Land Raider Plasma Array.

[Paul]

Once the design for this is completed, my Logicians chapter would like a progressive plasma-based Land Raider design...

if you're willing to share.

<Praise be to the Omnissiah>
<DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS ref. Logos Arcturus, Tech-Father ++LOGICIANS CHAPTER++>

The secondary armament will no longer be able to engage the enemy on the move. This is enough of a disadvantage that no plasma overheat is required.

The addition of a pintle mounted Plasma Cannon rather than Multimelta would be fitting, as our Devastators possess both in ample numbers.

If both suggestions are rejected, then replacement of Assault Cannon armament with Plasma Cannons (twin-linked, Executioner, or otherwise) would be recommended instead of Hurricane Bolter subsystems if only to maintain a high speed on the battlefield.

<Omnissiah Vult>

[wkz]

Note: Calling it "Nova" is sorta using Imperial naming guidelines (Nova cannon, anyone?), but there are also other naming precedents you can take; the Stormblade (plasma-based Baneblade) and Leman Russ Executioner comes to mind.

[Culven]

In regard to the cooling system / transport capacity issue, why not reduce the number of weapons in each sponson and add some additional cooling equipment in the mounts? Also, I would think that leaving them as single weapons instead of being twin-linked would be a balanced way of representing the weapons overheating and straining the cooling system without actually trying to come up with some Gets Hot equivalent for the vehicle.

If this variant carried three Plasma guns in each sponson, the standard Twin-Linked Assault Cannon, and a Pintle Multi-Melta with a transport capacity of 10, I think that the standard points cost might be fine. The offensive power of three Plasmaguns in each sponson weapon system is balanced by the fact that the vehicle has no defensive weapons and will need to use PotMS to fire both sponsons as well as the fact that each shot has a 33% chance of missing.

[SeattleDV8]

You're still going to average two hits per sponson.
If you dropped it to 2 twin-linked plasma guns per sponson you would drop that avg. to 1.78 hits .
Still a scary thing to face without being too overpowering.