Return of the Plasmagun?

[Jackelope King]

The original topic was actually regarding an increase in plasma being taken to mitigate the increase in armies that get FNP now.

And I pointed out that we already have solutions to this problem with Autocannons and Missile Launchers, which we can spam pretty cheaply and which have a superior range to cut up the various types of units with FNP out there :)

[BearersOfSalvation]

A unit arriving by deepstrike must land in a B2B spiraled cluster. If they do not shoot, they can Run to spread, but that's about it.

 

Units arriving by drop pods do not have to land in a B2B spiraled cluster - the drop pod strikes, then the squad disembarks from that, so they can get quite a bit of spread, and assault units don't have any reason to shoot. The only thing I can think of that would deep strike and fire weapons and not be in a drop pod in a marine list would be a regular terminator squad, anyone else either comes down in a pod or spends their shooting phase spreading out.

 

A 10-man squad dumped out of a Rhino doesn't have all that much space to deploy into. 2" is nice and all, but with 10 men to plonk down, you're getting 3-4 hits with a smack-on blast template, easy. Even easier if you exploded the vehicle and are restricted to staying inside the resultant crater area.

 

A 10-man squad has a ton of space to deploy from a rhino, I just grabbed 10 guys and one of my old rhinos, it's easy for form a C around it with 8 guys, then fit the 2 leftovers close to the rhino inside. remember they're not limited to one access point, and 'within 2"' just means that part of the base needs to be within 2", not all of it (look at the diagram on disembarking, it shows it). You can easily deploy in such a way that a template can't hit more than 2 guys, and and if the plasma cannon can't see over the rhino, you can put clustered guys out of LOS where they can't be targetted and leave everyone visible just barely within coherency for 1 shot-1 hit fun. I don't know if it's standard, but local ruling is that as broken terrain crater gives a 5+ cover save to models, so while you get more hits you also have to deal with saves.

 

That's the problem I have with the plasma cannon, unless your opponent obliges you by bunching up out of cover, you only get 1-2 hits per shot, which I don't find impressive. I'd take 1-2 to force my opponent to spread out, but most of the time I bring my vindicators which scare people even more.

[Brother Evar]

I like mixing up my plasma with melta to make sure I am not caught out if the unit is stranded. So a tac squad would have a multi melta, plasma gun and combi melta sarge, plasma cannon and melta gun, heavy bolter, plasma gun + combi melta sarge. I also use x4 MM attack bikes and these do wonders, along with a Iron clad/ furissio dread. My list is DP/ DS list and the close in melta/ plasma makes a difference and gives mech a hard time as all my units are capable of taking down vechicles, no matter where they are.

 

Summery-

 

Plasma mixed with melta works, pure melta would in a vulkan build and flamers would replace plasma, pure plasma would not as melta in this edition is prime against any vechicle (bar ones like monolith or stormraven). I can't do the math hammer but I think a vulkan build with flamers may do better against FNP possibly? IMO for FNP melta and plasma in tandem work for anti FNP and anti armour. Its like the PF- its mixed up with some PW's and thunder hammers this edition as pure fists more pricy + work better with a combi weapon. I never took PW in my lists, but did so to free up pts for combi's for fist units as fist and BP useless, x2 fists only on HQ and a waste of good In value.

[Xeonic]

On that, assuming my fast maths aren't wrong, and assuming a pretty good flamer hit of 4:

Flamer with Vulkan rerolls= 4 hits, 3 wounds, .5 unsaved wounds due to feel no pain and 3+ sv.

Plasmagun Rapidfire= 1.11 unsaveable wounds.

Vulkan Meltagun= 0.74 wounds.

 

I don't use meltas in my tac squads at all generally. Single meltas always fail me, so I look elsewhere for my melta goodness. Single plasma guns on the other hand kill marines-->termies well and mesh best with heavy weapons, and since I like to take two squads with plasma cannon, plasma guns are the logical weapon to tandem them with.

In addition plasma is pretty useful against lighter armor as long as you've got AV14 covered elsewhere, and can deal some damage to some MCs pretty easy.

My chaos marines though rarely pack any plasma at all except on Oblits, preferring the melta and flamers.

[minigun762]

My chaos marines though rarely pack any plasma at all except on Oblits, preferring the melta and flamers.

 

Try tossing a 2x Plasma CSM or PM squad in there occasionally, I find that they work out pretty well. It gives the CSMs a different feel, more of a rapid fire squad instead of an assault squad with Bolters.

[Xeonic]

I may at that, plasma does do wonders against certain targets, I just assumed it would compare unfavorably against my(cheaper) loyalist plasma cannon/gun combo, which I normally run two squads of in most lists with my Ultras. I did model up a couple chaos marine plasmagunners though... Plus I also sometimes run a quad-plas command squad and that's about as much rapidfire plasma-ey goodness as any one person could want. :P

I play chaos marines as well because for all similarities, the playstyle contrasts nicely and tacticals are already rapidfiring machines.

 

I run pure CSM normally, but If I were running plague marines I'd have the third unit with plasmaguns instead for sure, feel no pain saves vs plasma rapidfires plus defensive grenades sounds groovy. I've been considering building a unit of "counts-as" plague marines for awhile though, to act as a retinue of sorts for my Warsmith.