Question about Gest Hot! Rule and Plasma Cannons

[Pudelhund]

Haven't played 40k before, so I'm trying to gauge just how risky it is to run plasma cannons.

 

There is a shooting phase where each plasma cannon roles to hit.  With BS3, this hits on a 4, 5, or 6.  On a roll of a 1, the Gets Hot! rule comes into effect.  On a further roll of 1, 2, or 3, the Gets Hot! is glancing and on 4, 5, or 6, the Gets Hot! rule is penetrating, correct?  The last sentence of the rule (P164) states a vehicle suffers a glancing hit on a 1, 2, or 3, but it doesn't say anything about what happens on a 4, 5, or 6.  I sort of just assumed it would be penetrating hits for the higher values.

 

Lastly, for the Executioner plasma cannon, if you roll 3 roll-to-hit dice and have a Gets Hot! result on one of the dice, do you have to re-roll all of them if you have a re-roll effect (like when paired with Pask and Preferred Enemies) or do you just re-roll the one that resulted in a 1?

 

Thanks in advance,

Pudelhund

[CyderPirate]

You've missed the important bit; Plasma Cannon's don't roll to hit. They're blast weapons, so they use a little template and scatter.

 

Get's Hot! for them is really simple.

Before you place/scatter your template, roll a die for each shot (normally 1 per plasma cannon, but executioner cannons fire 3 times so require 3 rolls).

On a roll of 1, the weapon gets hot. Any other roll and the weapon fires as normal.

If the weapon gets hot, roll another D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the vehicle takes a glancing hit, on a 4,5,6 the vehicle is unharmed.

[Pudelhund]

You've missed the important bit; Plasma Cannon's don't roll to hit. They're blast weapons, so they use a little template and scatter.

 

Get's Hot! for them is really simple.

Before you place/scatter your template, roll a die for each shot (normally 1 per plasma cannon, but executioner cannons fire 3 times so require 3 rolls).

On a roll of 1, the weapon gets hot. Any other roll and the weapon fires as normal.

If the weapon gets hot, roll another D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the vehicle takes a glancing hit, on a 4,5,6 the vehicle is unharmed.

 

Wow so that's not bad at all.  Why do people make such a big deal out of the dangers of Gets Hot! if each plasma cannon only has a 1/12 chance per shot of suffering only a glancing hit? 

[WarriorFish]

Cyder nails it. Don't forget that re-rolls to hits also work on this Gets Hot roll should you roll a 1 :tu:

[CoffeeGrunt]

 

You've missed the important bit; Plasma Cannon's don't roll to hit. They're blast weapons, so they use a little template and scatter.

 

Get's Hot! for them is really simple.

Before you place/scatter your template, roll a die for each shot (normally 1 per plasma cannon, but executioner cannons fire 3 times so require 3 rolls).

On a roll of 1, the weapon gets hot. Any other roll and the weapon fires as normal.

If the weapon gets hot, roll another D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the vehicle takes a glancing hit, on a 4,5,6 the vehicle is unharmed.

 

Wow so that's not bad at all.  Why do people make such a big deal out of the dangers of Gets Hot! if each plasma cannon only has a 1/12 chance per shot of suffering only a glancing hit? 

 

 

An Executioner can be rolling 5 of those dice per turn, so it really adds risk to a vehicle on, say, 1 or 2 hull points.

[GreyCrow]

Cyder nails it. Don't forget that re-rolls to hits also work on this Gets Hot roll should you roll a 1

I don't think so, I think that the rerolls to hit only affect the scatter dice and the distance dice. At least that's how the 7th Ed french rulebook describes it.

[Pudelhund]

Cyder nails it. Don't forget that re-rolls to hits also work on this Gets Hot roll should you roll a 1

I don't think so, I think that the rerolls to hit only affect the scatter dice and the distance dice. At least that's how the 7th Ed french rulebook describes it.

The English rulebook specifically states that you can re-roll the Gets Hot! result even if the weapon firing it doesn't roll to hit.

[WarriorFish]

Page 164 in the rule book has the rules for Gets Hot, the last paragraph of the descriptions says that you may re-roll Gets Hot results for weapons that do not roll to hit

[GreyCrow]

Thanks guys, the French translation isn't as clear on that !

[WarriorFish]

The perils of translation!

[Centurio]

Try Pask with 2 executioner wingmen .... So they will have preferred enemy to reroll 1s

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

That's actually good to know. I love plasma, not really that much on my tanks, but my sentinels yes, and in my infantry units absolutely. It gives me a decently ranged option for dealing with 2+ armor saves, and is decent at killing light vehicles, and lets me do so at greater range. Plasma is a bit of a gamble, but the odds are in your favor.

[Toxichobbit]

 

You've missed the important bit; Plasma Cannon's don't roll to hit. They're blast weapons, so they use a little template and scatter.

 

Get's Hot! for them is really simple.

Before you place/scatter your template, roll a die for each shot (normally 1 per plasma cannon, but executioner cannons fire 3 times so require 3 rolls).

On a roll of 1, the weapon gets hot. Any other roll and the weapon fires as normal.

If the weapon gets hot, roll another D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the vehicle takes a glancing hit, on a 4,5,6 the vehicle is unharmed.

 

Wow so that's not bad at all.  Why do people make such a big deal out of the dangers of Gets Hot! if each plasma cannon only has a 1/12 chance per shot of suffering only a glancing hit? 

 

 

Possibly something to do with the sheer idiocy of the vehicle design. A fully plasma equipped Annihilator will, on average, destroy itself  without any help from the enemy over the course of a game. An Annihilator with just the main gun should last a game, if the enemy ignores it. Otherwise even one glancing hit from the enemy can mean that it will self destruct before the game ends.

 

Or, in background terms, they're one shot weapons. They overheat and slag themselves in the first battle they're deployed in if they don't stop firing partway through the engagement and trundle off to be repaired.

 

Either way you look at it, the Mechanicus needs to seriously put some R&D time into vehicle mounted plasma cooling systems.

[Pudelhund]

 

 

You've missed the important bit; Plasma Cannon's don't roll to hit. They're blast weapons, so they use a little template and scatter.

 

Get's Hot! for them is really simple.

Before you place/scatter your template, roll a die for each shot (normally 1 per plasma cannon, but executioner cannons fire 3 times so require 3 rolls).

On a roll of 1, the weapon gets hot. Any other roll and the weapon fires as normal.

If the weapon gets hot, roll another D6. On a 1,2 or 3 the vehicle takes a glancing hit, on a 4,5,6 the vehicle is unharmed.

 

Wow so that's not bad at all.  Why do people make such a big deal out of the dangers of Gets Hot! if each plasma cannon only has a 1/12 chance per shot of suffering only a glancing hit? 

 

 

Possibly something to do with the sheer idiocy of the vehicle design. A fully plasma equipped Annihilator will, on average, destroy itself  without any help from the enemy over the course of a game. An Annihilator with just the main gun should last a game, if the enemy ignores it. Otherwise even one glancing hit from the enemy can mean that it will self destruct before the game ends.

 

Or, in background terms, they're one shot weapons. They overheat and slag themselves in the first battle they're deployed in if they don't stop firing partway through the engagement and trundle off to be repaired.

 

Either way you look at it, the Mechanicus needs to seriously put some R&D time into vehicle mounted plasma cooling systems.

 

 

Yeah the fluff on plasma technology doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's like "we can't make improvements to it because the SOT is sacred and it would be blasphemous to 'improve' the machine god".  I'm pretty sure that the Emperor and High Lords and so forth would not mind all that much if they found a way to kill heretics more effectively and efficiently.  Sometimes the ecclesiastical bent on the fluff is too much.  The Church didn't let anything get in their way of plans to erect huge temples, enslave people, or conquer foreign lands.  They made justifications afterwards.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I agree, though I'm less on about killing heretics (Chaos is bad, but free thinkers are ok) but definitely more effectiveness in eliminating the enemies of humanity is always a good thing.

[CoffeeGrunt]

 

 

Yeah the fluff on plasma technology doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's like "we can't make improvements to it because the SOT is sacred and it would be blasphemous to 'improve' the machine god".  I'm pretty sure that the Emperor and High Lords and so forth would not mind all that much if they found a way to kill heretics more effectively and efficiently.  Sometimes the ecclesiastical bent on the fluff is too much.  The Church didn't let anything get in their way of plans to erect huge temples, enslave people, or conquer foreign lands.  They made justifications afterwards.

 

 

The Imperium gets no say in the matter, the Adeptus Mechnicus is its own entity allied but not encompassed by the Imperium, that sets these terms.

 

Consider that they'd be tampering with something that fires miniature suns. It could get much worse if they do it wrong. Consider the things like Titans, Cyclonic Torpedoes and other rare, irreplaceable or city-destroying things they possess. Altering a Cyclonic Torpedo without knowing how it works perfectly could have it detonate in your face, tearing Mars apart.  Over millennia this caution became procedure then religion.

[Kontakt]

   The tabletop has no relation to the actual lore. (Marines are toughness 4, but bullgryn are toughness 5?)

   Sorry to say, but some technological development does happen in the imperium. The problem is that it takes thousands of years to adopt new things. Space marines have a new mark of armour (it has a collar), and various small improvements are made. A plasma tank issued to a regiment might be left over from the horus heresy, or manufactured hundreds of years before issue. Standardization is a huge deal in this case, where a tank regiment has 20 tanks and they were manufactured thousands of years appart.

   If you follow the lore, plasma weapons don't overheat very often, and usually through constant overuse. Experienced users are even less likely to have their weapons overheat as well. Since you are only rolling a D6, its a good chance. If 40k used a D10 or something, it would be much less likely.