After looking at the Astartes Lascannon stats, it seems to be quite a… powerful weapon, to say the least. In addition, you can fire it 6 times before having to reload. I have personally not seen it in practice, but looking at the numbers seems to make it a no-brainer against anything and everything except hordes.

Is it broken?

First off; make sure you're looking at the Errata weapon stats.

Secondly; Lascannons are **** good weapons in fluff. Most Guard vehicles mount one, most Imperial Navy aircraft have a few of them twin-linked, and they're the go-to weapon for taking out vehicles. You're looking at something made to blow up tanks and shooting it at critters.

That said, it doesn't have a Full-Auto option, it can't use specialized ammo, it has a small clip, it takes up both hands, and the fella firing it is making himself the biggest threat on the battlefield. The first time your Devastator fires it, expect every bit of incoming fire to focus on taking him out. It also isn't much good against Hordes, as you said.

Good, but not OP. Every weapon has its place.

The Lascannon will kill most things (short of a vehicle or Greater Daemon) in a single shot. This doesn't make it over- powered though; it makes it over- kill . It's not something your average Kill-Team needs, and they're often better served with more versitile weapons (Missile Launchers, Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannons).

So yes, it's an astonishingly dangerous gun, but certainly not the kind've thing you'd want to bring to every engagement. Lascannons don't mean much when there's 200 Orks charging your position.

BYE

The weapon is made to kill really big tanks. Take a look at how much armour a Land Raider has. Makes sense now doesn't it?

As it is designed to cut through really thick armour I'd imagine a little puny human turning to a pink mist shouldn't be suprising. But then again, if your using it like this what happens when that tank rolls around the corner and you've just used your 6th shot to kill a dinky trooper? You're brothers aren't going to be too pleased with their dedicated anti-tank gunner being unable to fire at the tank for 2 turns while he reloads.

This RPG, thankfully, isn't like the tabletop, where rediculous not-tactics work. Its better to shoot things in most cases, and at long ranges. Especially tanks.

Yeah, it's a great weapon for taking out heavy armour 'n the like, but of limited usefulness otherwise. It looks like a no-brainer, but really your player's would usually be better off with a weapon that does less damage but has a larger clip and a higher rate of fire.

It is a really big gun. Yup, probably the biggest in the Space Marine's arsenal. But It is pretty much overkill for most things, and almost worthless against hordes.

But yes, if you want to take out a tank, spacecraft, or giant monster it is a really good gun.

Look at a fig carrying one. Though I don't think there are rules stating this in the game, most GM's should not let a devestator (or any) marine carry a Lascannon and another heavy weapon.

So if having a Lascannon means you can't have a heavy bolter, It is far from overpowered.

Anything in Deathwatch that is one shot, has a hard time getting through Fields of any variety. So if you are going against a tank or something that has armor, its great, but going against something with a 50% chance per hit of nothing? I would stick to the Heavy Bolter. In my group we run with a devastator with Heavy Bolter, as it is great against hordes and can take out most light vehicles and big baddies.They might save one..two..maybe three, but six hits? We also carry a Missile Launcher, with both frag and krak. Good for Hordes, good for light armor.

The Lascannon looks great on paper. You'll miss out on a lot of versatility, a higher chance to hit (adding in a bonus for burst fire weapons) and I'm pretty sure that a Lascannon charge pack is probably huge so carrying around enough ammo should not be easy. In Dark Heresy, a Lascannon is operated by a two man crew. One to lug the ammo around and one to carry the cannon. I would say that the charge pack is probably the size of a backpack.

So, you get 6 shots. You would have a hard time carrying around all the power packs you would need for a mission. The damage output is great, don't get me wrong but I agree with pretty much everyone here. The Lascannon is a situational weapon. If you are going into a mission where armored vehicles are going to be your primary enemies - take one.

Instead of taking one ourselves, we prefer to just take a razor back with us, with the twin linked las cannons. Works for that off chance we have to take down a vehicle.

Tacitus05 said:

If you have a Razorback, why aren't you using the las/plas?

Boss Gitsmasha said:

Ah Las-plas razorbacks, the best of both worlds.

Well… not quite but it illustrates the point that Lascannon are the most powerful against a single target, but that itself is very limiting.

If you taking it because someone else is sorting out any hordes (say with a flamer or stormbolter) then that's the point and you are using it well.

If a devastator has to be able to counter both then taking a a drop in the damage with krak missiles is more than made up for by the amount of horde damage you can do with a Frag missile (even with the errata stats youch) and with dodging enemies anything with multiple hits (Autocannon, Heavy bolters) is going to make up a lot more damage against anything that can be wounded at all.

"So yes, it's an astonishingly dangerous gun, but certainly not the kind've thing you'd want to bring to every engagement. Lascannons don't mean much when there's 200 Orks charging your position.

BYE"

Unless your game's Blood Angel goes in to the Black Rage, then pass it to him and watch the greenskins go flying (because he's using it as a club).

While I agree with most of these comments (i.e. Lascannons are not 'overpowered' because they suck against Hordes- the most common type of oppenent in DW ), I do have one quibble: Multi-Meltas seem kind of underpowered in compairason (sp?). MMs, in 40K lore, are supposed to be the ultimate in man-portable tankbusting (albeit precariously short-ranged), but, even with their higher AP, they lag behing Lascannons at tankbusting in DW …

Adeptus-B said:

Yes they do.

6 shots per power pack, if I was to tote around such a weapon I'd go the whole hog and get the 100 shot backpack energy store. We have two Salamanders in one of our kill teams, both use heavy flamers with backpack fuel storage for 75 shots, unless you plan on using a jump pack its the way to go.

Tacitus05 said:

Unless I am misreading the rules, there is no difference here. Fields block ATTACKS, not HITS. A field will block all of a heavy bolter burst, or none of it