Upon a quick reading of the rules, I have found a few anomalies with the weapons. We will dispense with talking of the Pen values, which are all over the place anyways.

- Autocannons in the armoury do 1d10+8 damage, while those in the vehicle section do 1d10+12, both with pen 2 and RoF 3. I feel that neither of these stats represent what the autocannon should be. Autocannons never fired faster than autoguns or as fast as heavy bolters; autoguns should be RoF 3, autocannons 2 with 1d10+12.

- Autoguns are always weaker than Lasguns. They do less damage, have the same RoF, and their special ammunition pales compared to the overcharge option, all the while being rarer. Increasing the RoF to 3 helps a bit, but they still feel too weak.

- The Shotgun is terrible; even for a pump-action, the RoF is simply too low to do anything useful with it. 4 lasgun shots win out on 1 shotgun shot unless faced with a mob (in which case the spray quality makes them better, but then logic fails miserable to explain how the bullets make it through more than 1 or 2 individuals, much less a dozen), especially since the shotgun lost the old scatter rule for extra attacks up close. Increasing the RoF to 1 makes it slightly more fair better.

- Minor nitpick on my part, but Hot-shot lasweapons don't make sense; hot-shot packs are supercharged 1-shot packs; hellguns are the overcharged lasers. But that's a continuity problem with the Wh40k rules of the new editions in general, so whatever.

- Handcannons are often better pistols than bolt pistols, and cheaper to boot.

- Melta weapons, for some strange reason, use 2d10, unlike everything else which use 1d10.

- Melee weapons using both Ag based and fixed RoF makes littles sense. For instance, an assassin with maxed Ag (95, another issue in itself) can swing a power sword 12 times as fast as a power axe, or 18 times as fast as a power fist, and got better with them with the sword while never improving with the other ones.

That's it for now, might have some more later.

Haven't Lasguns and Autoguns both always done 1d10+3?

The trade-off being that the Lasgun have double the rounds before a reload but the Autogun has Full Auto and ammunition options.

- Minor nitpick on my part, but Hot-shot lasweapons don't make sense; hot-shot packs are supercharged 1-shot packs; hellguns are the overcharged lasers. But that's a continuity problem with the Wh40k rules of the new editions in general, so whatever.

Well... originally hot-shot lasguns were just extra powerful lasguns issued to stormtroopers, which had identical stats ro a bolter. Then they changed the background in 3rd edition to call them Hellguns, and they were different from a bolter. Then, with the last Imperial Guard codex, they changed how the weapons worked again, and named them "Hot-shot lasguns" again. It is actually a move back to the original nomenclature. The only time "hot-shots" were the one shot packs were in the Gaunt's Ghost series and the 40k rpg books.

Well, their damage has always been identical (this being a new edition, it might necessarily be 1d10+3), lasguns being more reliable (and, according to The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, BC and OW, variable settings) while autoguns have full auto and ammo variety. Lasgun ammo is also more expensive, but you can toss it in a fire recharge it.

Also, hellguns have always been normally backpack powered (like the 4th ed Stormtroopers/Karskin), while hot-shots just have hot-shot packs or slightly bigger packs on the belt. The fact that the terms have become more or less interchangeable makes it more or less a non-issue, but forbids the use of the 1-shot packs.

Original Hot-shot lasguns where powered by a backpack (check out the old 2nd edition "beret" stormtroopers. They were armed with Hot-shot lasguns). Essentially hot-shot lasguns and Hellguns were the same thing, just with a different name (until Dan Abnett came up with the Hot-shot charge pack).

However, yes, it does mean that you no longer have a name for the 1 shot packs. However, they can simply rename them. On the other hand they never really made that much sense, as it seems to suggest that the limitation of the lasgun's power output was the energy transfer rate from the charge pack, rather than the intrinsic design of the weapon, and that limitation was imposed by the charge pack itself, not the weapon. It is a very "Star Trek" solution to the problem (ie, systems can always accept more energy, and it always makes them better, as in "all power to the deflector screens"). Now, Dan Abnett (who as far as I am aware invented them, as I can't think of any earlier reference) used it as it gave him a way to have the equivalent of special ammunition for his characters, and a way to make them a threat to big gribblies when their basic weapon was meant to be a big pile of poo. From a game design perspective they also make sense, as they give the players a choice of something special to use when they need it, but with big drawbacks (ie, the one shot). Now, with variable setting lasguns they would have to be beefed up to be worth it, but there is nothing stopping them reinventing them.

However, yes, it does mean that you no longer have a name for the 1 shot packs. However, they can simply rename them. On the other hand they never really made that much sense, as it seems to suggest that the limitation of the lasgun's power output was the energy transfer rate from the charge pack, rather than the intrinsic design of the weapon, and that limitation was imposed by the charge pack itself, not the weapon.

Well, we do know that the lasguns can accept a wide variety of of charge levels, and that you can bump it further by playing with the settings (the Lucius patern lasguns used by the Death Korps, or the Death Light of the Solex sect), but that using them on higher power is not always advisable. As the lasgun batteries are essentially capacitors from what we can see, the only limiting factor to the amount of energy you should be able to pump through it is the resistance and thermal conductivity of the components. A good way to compare would be by changing the capacitor on a disposable flash camera by a bank of 10 capacitors in parallel; you get a whole lot more juice, but risk burning the filament (and electrocuting yourself). The normal charge pack is more like the same 10 capacitors, but independently placed, so they discharge one by one.

This also means that lascanon should theoretically be able to operate with lasgun packs at lasgun power levels with a bit of fiddling, but would need a lot more fiddling to get it to accept lasgun packs to power it at lascannon levels.