What is the advantage of a Bullpup Lasgun over a M36 Lasgun?

The Bullpup Lasgun has a higher Availibility, less Range and ROF, the same Rld and offers no bonus when fired in one hand, like the Carbine. Ok, it weighs only 3.5 Kg, but a meager 0.5 Kg doesn't justify a higher Availibility, when most other stats are inferior.

Please don't argue that Availibility is only a logistic modifier and not a way to measure it's effectiveness, because it's used in that way when you determine additional standard kit items during regiment creation.

So why should we pay 8 points to equip Elysian Drop Troops with their most iconic gun and why did FFG didn't use Bullpup Lasguns to equip the Elysian 13th "Helldivers" in the first place instead of Combat Shotguns or goes this salute to a freelancer?

I cant explain it. But cant you just choose it as your standard favored basic weapon? Makes it easier to get with Logistics and lets weapon specialists pick it up at char gen.

Also you might want to check out the beta forums and news as there may be something in there that makes it more interresting.

Bassemandrh said:

Of course, but at the same time I'm robbing the Regiment of a much needed basic support weapon and I think  when you equip  drop troops, the whole regiment should get the same Basic Weapon, not only the Weapon Specialist.

To be honest I really like to choose the Auxiliary Grenade Launcher as the favored Basic Weapon, but some "clever" writer at FFG has made it a Weapon Upgrade, not a Basic Weapon, although it has stats like one, with a much to high Availibilty, considering that a full-fledged Grenade Launcher has only an average Availibilty. Underslung Grenade Launchers are THE most basic support weapons in todays armies up to the point where not only Specialist like Grenadiers are equipped with them, but also regular troops if the squad needs some extra fire power.

My impression is that the writers put to much effort in fixing older bugs from the DH, RT and DW times instead of developing good setting rules. In older times the new rules where much more rounded  in WH40K RPG's.

Thanks for the Beta hint.

I personally just houserule that Elysians take Bullup instead of the Combat Shotgun. Its the one piece of regimential kit from the beta I always disliked and expected FFG to change. It seems like it was just done to give a regiment something other than a lasgun.

Arbitrator said:

I liked them having shotguns, it's what most Elysians were equiped with in the fluff, and in models, before the new lot of stuff came out that made them use bullpup lasguns.

"So why should we pay 8 points to equip Elysian Drop Troops with their most iconic gun and why did FFG didn't use Bullpup Lasguns to equip the Elysian 13th "Helldivers" in the first place instead of Combat Shotguns or goes this salute to a freelancer?"

Because that's what they always used to be equiped with, back in the day. The Elysians using combat shotguns always seemed more iconic to me than just using small lasguns.

^Uhm… Are you sure? When the Elysian Drop Troops were introduced in detail (in IA3: The Taros Campaign), they had bullpup lasguns just as now. Before IA3, they only had a few sentences in IA1 (with no mentioning of personal small-arms). So where did you get this combat shotgun stuff? In their original army list in IA3, only officers could take shotguns, and veterans had the option to replace their lasguns with shotguns… 

Elysians have been around a lot longer than IA3. First time I remember seeing them was an old WD article mid-3rd Ed 40K. The guy converted a Space Marine Scout (with Shotgun!) into an Elysian.

And I answer the OP's question with a question: Why must it have an advantage? The rules are full of weapons that do bascially the same thing, or do things the same way with only the slightest difference (a pip of range here, an extra shot, different weight, etc.). Why must one have an advantage over another?

And who says all Bullpups are the same?

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

The Chapter Approved article was released after their introduction in Imperial Armour 1, and it says nothing about shotguns. Actually at the veteran sergeant's description it does say that he had a standard issue lasgun before he replaced it with a shotgun ;). 

Oh, and the article if someone is curious (page 28-29-30): http://www.scribd.com/doc/54418453/Warhammer-40k-Codex-Chapter-Approved-2003

H.B.M.C. said:

Because it has an higher Availibility, which directly transforms into a higher cost when you create regiments. No one (ok, no one with commen sense and not some military which is politically involved with a manufacturer) would spend additional cost on a weapon, which has inferior stats to a weapon which costs less.

Of course in the real world the difference between weapons isn't  this significant. There would be no RPG related advantage of a HK416 over an M4 (maybe it would gain Reliable) still it costs much more, but where is the point to reprint the same weapon a dozen times in a RPG weapons table? You  freelancers always complain about having not enough space in the books for your stuff, so why waste it with useless stats?

Kain McDogal said:

This sort of thing - purchasing or obtaining inferior weapons for political/cost reasons - would presumably happen as much in 40k as it does in real life, though, surely? Say the Governor of Elysia get a kickback from a particular forge world, for example?

Lightbringer said:

In the WH40K universe it would happen most of the time, but not if the players have something to say when creating a regiment.

Kain McDogal said:

borithan said:

If anyone should have easy access to an underslung AGL it would probably be very well-equipped troopers of the Adeptus Arbites, but even they don't seem to use it all that much.

In the real world many armies use Bullpup configuration weapons (SA80-A2, FAMAS and Steyr AUG) as they offer a similar range and accuracy (due to the full length barrel being shifted back into the body of the weapon) to standard layout weapons such as the M-4 and FN-FAL. Given that they can also use the NATO standard rounds I would say that in the 40k universe give your players the choice of a standard M-36 lasgun or a Bullpup variant with the same damage/range stats. 

The advantage of bullpup is its manuverability in confined spaces being approx. 25% shorter than standard rifles, the disadvantage is of course that you are 25% closer to an enemy in close combat when you've had to fix bayonets…

So, I've talked about this Bullpup Lasgun problem with my group, and here is what we devised:

So overall, we think that the Bullpup Lasgun is a lasgun only in its name. It is in fact effectively a different lascarbine, with longer range but longer reload time. As it is, we think that you can swap any 'Lascarbine' entries with the 'Bullpup Lasgun' entry, similarly how you can just swap shotguns with pump-action shotguns without any major impact. So I guess the Bullpup Lasgun is more like a fluffy choice what needs some RAI and a "fluff friendly approach"  to actually work as a fluffy choice. 

And the Elysians in the core rulebook are weird. They seem more like some sort of combat engineers than traditional Elysians. Our guess is that FFG didn't think their description through, as they have other weird things too (like how they have lots of bonuses to demolitions, but no support for Tech-Use…). 

Just give it the Las Carbine special rules for using them one-handed. This makes them just a little less useful than a regular lasgun in a long-ranged fight (no third shot on semi-auto), but enhances close quarters abilities due to not needing to switch too much between the gun and the melee weapon once you have Ambidextrous.