against targets of any toughness as long as there isn't some sort of reroll buff involved.

That's not a bad idea.
I suppose I have been spoiled by my lambda scions (whose troop choice lasguns ARE ap-3) so that ap-1 doesn't strike me as impressive at all, any more, and ap zero only slightly less so.

Tbf, mass Lasguns can be surprisingly effective when the right combos are used, such as FRFSRF, Vengeance for Cadia, etc. They're not meant to be OP, they're cheap, expendable weapons serving as shields for the Melta and Plasma within.

@ Wildhunt:

Would it speed things up to simply make FRFSRF grant an extra hit on a hit roll of 6+ instead of its current effect?

While that would reduce the number of dice rolled it would also significantly decrease the firepower of guardsmen.
Normal FRFSRF of 10 lasguns: 20 shots, 10 hits at 12-24'', 40 shots, 20 hits <12''
Extra hit on 6+: 10 shots, 6.66 hits at 12-24'', 20 shots, 13.33 hits <12''

A less diceroll intensive way of doing it would be:
"FRFSRF: every successful hit roll causes 2 hits"
which would mean: 10 shots rolled, 10 hits at 12-24'', 20 shots rolled, 20 hits <12'' just as before.

One could even go one step further and Reform rapid fire:
"Rapid fire: every successful hit roll within half range causes two hits.
FRFSRF: every successful hit roll causes 2 hits, within half range even 4 hits"
Again: on average (!) it would come down to the same number of hits as of now, but each lasgun would only roll once, no matter the order or distance.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Not a fan of lasguns having the same AP and damage as a heavy bolter. O_o

It sounds like some of your frustration with lasguns comes from FRFSRF causing you to simply roll too many dice. Would it speed things up to simply make FRFSRF grant an extra hit on a hit roll of 6+ instead of its current effect? You'd technically be adding a step to the process (counting up 6s and grabbing more dice), but you wouldn't have to physically collect as many dice in the first place.

Alternatively, I pitched a "combined fire" rule a while back where you basically traded 6 hits for 1 automatic wound. The idea being that, rather than fishing for 6s against Toughness 6 and higher, you could just take the statistical average. You could probably do the same against targets of any toughness as long as there isn't some sort of reroll buff involved.

Yeah, it sounds like most of OP's problems are broken orders and the fact that he should play Scions instead of normal guard.

My fix to FRFSRF is to bring it back to it's 7th edition rule, where you get +1 attack to your lasguns, so 2 shots at 12-24 in. and 3 shots at <12 in. It's a nerf to guard though, and I don't know if they need that right now. Pyroalchi's low dice roll rule might be better, each hit scores 2 hits instead of 1.

MMM also needs fixing. It should give an additional d6 in. of movement instead of a full move cycle. Note that this is not an advance, so guardsmen could get a sudo 3d6 charge with this order.

As far as an overwatch order goes, it would be too much to remember over the entire turn it would take for that order to be relevant.

Perhaps a rule called "statistically gaurdsmen" .. if you have more than 100 individual lasguns in an army at the start of the game, you are allowed to abstract all the rolls for bs4+ lasgun or frag grenade shooting into.
1/2 the shots hit, 1/2 miss.
-1 to hit adds 1/3 the shots as misses.
+1 to hit subtracts 1/3 the shots as hits.
round down the final number.

It would essentially change nothing about the game except remove the first 400 to 500 dice per turn that I have to throw when I bring the gaurdey hordey army out on the table -- thus keeping a game that's playable in one session and less of a work like grind for both opponents.

Duke, repeat after me - Guard, not Gaurd. Guardsman, not Gaurdsman.

I mean, if you play the faction, at least get the basics right.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Perhaps a rule called "statistically gaurdsmen" .. if you have more than 100 individual lasguns in an army at the start of the game, you are allowed to abstract all the rolls for bs4+ lasgun or frag grenade shooting into.
1/2 the shots hit, 1/2 miss.
-1 to hit adds 1/3 the shots as misses.
+1 to hit subtracts 1/3 the shots as hits.
round down the final number.

It would essentially change nothing about the game except remove the first 400 to 500 dice per turn that I have to throw when I bring the gaurdey hordey army out on the table -- thus keeping a game that's playable in one session and less of a work like grind for both opponents.

I mean depending on the opponents you play, you can just use a dice or probability app like they use in vassal if you're really that opposed to rolling that many dice. These rules just seem like you made them because you're too lazy to roll for them. This is coming from an orks player btw, so I know about volume of dice.