Because Everyone keeps bringing it up: The # of Lasgun Shots Needed to Kill One Knight

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Four squads of guard are able to kill 1/3 of a knight with lasguns, while throwing a crack grenade does significantly less. So the anti tank will do the plink damage you actually want, while the lasguns will do more. And your response is not that lasguns should do less damage, it's that crack grenades should be made better. And that would also stack with lasguns staying where they are...While I agree crack grenades are a meh weapon, they actually sit in the spot you're claiming lasguns should, and lasguns sit way above where they should. So yes, Unfortunate is the word I picked.

 

There's a lot to unpack in the various responses, but I'm a firm believer that repeating yourself louder doesn't tend to change people's reactions. It just encourages them to reply just as loud. Suffice it to say a lot of assumptions are made here, and many of them are odd. For example, while 7th did cause 40K to go extinct at my LGS, it wasn't because of the wounding rules. It was because of the bloated detachments giving waves of free units, poor balance between factions like Aeldar and the rest of the game, and the introduction of Primaris. Wounding rules didn't really come into the equasion. And in early 8th, when we were testing out the game and deciding how it felt, there weren't auto wounding small arms spread liberally throughout the indexes, so the swap was pretty reasonable.

 

At its core all things wound was a fun idea, but it hasn't worked out. I'm not entirely apposed to lasguns working against things though, which is why my suggested change has a way for lasguns to get +1 to str and regain the ability to wound knights on 6+ to hit with plink damage. The issue is that we're working with a d6 system that introduces lots of rerolls, auto passes, etc. And so you can manipulate the dice to turn plink shots into more. Your math supports this. It very very quickly gets out of hand, and so the easiest way to fix that is to just snip out the smallest guns against tanks and give them something else. IE, crack grenades. From there you can trickle in ways to bring limited shooting and str boosts to approach the problem from the bottom rather than the top.

 

Probably my last post on the subject unless some new ideas filter in. It's been interesting to see how this develops, but I am baffled at how some of this data is being read.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

44 minutes ago, Marshal Valkenhayn said:

Four squads of guard are able to kill 1/3 of a knight with lasguns, while throwing a crack grenade does significantly less. So the anti tank will do the plink damage you actually want, while the lasguns will do more. And your response is not that lasguns should do less damage, it's that crack grenades should be made better. And that would also stack with lasguns staying where they are...While I agree crack grenades are a meh weapon, they actually sit in the spot you're claiming lasguns should, and lasguns sit way above where they should. So yes, Unfortunate is the word I picked.

 

There's a lot to unpack in the various responses, but I'm a firm believer that repeating yourself louder doesn't tend to change people's reactions. It just encourages them to reply just as loud. Suffice it to say a lot of assumptions are made here, and many of them are odd. For example, while 7th did cause 40K to go extinct at my LGS, it wasn't because of the wounding rules. It was because of the bloated detachments giving waves of free units, poor balance between factions like Aeldar and the rest of the game, and the introduction of Primaris. Wounding rules didn't really come into the equasion. And in early 8th, when we were testing out the game and deciding how it felt, there weren't auto wounding small arms spread liberally throughout the indexes, so the swap was pretty reasonable.

 

At its core all things wound was a fun idea, but it hasn't worked out. I'm not entirely apposed to lasguns working against things though, which is why my suggested change has a way for lasguns to get +1 to str and regain the ability to wound knights on 6+ to hit with plink damage. The issue is that we're working with a d6 system that introduces lots of rerolls, auto passes, etc. And so you can manipulate the dice to turn plink shots into more. Your math supports this. It very very quickly gets out of hand, and so the easiest way to fix that is to just snip out the smallest guns against tanks and give them something else. IE, crack grenades. From there you can trickle in ways to bring limited shooting and str boosts to approach the problem from the bottom rather than the top.

 

Probably my last post on the subject unless some new ideas filter in. It's been interesting to see how this develops, but I am baffled at how some of this data is being read.

There’s no interpretation of the data that supports the current mechanic is all I’ve got from this lol.

[DesuVult]

Three Cadian squads with 2 free plasma guns each, a Castellan, and no stratagems bracket a knight on average.  I do not see that as particularly reasonable.  Events do not happen in a vacuum with infinite cadian squads lining up with just lasguns.  The lasguns contribute about half the damage of the squad when shooting at knights and similar targets.  The guard forces are able to use their anti-infantry as effective anti-tank due to volume and have other units such as kasrkin, tanks, sentinels, and rough riders.  If the weakest and cheapest tool in your toolbox can inflict noticeable damage on your opponent's strongest and most expensive you will have a large advantage in trading.  If the lasguns could not harm the knight then the squad would be reliant on the 2 special weapons leading to fewer dice and a very inconsistent result in if they do any damage at all.  Giving the squad a lot of dice that can do damage the Cadian squad has a largely consistent result in knocking a handful of wound off so you can expect a few squads to seriously threaten big targets.

Edited February 1, 2023 by DesuVult

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 minutes ago, DesuVult said:

Three Cadian squads with 2 free plasma guns each, a Castellan, and no stratagems bracket a knight on average.  I do not see that as particularly reasonable.  Events do nor happen in a vacuum with infinite csdian squads lining up with just lasguns.  The lasguns contribute about half rhe damage of the squad when shooting at knights and similar targets.  The guard forces are able to use their anti-infantry as effective anti-tank due to volume and have other units such as kasrkin, tanks, sentinels, and rough riders.  If the weakest and cheapest tool in your toolbox can inflict noticeable damage on your opponent's strongest and most expensive you will have a large advantage in trading.  If the lasguns could not harm the knight then the squad would be reliant on the 2 special weapons leading to fewer dice and a very inconsistent result in if they do any damage at all.  Giving the squad a lot of dice that can do damage the Cadian squad has a largely consistent result in knocking a handful of wound off so you can expect a few squads to seriously threaten big targets.

Exactly.

my SR T1 did 5 damage to my baneblade, 2 of those wounds came from the hurricane bolters.

 

Same issue on why the HB outshines the autocannon against T8&9 targets easily, and I believe even T6 targets.

[MoshJason]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Pretty sure each model gets a krak grenade, and getting within 6” of a massive vehicle isn’t hard considering how easy it is to get across the table right now.

 

 

do you think new players are total morons?

they may not know a multimelta is better at killing vehicles than a lascannons, but I’ve never met a new player who thought they could bring an army of only bolters or lasguns or equivalents and be successful…even the younger ones.

 

Only one model in a unit may throw a grenade.

 

And no, I don't think that new players are morons - I think new players don't have as many models and I don't think most new players are building lists on the same level, nor do they have the same type of collection as older/veteran players.

 

 

13 minutes ago, DesuVult said:

Three Cadian squads with 2 free plasma guns each

 

The plasma guns will more reliably deal more damage than the lasguns - as Plasma gun wound on 4's, remove Armor Saves from the Knight, and deal 2 damage each - so should deal more.

 

If you are having an issue that your Anti-Tank aren't dealing damage that's actually a different problem then Lasguns are occasionally wounding a Knight? Like, Anti-Tank weapons are objectively the better choice, but since it is a dice game, there's always the chance that your Lascannon whiffs - after all, a Lascannon vs a Knight has only a 43.5% chance to inflict a wound vs a Knight (at a double the range) - before Saves. A Lasgun has a 8% chance before save per shot, and a Multimelta has a 33% chance per shot but has 2 shots and deal more damage than the Lascannon at the reduction of range to 24". And one successful wound from each Multimelta should deal significantly more damage than one Guard Squad.

Edited February 1, 2023 by MoshJason

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

38 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

 

Only one model in a unit may throw a grenade.

 

And no, I don't think that new players are morons - I think new players don't have as many models and I don't think most new players are building lists on the same level, nor do they have the same type of collection as older/veteran players.

 

 

 

The plasma guns will more reliably deal more damage than the lasguns - as Plasma gun wound on 4's, remove Armor Saves from the Knight, and deal 2 damage each - so should deal more.

 

If you are having an issue that your Anti-Tank aren't dealing damage that's actually a different problem then Lasguns are occasionally wounding a Knight? Like, Anti-Tank weapons are objectively the better choice, but since it is a dice game, there's always the chance that your Lascannon whiffs - after all, a Lascannon vs a Knight has only a 43.5% chance to inflict a wound vs a Knight (at a double the range) - before Saves. A Lasgun has a 8% chance before save per shot, and a Multimelta has a 33% chance per shot but has 2 shots and deal more damage than the Lascannon at the reduction of range to 24". And one successful wound from each Multimelta should deal significantly more damage than one Guard Squad.

You don’t need to have a lot of models.

 

the old guard box set provided an LRBT, a HWT, and a plasma pistol.

 

one extra squad and you have a legal army roughly 500 pts that has enough heavy weapons to kill a knight. I’m assuming the big knights are about 500pts

 

You can definitely kill 1 armiger per turn reliably off of such an army.

 

going off the cadia stands box it’s probably even easier.

size of collection is largely irrelevant in this discussion of new players…whatever that term actually means to anyone 

 

BA CP box has 3 aggressors which are pretty durable, a librarian, and intercessors which can have an AGL and a special melee weapon.

 

and while a 1 time use thing the box’s haywire mine is also an AT weapon.

 

all this to say a new player would have to be a total moron to find themselves with little to no dedicated AT and then play against an army of knights, or armored company, or similar army.

you don’t need a massive collection to choose to play against armies yours simply isn’t equipped to handle at all, or to simply build the models you do have to be fairly well rounded.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

54 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

 

Only one model in a unit may throw a grenade.

 

And no, I don't think that new players are morons - I think new players don't have as many models and I don't think most new players are building lists on the same level, nor do they have the same type of collection as older/veteran players.

 

 

 

The plasma guns will more reliably deal more damage than the lasguns - as Plasma gun wound on 4's, remove Armor Saves from the Knight, and deal 2 damage each - so should deal more.

 

If you are having an issue that your Anti-Tank aren't dealing damage that's actually a different problem then Lasguns are occasionally wounding a Knight? Like, Anti-Tank weapons are objectively the better choice, but since it is a dice game, there's always the chance that your Lascannon whiffs - after all, a Lascannon vs a Knight has only a 43.5% chance to inflict a wound vs a Knight (at a double the range) - before Saves. A Lasgun has a 8% chance before save per shot, and a Multimelta has a 33% chance per shot but has 2 shots and deal more damage than the Lascannon at the reduction of range to 24". And one successful wound from each Multimelta should deal significantly more damage than one Guard Squad.

Again you’re either missing the point or ignoring the point.

 

no one said lasguns/autoguns are better AT than plasma or melta guns, but when you have 9 las/autoguns per 2 plasma/meltas you have a lot more chances to get those lucky 6s

You have a 50% chance of hitting w/ a lasgun, and a 17% chance of wounding with a lasgun/autorifle

[DesuVult]

1 hour ago, MoshJason said:

 

Only one model in a unit may throw a grenade.

 

And no, I don't think that new players are morons - I think new players don't have as many models and I don't think most new players are building lists on the same level, nor do they have the same type of collection as older/veteran players.

 

 

 

The plasma guns will more reliably deal more damage than the lasguns - as Plasma gun wound on 4's, remove Armor Saves from the Knight, and deal 2 damage each - so should deal more.

 

If you are having an issue that your Anti-Tank aren't dealing damage that's actually a different problem then Lasguns are occasionally wounding a Knight? Like, Anti-Tank weapons are objectively the better choice, but since it is a dice game, there's always the chance that your Lascannon whiffs - after all, a Lascannon vs a Knight has only a 43.5% chance to inflict a wound vs a Knight (at a double the range) - before Saves. A Lasgun has a 8% chance before save per shot, and a Multimelta has a 33% chance per shot but has 2 shots and deal more damage than the Lascannon at the reduction of range to 24". And one successful wound from each Multimelta should deal significantly more damage than one Guard Squad.

The difference in average damage is 0.1.

[MoshJason]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Again you’re either missing the point or ignoring the point.

 

no one said lasguns/autoguns are better AT than plasma or melta guns, but when you have 9 las/autoguns per 2 plasma/meltas you have a lot more chances to get those lucky 6s

You have a 50% chance of hitting w/ a lasgun, and a 17% chance of wounding with a lasgun/autorifle

 

The auto-sixes also improve the chances of Plasma guns hurting as well. I'm not missing your point, I think you might be missing mine since you seem to prefer the 'Nothing short of a Melta Gun should hurt my Tanks" gameplay of seventh edition, and my argument is more or less - Lasguns and Especially Bolters (or anything str 4 or less without autowounds) don't really reliably hurt models that size, and even if they do, the 24 wounds prevent them from killing it, where dedicated anti-tank weapons such as the Hammerhead Rail Cannon, the Votann Magna-Rails or the Leman Russ Vanquisher reliably devastate (though not kill) Knights and Super-Heavies Equivalent in one shot, and dedicated anti-armor  weapons like Multi-meltas, Plasma Guns and devastate light vehicles like Rhinos in short order and hurt Knights and Super-Heavies fairly reliably without being auto-kills, since the Knight Fantasy is to be able to shrug off lots of firepower, I think this is a good solution. This also keeps the playing field level - since a take all comers list needs a lot of anti-infantry AND anti-tank, and a Knight List is all Heavy Tanks Equivalents or Super Heavy Tank Equivalents, and a Sisters of Battle, Votann, Tau, Guard, Demons, or Eldar list could be conceivably all infantry models, so it's a balance to make sure that a take-all comers list doesn't ever feel worthless when playing the game against a Skew list. That said, I do appreciate the simulationist aspects of the hobby, but think that 40k has moved away from that (as well as Space Fantasy), and has instead tried to be a more accessible and all-around competitive and Spectator Friendly game with less Edge Cases that leave Auto-Win scenarios.

 

2 hours ago, DesuVult said:

The difference in average damage is 0.1.

Averages are usually a decent measure, but can be very misleading.  I'm not sure what your math is.

But accounting for Cadians, and FRSR fire, Plasma greatly outperforms lasguns - it's not a small difference.

A lasgun with 3 shots, autowounds and cadians exploding sixes deals damage 21.3% of the time, while only doing more than 1 damage 2.4% of the time.

A Plasma Gun deals damage 41% of the time, and deals at least 2 damage, with a reasonable (12.7) percent chance to deal 4 damage. 

 

The more buffs you stack on there - Take Aim instead of FRSR, Ursula Creed's +1 Str and the Strategem to Autowound on fives increases the difference between the two significantly.

Total Damage	Lasgun	Plasma
0	78.70%	58.10%
1	18.80%	0
2	2.40%	29.20%
3	0.10%	0
4	0.00%	11.10%
5	0.00%	0
6	0.00%	1.60%

Edited February 2, 2023 by MoshJason

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

11 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

 

The auto-sixes also improve the chances of Plasma guns hurting as well. I'm not missing your point, I think you might be missing mine since you seem to prefer the 'Nothing short of a Melta Gun should hurt my Tanks" gameplay of seventh edition, and my argument is more or less - Lasguns and Especially Bolters (or anything str 4 or less without autowounds) don't really reliably hurt models that size, and even if they do, the 24 wounds prevent them from killing it, where dedicated anti-tank weapons such as the Hammerhead Rail Cannon, the Votann Magna-Rails or the Leman Russ Vanquisher reliably devastate (though not kill) Knights and Super-Heavies Equivalent in one shot, and dedicated anti-armor  weapons like Multi-meltas, Plasma Guns and devastate light vehicles like Rhinos in short order and hurt Knights and Super-Heavies fairly reliably without being auto-kills, since the Knight Fantasy is to be able to shrug off lots of firepower, I think this is a good solution. This also keeps the playing field level - since a take all comers list needs a lot of anti-infantry AND anti-tank, and a Knight List is all Heavy Tanks Equivalents or Super Heavy Tank Equivalents, and a Sisters of Battle, Votann, Tau, Guard, Demons, or Eldar list could be conceivably all infantry models, so it's a balance to make sure that a take-all comers list doesn't ever feel worthless when playing the game against a Skew list. That said, I do appreciate the simulationist aspects of the hobby, but think that 40k has moved away from that (as well as Space Fantasy), and has instead tried to be a more accessible and all-around competitive and Spectator Friendly game with less Edge Cases that leave Auto-Win scenarios.

 

Averages are usually a decent measure, but can be very misleading.  I'm not sure what your math is.

But accounting for Cadians, and FRSR fire, Plasma greatly outperforms lasguns - it's not a small difference.

A lasgun with 3 shots, autowounds and cadians exploding sixes deals damage 21.3% of the time, while only doing more than 1 damage 2.4% of the time.

A Plasma Gun deals damage 41% of the time, and deals at least 2 damage, with a reasonable (12.7) percent chance to deal 4 damage. 

 

The more buffs you stack on there - Take Aim instead of FRSR, Ursula Creed's +1 Str and the Strategem to Autowound on fives increases the difference between the two significantly.

Total Damage	Lasgun	Plasma
0	78.70%	58.10%
1	18.80%	0
2	2.40%	29.20%
3	0.10%	0
4	0.00%	11.10%
5	0.00%	0
6	0.00%	1.60%

Lmao I’ve said nothing of the sort. This is how we know you’re ignoring our points.

 

no one has a problem with S6,7,8 weapons wounding tough vehicles, no one has even suggested S5 being unable to hurt heavy vehicles.

 

you’re strawmanning now.

 

if you’re AT does 22 wounds there’s absolutely nothing in the game mechanics preventing S4 and below weapons from chipping 2 wounds off the vehicle and killing it.

 

again your argument supports my position. If it’s pointless to do it, then it shouldn’t be in the game as a mechanic, but again you’re focusing on the whole topic in a complete vacuum. 
literally no one here is talking about lasgunning a heavy vehicle to death with no input from anything else.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[MoshJason]

17 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Lmao I’ve said nothing of the sort. This is how we know you’re ignoring our points.

 

no one has a problem with S6,7,8 weapons wounding tough vehicles, no one has even suggested S5 being unable to hurt heavy vehicles.

 

you’re strawmanning now.

 

if you’re AT does 22 wounds there’s absolutely nothing in the game mechanics preventing S4 and below weapons from chipping 2 wounds off the vehicle and killing it.

 

again your argument supports my position. If it’s pointless to do it, then it shouldn’t be in the game as a mechanic, but again you’re focusing on the whole topic in a complete vacuum. 
literally no one here is talking about lasgunning a heavy vehicle to death with no input from anything else.

 

I'm not either?

 

I'm talking about how lasguns are ineffective against Superheavies.

 

Not that they can't *finish* them off, just that overall lasguns are super unlikely to deal significant damage by themselves, and that the topic was created because I've seen lots of people suggest that Lasguns are these super strong weapons due to the autosixes, and how that mechanic invalidates toughness, when they can only realistically do chip damage. Finishing off a Knight is very different from dealing significant damage to a Knight - and I am arguing that the logic that Small Arms shouldn't be able to hurt Knights at all is almost already true - since the most powerful small arms (point for point) vs a Knight is the humble Lasgun, and they still have serious trouble doing anything more than dealing chip damage. A bolter fired by a sister of battle is basically guaranteed to do nothing - the minimum that I got when running this program for sisters was something like 411 shots to destroy a knight - and the maximum was over 1,400.  In a vacuum the numbers of lasguns to deal damage seem achievable, but on the table it's likely your guardsmen drop like flies, and each turn you should have significantly less guardsmen on the board.

 

A lucky shot to finish a Knight with a lasgun/bolter/whatever is perfectly acceptable to me in the Cinematic Space Fantasy Game that I am playing.

 

Quote

again your argument supports my position. If it’s pointless to do it, then it shouldn’t be in the game as a mechanic, but again you’re focusing on the whole topic in a complete vacuum. 

It really doesn't - I don't think you quite understand my point. It's not pointless to do - it's pointless to rely on. Think of it like Luke Skywalker vs the Deathstar - you've exhausted most of your weapons, and you have one or two squads left with no anti-tank, and the game hinges on whether or not you get lucky. It's dramatic, it's cinematic, and most of the time you'll lose. But that one time you don't lose will feel epic.

 

It also means that if you didn't take enough anti-tank and go against a skew list, you can still feel like you are in the game, and have some interactivity, where if it's removed, you might just have to either A) Forfeit or B) skip your shooting phase - both of which I had to do in 7th edition quite a few times. Where now, if my anti-tank gets focused down, I can still try and hold off key areas and maybe take out one or two key units as the game continues.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

19 minutes ago, MoshJason said:

 

I'm not either?

 

I'm talking about how lasguns are ineffective against Superheavies.

 

Not that they can't *finish* them off, just that overall lasguns are super unlikely to deal significant damage by themselves, and that the topic was created because I've seen lots of people suggest that Lasguns are these super strong weapons due to the autosixes, and how that mechanic invalidates toughness, when they can only realistically do chip damage. Finishing off a Knight is very different from dealing significant damage to a Knight - and I am arguing that the logic that Small Arms shouldn't be able to hurt Knights at all is almost already true - since the most powerful small arms (point for point) vs a Knight is the humble Lasgun, and they still have serious trouble doing anything more than dealing chip damage. A bolter fired by a sister of battle is basically guaranteed to do nothing - the minimum that I got when running this program for sisters was something like 411 shots to destroy a knight - and the maximum was over 1,400.  In a vacuum the numbers of lasguns to deal damage seem achievable, but on the table it's likely your guardsmen drop like flies, and each turn you should have significantly less guardsmen on the board.

 

A lucky shot to finish a Knight with a lasgun/bolter/whatever is perfectly acceptable to me in the Cinematic Space Fantasy Game that I am playing.

 

It really doesn't - I don't think you quite understand my point. It's not pointless to do - it's pointless to rely on. Think of it like Luke Skywalker vs the Deathstar - you've exhausted most of your weapons, and you have one or two squads left with no anti-tank, and the game hinges on whether or not you get lucky. It's dramatic, it's cinematic, and most of the time you'll lose. But that one time you don't lose will feel epic.

 

It also means that if you didn't take enough anti-tank and go against a skew list, you can still feel like you are in the game, and have some interactivity, where if it's removed, you might just have to either A) Forfeit or B) skip your shooting phase - both of which I had to do in 7th edition quite a few times. Where now, if my anti-tank gets focused down, I can still try and hold off key areas and maybe take out one or two key units as the game continues.

I’d say killing a super heavy regardless of number of wounds remaining is doing significant damage, and it’s damage that shouldn’t be capable of being done in the first place.

[MoshJason]

14 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

I’d say killing a super heavy regardless of number of wounds remaining is doing significant damage, and it’s damage that shouldn’t be capable of being done in the first place.

You said I was strawmanning when I said that you didn't want small arms to ever be able to hurt Knights?

 

Look - that's a fundamental difference of opinion if you believe that Small Arms should never be able to damage Superheavies. Which is fine, but is something that I fundamentally disagree with as a Game Designer - I think that leads to significant Negative Play Experiences, and makes the Skew lists in the game much, much stronger*, which has a spill-over effect on balance, since now all lists need to be built around the two extremes of 'All Superheavies' and 'Spam Guardsmen', and as it stands those are currently two large gate-keeping lists. 

 

 

*All Superheavies get stronger because you can't fish for a lucky finishing shot, and need more anti-tank to deal with them then before - and all infantry lists get stronger because the average list has more anti-tank and less anti-infantry

[DesuVult]

2 hours ago, MoshJason said:

 

The auto-sixes also improve the chances of Plasma guns hurting as well. I'm not missing your point, I think you might be missing mine since you seem to prefer the 'Nothing short of a Melta Gun should hurt my Tanks" gameplay of seventh edition, and my argument is more or less - Lasguns and Especially Bolters (or anything str 4 or less without autowounds) don't really reliably hurt models that size, and even if they do, the 24 wounds prevent them from killing it, where dedicated anti-tank weapons such as the Hammerhead Rail Cannon, the Votann Magna-Rails or the Leman Russ Vanquisher reliably devastate (though not kill) Knights and Super-Heavies Equivalent in one shot, and dedicated anti-armor  weapons like Multi-meltas, Plasma Guns and devastate light vehicles like Rhinos in short order and hurt Knights and Super-Heavies fairly reliably without being auto-kills, since the Knight Fantasy is to be able to shrug off lots of firepower, I think this is a good solution. This also keeps the playing field level - since a take all comers list needs a lot of anti-infantry AND anti-tank, and a Knight List is all Heavy Tanks Equivalents or Super Heavy Tank Equivalents, and a Sisters of Battle, Votann, Tau, Guard, Demons, or Eldar list could be conceivably all infantry models, so it's a balance to make sure that a take-all comers list doesn't ever feel worthless when playing the game against a Skew list. That said, I do appreciate the simulationist aspects of the hobby, but think that 40k has moved away from that (as well as Space Fantasy), and has instead tried to be a more accessible and all-around competitive and Spectator Friendly game with less Edge Cases that leave Auto-Win scenarios.

 

Averages are usually a decent measure, but can be very misleading.  I'm not sure what your math is.

But accounting for Cadians, and FRSR fire, Plasma greatly outperforms lasguns - it's not a small difference.

A lasgun with 3 shots, autowounds and cadians exploding sixes deals damage 21.3% of the time, while only doing more than 1 damage 2.4% of the time.

A Plasma Gun deals damage 41% of the time, and deals at least 2 damage, with a reasonable (12.7) percent chance to deal 4 damage. 

 

The more buffs you stack on there - Take Aim instead of FRSR, Ursula Creed's +1 Str and the Strategem to Autowound on fives increases the difference between the two significantly.

Total Damage	Lasgun	Plasma
0	78.70%	58.10%
1	18.80%	0
2	2.40%	29.20%
3	0.10%	0
4	0.00%	11.10%
5	0.00%	0
6	0.00%	1.60%

Are you comparing them 1 to 1?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, MoshJason said:

You said I was strawmanning when I said that you didn't want small arms to ever be able to hurt Knights?

 

Look - that's a fundamental difference of opinion if you believe that Small Arms should never be able to damage Superheavies. Which is fine, but is something that I fundamentally disagree with as a Game Designer - I think that leads to significant Negative Play Experiences, and makes the Skew lists in the game much, much stronger*, which has a spill-over effect on balance, since now all lists need to be built around the two extremes of 'All Superheavies' and 'Spam Guardsmen', and as it stands those are currently two large gate-keeping lists. 

 

 

*All Superheavies get stronger because you can't fish for a lucky finishing shot, and need more anti-tank to deal with them then before - and all infantry lists get stronger because the average list has more anti-tank and less anti-infantry

There you go again. You said I wanted nothing but melta to hurt tanks. It’s strawman after strawman with you.

[Warden-Paints]

6 hours ago, MoshJason said:

You said I was strawmanning when I said that you didn't want small arms to ever be able to hurt Knights?

 

Look - that's a fundamental difference of opinion if you believe that Small Arms should never be able to damage Superheavies. Which is fine, but is something that I fundamentally disagree with as a Game Designer - I think that leads to significant Negative Play Experiences, and makes the Skew lists in the game much, much stronger*, which has a spill-over effect on balance, since now all lists need to be built around the two extremes of 'All Superheavies' and 'Spam Guardsmen', and as it stands those are currently two large gate-keeping lists. 

 

 

*All Superheavies get stronger because you can't fish for a lucky finishing shot, and need more anti-tank to deal with them then before - and all infantry lists get stronger because the average list has more anti-tank and less anti-infantry

I don't agree with everything you've said, but thank you for doing so reasonably and eloquently. I've enjoyed reading your perspective and found it very insightful. Personally I don't think lasguns should be capable of wounding Knights, but I agree with everything you have said about why the game does work that way. 

[Brother Tyler]

We're going to end this on a high note. Unfortunately, we've begun going around in circles. Both sides have presented interesting arguments on a subjective issue. Unfortunately, the "debating" has degraded into inaccurate claims of the opposing views being "strawman" arguments (wholly untenable when those arguments were provided with data and multiple supporting points whereas the opposition arguments are based almost solely on opinions). Much of the issue comes down to personal opinion about the overall gaming experience, so neither side can claim to be completely correct, just as neither side can claim that the other side is incorrect. While the data is the data and can be interpreted in different ways (especially if it isn't contextualized), the gaming experience is personal and we all have different values and opinions about what is "fun."

 

Since the constructive elements have been exhausted and we've begun resorting to ad hominem attacks and other logical/argumentative fallacies, however, it's time to step back from the discussion.