# Icarus Lascannon vs Quad Gun



## Turkadactyl

Hello. I am looking for opinions and advice on the Icarus Lascannon vs the Quad Gun.

I will be attending a 1500 pt tournament with my SoB. My list consists of the Saint and Uriah, a Battle Conclave, Repentia, a whole lotta SoB troops and some Exorcists. I will be taking an Aegis Defense Line for my anti-air and am unsure as to which gun to go with. I have not played with a defense line yet.

I am expecting some Helldrake heavy lists and whispers in the wind say that there will be some Lucius pattern drop-pods with Ironclad Dreadnoughts. Lucius pattern means the Ironclad can assault the turn it comes in.

Both have there advantages. Lascannon can handle the Ironclad, the Quad can pump out more shots. What are your thoughts?


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## Magpie_Oz

Of late I am finding more reasonable shots are better than few great shots.


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## Arcane

It all depends on what you are facing. 

Against armor 12 the Lascannon is far more effective. Since you are facing a Heldrake, you will probably only get one chance to fire at it with your gun emplacement. The Lascannon has a higher potential to destroy the flier in a single round of shooting than the Quadcannon. It's worth nothing that the Baleflamer is a real menace to Sisters of Battle since it ignores their cover, armor save and wounds on a 2+. That means it can easily wipe out any SoB squad it wants to unless you can destroy it IMMEDIATELY. 

Let's look at the math. 
Icarus Lascannon:
Bs4, 3s to hit (you can use faith to make it reroll 1s if you're using your troops to fire the gun, or even make it twin linked if you use Dominions), so 1 hit, Str 9 means you need 3s to glance, 4s to pen. Good chance you will penetrate, and the AP2 gives you a +1 to either blow it up or destroy the real threat, that flamer!

Quadcannon:
Bs4, 3s to hit twin linked. You will most likely hit with 3 out of 4. At strength 7 you need 5s to Glance, 6s to pen. Since the Heldrake has 3 hullpoints you need to then get three 5s to wreck it or hope for a 6. Without the bonus on the damage table, your Pen won't be as effective either. Since the model can use Daemonic Possession it can also possibly ignore Shaken and Stunned results, meaning your pen may be even more useless unless you get a weapon destroyed or exploded result. So that's either rolling three 5s, or a 6 and another 5 or 6. Most likely you won't and the Baleflamer will kill whatever squad is manning the Quadcannon, giving you little hope of killing the Heldrake in later turns. 

Your other best bet is to stay embarked in your transports since the Heldrake isn't as effective against armor as it is against infantry. By staying in your Rhinos you can reduce the chances of your Sisters getting burned alive instantly on a 2+ roll. 

Keep your Excorcists behind your Aegis line as well to give them a 4++ cover save. With armor 13 fronts they should be very safe if you put them together so the sides are harder to hit. Make sure the rear armor is against the back of the game board or some impassible terrian to ensure that no Raptors or Assault troops can deepstrike down and use their melta guns to blow them up from your rear flanks. 

Good luck friend.


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## Magpie_Oz

The Heresy Calculator gives the Icarus 0.111 Glances and 0.333 Pens per turn where the Quad gun gets 0.593 Glances and pens per turn.


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## Arcane

I forgot to add, it depends on your gaming group, so you should check with your Tourney Organizer about faith abilities and gun emplacement. I've seen some different interpretation on how they function on emplacements. 

Usually it seems agreeable to say that the Troop's ability to reroll 1s to hit works on emplacements. With Dominion and Retributors however, only the "Unit's weapons" become twin linked or rending (respectively) it can be argued that these abilities do not effect the emplacement gun. It's worth checking though and asking if it's allowable to use those abilities with the weapon. 

If in doubt, the Troops choice is probably best to fire the Icarus since you are only missing on 2s, effectively giving them a ballistic skill of 5 and making up for the weakness of not being Twin Linked like the Quadcannon. If you can manage to get the TO in agreement about allowing the Retributor's rending ability to work, the Quadcannon is better, but it's unlikely they will allow that.

Not to mention the extra points you save with an Icarus can be nice to use elsewhere. Remember your Excorcists and Retributors also are not too bad against flyers at any rate.


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## Magpie_Oz

The Emplaced Gun rule says to use all the special rules of the firer so you'd think that would apply to Gun Emplacements as well.


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## Ragewind

Here is a quick easy answer

Are you shooting at a single Model? Then use the Lascannon
Are you shooting at a Vehicle Squad? Quad Gun

Even without a explosion result the chances you negate the Flyers ability to impact the table is very high with the Las Cannon, a roughly 50% chance to remove it from being useful when rolling on the damage chart.

This of course means nothing when a Valk Squad shows up, which is where the Quad gun comes in. 

Now once you stop looking up, and pay attention to the ground the Quad gun becomes better as you can impact Scoring units with 4 shots as opposed to 1.


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## ntaw

My vote's with Magpie on this one. I have more luck with twin linked assault cannons than I do with twin linked lascannons, and the assault cannons are S6 rending. As far as math goes, the TLAC less likely to do anything over a S7 shot against AV12, yet my TLAC's are responsible almost every game for the death of a flier.

Even the best strategies can be ruined by rolling too many dice, so make sure you're always rolling as many as you can be on the offence and as few as you can on defence.


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## Arcane

ntaw said:


> My vote's with Magpie on this one. I have more luck with twin linked assault cannons than I do with twin linked lascannons, and the assault cannons are S6 rending. As far as math goes, the TLAC less likely to do anything over a S7 shot against AV12, yet my TLAC's are responsible almost every game for the death of a flier.
> 
> Even the best strategies can be ruined by rolling too many dice, so make sure you're always rolling as many as you can be on the offence and as few as you can on defence.


You may want to reread your rulebook. The Quadcannon does NOT have the rending special rule. Otherwise I would agree that it is the better option in all circumstances. As it stands there are circumstances where one is better than the other. In the instance that the OP asks, against a Heldrake with 12 armor and extra armor ignoring low low results on the penetration damage table, the Lascannon is more effective since it has a higher chance to actually do something before your squad firing the gun emplacement is instantly killed by it's flamer.


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## Magpie_Oz

Arcane said:


> Page 105 says use the normal rules for shooting, not to use all the special rules of the firer. Perhaps you could share the page and paragraph this quote is from unless you're just pulling it out of thin air?


Is this another one where you're going to post like an arsehole and then have a big sook when I call you on it?

Page 96 under Emplaced Weapons - Manual Fire. READ IT

One could then construe that "normal rules for shooting" also includes Special Abilities which for that particular firer are "normal"



Arcane said:


> You may want to reread your rulebook. The Quadcannon does NOT have the rending special rule.


Rather than being a dick about reading the rule book perhaps you should read his post? 
He compares the Assault Cannon to the the Lascannon and says he gets better results, he's not talking about the Quad Gun but using his experiences with the Assault Cannon to surmise how the Quad might go


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## ntaw

Arcane said:


> You may want to reread your rulebook. The Quadcannon does NOT have the rending special rule. Otherwise I would agree that it is the better option in all circumstances. As it stands there are circumstances where on is better than the other. In the instance that the OP asks, against a Heldrake with 12 armor and extra armor ignoring low low results on the penetration damage table, the Lascannon is more effective since it has a higher chance to actually do something before your squad firing the gun emplacement is instantly killed by it's flamer.


Hey man, never said it has rending. Just said it was S7. Also: glancing hits ruin vehicles. I get that penetrating hits have the ability to ruin them faster, but I believe in the shots of many over the overpowered shot of one. You can disagree, but math is on this side here, as per Magpie's run through the Heresy Calculator.

I'm also reading a rulebook, and play against a Chaos army that has Heldrakes in it, so I am talking about the same thing. Please don't be rude in your responses to a post that merely weighed in an opinion supported by fact and did not attack your views.


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## Arcane

Quadcannon=/=Assault Cannon. They are not the same. 



Magpie_Oz said:


> Is this another one where you're going to post like an arsehole and then have a big sook when I call you on it?
> 
> Page 96 under Emplaced Weapons - Manual Fire. READ IT
> 
> One could then construe that "normal rules for shooting" also includes Special Abilities which for that particular firer are "normal"
> 
> 
> 
> Rather than being a dick about reading the rule book perhaps you should read his post?
> He compares the Assault Cannon to the the Lascannon and says he gets better results, he's not talking about the Quad Gun but using his experiences with the Assault Cannon to surmise how the Quad might go


Also, abilities like Acts of Faith do not provide "special rules" to the unit, they only effect the wargear of the model. Is it wargear? No. 

Rather than being butthurt that someone else has a different opinion than you, just accept that in some circumstances someone might disagree with you as to the best weapon to use? Get over it.


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## Arcane

Additionally the math doesn't support it. The combat calculator doesn't take into account the new damage chart. It's now broken in 6th edition. 

Try playing with your Assault Cannons without rending and let me know how well they do against armored vehicles in comparison to Lascannons... Good luck with that. 

So in review, a Quad cannon may have a slightly better chance to get a Penetrating hit, however it only has a 50% chance for that penetration to even do anything due to the Extra Armor of the Heldrake. Meanwhile a Lascannon has a much better chance to make the one single chance this guy has at killing it even matter.


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## Magpie_Oz

Arcane said:


> Quadcannon=/=Assault Cannon. They are not the same.


He's not suggesting they are




Arcane said:


> Also, abilities like Acts of Faith do not provide "special rules" to the unit, they only effect the wargear of the model. Is it wargear? No.
> 
> Rather than being butthurt that someone else has a different opinion than you, just accept that in some circumstances someone might disagree with you as to the best weapon to use? Get over it.


Are you serious?

"... the Act of Faith is successful. The unit immediately gains a bonus and/or *special rules* until the end of the phase"

A Gun Emplacement is fired instead of your own weapon and your own weapon is wargear.

The only person getting butthurt here is you mate because via table top experience and the maths the Quad Gun is the better option as I and others have shown.


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## Arcane

What math? As I have explained the combat calculator was built for 5th edition. Firing on vehicles is now different... so unless you're still playing 5th?

I suggest he check with the TO about the ruling, which is the BEST thing to do. How is that wrong?


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## Magpie_Oz

Arcane said:


> I suggest he check with the TO about the ruling, which is the BEST thing to do. How is that wrong?


The rules cover it so no need


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## Arcane

I've had several TOs disagree, the rule is open to interpretation as I have illustrated regardless of it you don't think so, you *may* be wrong. 

It takes 5 seconds to shoot the TO an email to be on the safe side.


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## ntaw

sigh....

All I said was that I have good luck glancing out AV12 fliers with a S6 weapon. The Quad gun is a S7 weapon, so ideally would have better luck in causing glances or pens as it has a 1/3 chance on each dice used of taking off a hull point whereas I have a 1/6 chance with a S6 weapon. Regardless of rending or you misreading my post and getting on about it.

Since I don't have skyfire I'm hitting on 6's with a re-roll so you will have an EVEN BETTER chance with the Quad gun than I have had with my TLAC's since you retain your BS.

They both have 4 shots and are twin linked, and I'm even hitting on 6's without skyfire and still getting good results. If that isn't an OK comparison for you then I am sorry that I have upset you so, and please, carry on in the fashion you have been. I now know when NOT to post in a thread.

Good day.


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## Turkadactyl

Thanks for the input and hopefully we can regain the civility. I am still at the crossroads. Torrent of fire or that one sweet shot to put it down for good. I am expecting Ironclad Dreadnoughts dropping from the sky in drop pods

I will also contact the TO to see if the Quad Gun will benefit from the AoF.


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## lockeF

In my experience against helldrakes - I've never brought one down with my autocannon. I have been thinking about using the lascannon personally. It does suck terribly when your one shot misses. However, with the quad gun you get more chances. But with str. 7 you need a 5 to glance and a 6 to pen. Then the helldrake still has a 5++ and if you don't kill it in one turn, there is a chance it will regain hull points and or kill your shit. 

I vote for the lascannon. It has better range and if you get lucky, you usually get really lucky. 

That is just my two cents.


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## Sethis

My opinion:

Are you BS5 or higher?

Yes: Use the Lascannon.
No: Use the Quad gun.

S9 and AP2 balances out the fewer shots on the damage chart, and the really scary flyers are AV12 anyway, which the quad gun often bounces off.


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## paolodistruggiuova

this is the chance to deal at least 1 weapon destroyed OR explodes result to a Heldrake:

*BS 4*

*Icarus Lascannon* > 3+ to hit > 4+ to pen > 4/6 to ignore the Inv Save > 3/6 rolls on the Chart > *11,111%*

*Quad gun* > TL 3+ to hit > 6 to pen > 4/6 to ignore the Inv Save > 2/6 rolls on the Chart > *14,012%*

*BS 5*

*Icarus Lascannon* > 2+ to hit > 4+ to pen > 4/6 to ignore the Inv Save > 3/6 rolls on the Chart > *13,889%*

*Quad gun* > TL 2+ to hit > 6 to pen > 4/6 to ignore the Inv Save > 2/6 rolls on the Chart > *15,245%*

So the Quad gun has better odds of a Weapon destroyed or Exploded results even with BS 5 and considering that it cause more hull points of damage as well it's well worth the extra points cost.


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## MidnightSun

Arcane said:


> What math? As I have explained the combat calculator was built for 5th edition. Firing on vehicles is now different... so unless you're still playing 5th?


Label the weapon as Ap -. That corrects the damage table.


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## darklove

What would be ideal is to have a unit with Tank Hunter manning the Quad-Gun, that way you get the most chances to do damage.


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