I agree with Darrel I find the plasma cannon wondrous. I run 6 obliterators in my CSM list. I have never had to much trouble with the gets hot rule. With oblits having two wounds you have to be having a bad day if you roll gets hot twice. I find that I use the plasma cannon more often then any other weapon on the oblits with the multi melta coming in a close second.

Thanks for the tip Darrell, this will help me when I equip those long fangs in the future, to be honest I don’t see the problem with a plasma weapon, you have a 1in 6 chance of the plasma ‘getting hot’ and even then you get your normal armour save, its all about the dice when it comes down to it, just need to work out the overall risks vs the gains and i think strength 8 ap 2 is worth the risk

Yeah I love plasma cannons. I run my venerable dreads with them, move 6″ and fire, never have to take a “gets hot” test and the BS 5 makes them ultra accurate. No better feeling then vapourising a squad of wolf guard with a well placed plasma cannon shot.

Plasma weapons in general work a lot better on vehicles- but the plasma cannon is just awesome now, especially if you’re facing a mass of nids or guardsmen, just pop it off into the middle of them and you’re bound to hit something. The rapid fire of the plasma gun makes it actually a tiny bit better than a melta gun against lighter vehicles that are between 6 and 12″ away, as long as they have AV12 or less you have a 1 in 3 chance of a penetrating hit and pretty much 50/50(not exactly but if someone wants to… Read more »

I love running my Leman Russ Executioner with plasma cannon sponsons, it has a big price tag but the ability to put out 5 plasma blasts can make it up quick.

I like plasma even though my guys usually burn themselves. Be they guardsmen or chaos space marines. Now this brought me upon an interesting question, I don’t know if the conditions are ever possible but I’ll ask it anyway: What if an infantry model(i.e. someone who has to test for the Get’s Hot rule) had a Twin-Linked Plasmacannon?

I love plasma cannons, when ever i play my space marines at least on squad has to have one or I have a unit of devastators with two. I will say this though, the first squad i put together I gave a plasma gun too and in their first game it overheated and killed the marine on the first shot

I must say I’m pretty fond of plasma-cannons too,as I use a 2 plasma-cannons/2 heavy bolters devastator squad,and I never lost marine to over-heating…What’s true too is that my luck is rather terrible most of the time….also master of the forge or “plain” techmarines with servo-harness can be quite effective when armed with another plasma pistol,and may get great conversions,too…

i love using plasma pistols in my assault squad. just jump behind an enemy rhino or something else with low armour. with 2 or 3 shots the chance to get the enemy on foot is quite large, then its just to run in and chop them up in the assault phase.

I find the plasmacannons to be great on a devestator squad with a lascannon or a missile launcher as well because str7 can hurt any non-av14 and if it is a raider i shoot it to try and scatter on to somethng nearby that it can hurt.

It would be last of 3rd/ early 4th edition, but I did manage to make my own devastator flee off the board because of heavy plasma casualties.

I find weapons that may potentially damage their user a bad rules mechanism and avoid them, since the (potential) bonus never really outweighs the risk involved.

like plasma cannons myself. Never had too much trouble with gets hot. I also use the pistol in assault squads occasionally for fun.

I mainly use meltaguns for my Grey Hunters because I know that my plasma gunners will kill themselves when I need them the most, leaving the pack with no special weapons. They are perfect on Dreads though.

Have I ever lost men to “gets hot”? Yes I have. On average one of my plasma weapons turns around and bites me in the azz, once every game or 2. And ones every 3 of 4 games, I fail my armour save.

As for blast templates. I have seen them do more harm than good.
In the last Apocalypse game I played, I lost 1 squad and my partner lost 1 squad to large blast templates. My opponent however also took out 4 of his partners squads in the same manner.

The range, 2 shots and ap2 make me equip all my tac-squads with plasma rather then melta. 🙂
As for tank hunting I use more specialized units for that so I don’t miss meltas in the least.

im a huge plasma fan i run a cannon and a gun in every tac unit and i have 10!

I think they’re a must have. The S7 AP2 shot is worth the risk and if you can put one or more in a unit with Feel No Pain… OMG… It’s a no brainer.

i don’t believe anyone pointed this out yet but the Tau plasma rifle does not have gets hot as “Tau favor a form of the technology that forgoes a degree of stopping power for increased safety of the operator.” pg 27 Tau Codex

My cousin once destroyed my dark reapers with plasma cannons then later in the game one of his devastators killed all the other guys in the unit and ran away. A small amount of justice.

Question: If the SM firing a Plasma weapon dies due to “Get’s Hot” can I remove another model in the squad in his stead, and thereby keep the Plasma weapon?

I am also a huge fan of plasma. Most pople here use either melta or flamers because of mech dominance, so they can pop the transport and then burn whatever was inside and is now packed close together. I think that plasma weapons are underrated, because you can quite easily pop a transport with S7, and from further away with 24 or 36 inch range. And if another squad is nearby a S7 template ignoring even terminator armor is much deadlier on packed unit. I regulary play two tac squads with plasmagun/plasmacanon in my BA army. I remember playing a… Read more »

Im totaly in love with plasma my normal opponents are chaos marines orks and guard i no the last to plasma cannons are abit of an over kill but i dont care xD i always field a devastator squad of 4 plasma cannons and every squad i have takes a plasma gun and a heavy bolter the sheer lack of enemy models by the time they reach bolter range is worth all the friendly losses you might take but so far from all the games ive never lost more than one plasma cannon a game 🙂 tbh it is quite… Read more »