Is there a way for a regiment to take Autoguns instead of a las-weapon for their default weapon? My group is in love with the idea of packing autoguns and while homebrew is fine by me, I want to know if there's an official option. I know there's old art of Cadians with autoguns…

More importantly, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each? We can look at them and see a very similar profile: 1d10+3, Pen 0. The autogun has strengths in RoF (has a Full Auto 10 option) and variety of ammunition, versus the M36's variable fire settings, Reliable trait, and larger clip. An M36 fired on Overload is at 1d10+5 Pen 2, with a clip of 15 and Unreliable. An autogun loaded with Expander rounds is up to 1d10+4 Pen 1, or is at 1d10+3 Pen 3 with Man-Stopper rounds. It looks like the M36 is more of an all around utility weapon, while the autogun could be used for various specialized combat situations.

Your thoughts?

That exactly covers it - the standard issue imperial guard lasgun is one of the most rugged, reliable and versatile weapons the Imperium has at its disposal. Its not the strongest, but the sheer ease of manufacture and the numbers that can be deployed and brought to bear on enemies of the Imperium is where its greatest strength lies.
Projectile weapons allow far greater degrees of customization, such as ammunition types, firing modes, upgrades and attachments. For example, it is easier to silence/suppress a projectile weapon, and you can take dedicated anti-armour, soft-target or even more exotic ammunition such as incendiary or blessed rounds. As very few las weapons have a full auto option it limits some of the upgrades they can have as well. The down side to the options open to projectile weaponry is that the ammunition is bulkier and heavier (not all projectile weapons use caseless ammunition as originally posited by GW in earlier editions) and the differences in calibres and lengths of cartridges let alone magazine sizes and shapes, whether weapons have ambidextrous controls and ejector ports etc all add to make projectile weapons a lot more… 'specific' in their deployment and in keeping supplies running for them.

That said there is little that can beat the Nomad from Dark Heresy, using Lather 'body blower' hyper density penetrator rounds and a telescopic sight.

Kasatka said:

Well, the Nomad is better than the Ultra mkIX. Its pretty much as good as you can get for sniping, and most of that is thanks to its massive power.
I'd give second place to the Long-Las, unless you want to touch exotics… In which case you're probably better off aiming a burst on a Pulse Rifle.

Perinetus-Pattern "Solo" MkII boltgun (Into the Storm, pg.112). Less weight, double the clip, 1 more point in penetration and Tearing. The only downside is range, but how often do you engage targets further away than 400m?

I'd have to answer "the one time your sniper finally got to be in a fight that starts at more than the 20-30m that always seems to perfectly fit the charge-ranges and pistols of the 'assault' types at the table. Or feet, if they're playing D&D"

I blame the size of tables and those big fat squares and hexes on the battlemaps. Most games and settings, even if you do get to fire at long range, its "yeah and uh, some of them drop, sure, anyways there's 30 guys one round away now and the actual encounter you'll actually get rewarded for is starting, roll for initiative" deals save in shadowrun where the sniper or mage somehow get to do their thing quite often.

Sarcastic tone not meant for you specifically, just, engagement ranges just seem to be one of those things across the tables for most games in general…

Kiton said:

I think the issue is more to do with the scale of models used. Most people like to have as little suspension of disbelief as possible in their games, so if you 28mm model takes up 1 square inch on the tabletop, you say that 1inch = 1m, the rough floorspace of a moving human being. That then massively limits what you can do about long range combat and table sizes. I prefer to use 1cm = 1m as it gives you far more range, and the models them become more representative. You could go even further and say 1inch = 5m as all ranges seem to be in multiples of 5.

I tend not to use battlemaps, and hand draw areas indicating cover and things and have a note of ranges and manage to have long distnace fire fights quite often, a number of times the distance has proved devestating to the enemies who where primarily ranged and with some excellent shooting where dropped before they even got into charge range, and a well placed head shot from the sniper dropped their long range support.

Well, that's the thing. 400m is long range. Really now, further away than 300m and you start having problems even seeing the target, much less hitting it, and if fights started from very far away the melee specialists, or even the guys with shotguns or melta weapons, would find themselves with absolutely nothing to do. It also depends on where the PCs are going. Inside a forest or jungle, within a city, exploring ruins or crossing a narrow mountain range you'll be lucky if the fight starts with enemies even 100m apart.

I think it was about 200m out that particular combat occured, mostly because it happened on the steps of catherdral, and the psyker got a whif of something fishy, and drugged up cultists tend to be impatient with PC's who decide to have a debate about if they should just gun down people on holy ground without actual provocation. Might have turned out differently if they didn't notice and the cute little psychos managed to pull their "lets just walk up all non-chalant like then jump 'em" plan off.

ParadigmShift said:

Of course such a thing happened thanks to the Imperium's MASSIVE insecurity complex that draws it to make cathedrals, plazas, palaces and such absolutely colossal. 200m of steps are a hell of alot of steps.

200m is roughly the length of a city block (in Chicago at least). A firefight is generally going to happen in a much smaller area. Generally across a street or room clearance in a building. Figure a house is generally not much bigger than 10-15 meters to a side and that is generally the amount of area you're dealing with in most urban confrontations.

On a large battlefield there is going to be larger distances but if you're doing any type of city fighting things will for the most part be up close and personal.

The "average" sniper shot probably wont me more than 100-200m away maybe even less. altough they make up for that in being 'on an average human' a one shot kill, and if they're being smart and stealthy never staying in one spot to long

When I have run long range engagements they tend to be "Off board affairs". I will determine what cover is available and how far (Likewise for the enemy!) and it essentially becomes a "trenchfight" with the two sides trying to pick each other off or one side tries to disengage into a building or some such in an attempt to close the range in "narrative" time. Trying to charge over 200m of ground into enemy fire the whole way is just going to kill PC's (Or at least eat up FP! ) MOST of my players aren't that stupid! (A few have been educated !)

Plushy said:

Are you asking if there actually are any regiments using autoguns? If so, the answer is yes. For example Urdeshi regiments tend to use heavy autoguns with high calibre shells. Tons of Planetary defence forces are equiped with autoguns and so some worlds form guard regiments equiped with autoguns. Of course this is usually only possible if the regiment is going to fight in the same sub-sector or maybe sector as it is difficult to supply such a regiment. Regiments fighting on distant worlds have to be equipped with lasguns as they are supplied by Munitorum and not their homeworld.