Imperial Plasma and you: a Primer on how to kill your own soldiers

Reach out and touch somebody.

Greetings, Imperial Citizens! Thank you for purchashing this Primer on superior Imperium Plasma technology with your hard earned throne gelts. In this handy little book you can learn the proper application of your Plasma Gun, when to fire a full salvo with little risk of being detonated and perhaps you may learn to drop your weapon before it blows up.

Most likely however, you will just blow yourself up.



With the transition to 6th edition still well underway people are still uncertain about how the new metagame is forming. It's understandable just like when a block rotates out of Magic: The Gathering and a new set of cards or some reprints come through; new strategies must be made, old ones must be adjusted and entirely different decks are made in a few months. Magic is quite incredible in the regard of people able to adapt to an entirely new metagame in a short space of time and figure out what works.

We're still stuck deciding if we want transports. I guess that's the difference between the competitive communities, if one has a larger fan base.

And doesn't have Warseer.

One of the big things that seems to be popular is that with hull points making tanks more reliable to kill that people are shifting more towards anti-infantry options to deal with things no longer in metal boxes. People are sometimes ditching tanks in general but many people are making hybrid lists.

What amazes me is that everyone has now got the idea in their head that because of this, their list needs as much anti-infantry as possible and thus take every weapon slot as either a plasma pistol, plasma gun or plasma cannon. Space Marine Captains dual wielding plasma pistols, the new meta!

This is not only a terrible thing to do but also goes against the entire idea of a balanced list, one that 3++ is the new black and myself at Melta Martini advocate. Whilst plasma has by definition got better due to the simple fact that there will be more infantry to use it on, I feel the need to tell people how to use plasma, when to use plasma and how to incorperate it into a decent, balanced list.


Let's discuss the key features of plasma first. Plasma weapons are usually 12-36" range assault weapons, with strength 7 and AP2. Plasma pistols are pistols by nature with a 12" range. Plasma guns are rapid fire and have a nice range of 24". The Plasma cannon is a heavy blast weapon with a mighty range of 36". All Plasma weapons have the Gets Hot! rule, which means if you roll a 1 to hit with them, you take a wound and need to pass an armour save or die.

Now we know what plasma is, what is plasma useful for? The obvious reason you'd want to use plasma is because of the AP2. AP2 basically means you never get an armour save under any circumstances, as a 2+ is the highest you can go. This means that you have a good chance of scoring more wounds (or the same amount of wounds on more durable targets) on higher armour targets, the higher the better. The 7 strength also means that we usually either wound on a 2+ or, if in some cases a monstrous creature comes around, a 3+ or a 4+. It still means you most likely wound anything you hit with it if it doesn't have a good invulnerable save. AP2 took a buff as well through the vehicle damage chart and strength 7 means you can threaten light armour (AV10-11) quite easily with your plasma weapons, either stripping hull points or using that AP2 on a penetrate.

Plasma isn't all rainbows and sunshine though, so what are the bad points? The main thing is the Gets Hot! rule. Whenever you fire a plasma weapon you have a chance of killing your own dude. You're granted an armour save (which is unusual for a weapon that ignores armour) but in the end, you're firing a risky gun that may kill your own men. The men handling these weapons are either characters, heavy weapons teams or something in a normal squad that had the opportunity to take a new gun; you're squandering not only your own men but what those men could have been if you didn't blow them up. Hope that you don't roll a one. The other minor thing is the lack of volume of fire, and many people agree that weight of fire is usually better than single, stronger shots.

Going over all that, what is plasma bad at doing or is simply outperformed by something else? Plasma is generally not good at killing light infantry. A plasma cannon can turn Boyz into melted goo but it can't be fired when you move, because Blast weapons aren't allowed to be snap shots and manueverability is important when it comes to Orks. When the same shot can wound a Boy on a 2+ with no armour save and do the same to a Sanguinary Guard, you're better off firing at something else. On top of this, you might be able to threaten light armour but that doesn't mean you're going to use plasma as anti-light armour. Plasma should be used to kill heavy infantry but can also be used to threaten light armour if you really need it.

When you look at it this way, think of plasma like the inverse of a missile launcher. A missile launcher is an anti-light armour tool that can be used in a pinch against heavy or light infantry. Plasma on the other hand should be used as a tool to deal with heavy infantry but can also be used to kill light infantry or light armour in a pinch. Another cute thing is that Plasma is actually better when your own model has a higher armour save to absorb the Gets Hot! wounds (and also worse, because that model will cost more so if it does die, you lost a greater investment.) It's a shame however that terminators generally don't get plasma weapons and the only thing you can get with them is possibly a combi-plasma. Funny, that the best and potentially worst platform for plasma can't get it.

To summarise then: Plasma is great at killing heavy infantry and monstrous creatures. It can kill light infantry and threaten light vehicles but should not be taken for either of those reasons, just that you have the option to do so if your primary target is not available. Plasma compliments missile launchers very well. Plasma can also kill your own men so don't spam it in your units. Bring enough plasma so that you have redundancy but not enough that you've forsaken everything else. You want balance, not overwhelming the enemy with your own bodies.

I hope this post has helped you to decide if you really want that extra plasma gun or you want 3x5 devastators with 4 plasma cannons or not. Know what plasma can do, what it can't do and make sure that your list is balanced.