So...Tesla or Gauss. The great Debate!

[Nachodragon]

Heavy Destroyers would only have 3 shots. Heavy Gauss cannon is only Assault 1. Though still a powerful gun at Str 9 Ap 2. And is 36" range.

[theHman]

I did 2 squads of immortals.
1 with gauss
1 with tesla

In my games, I have found tesla to be awesome.
The "exploding 6" giving you 2 extra hits makes even a min unit of 5 a threat to all infantry units.
The AP - doesn't bother me as I go for weight of fire and make my opponent roll tons of dice.
Doesn't matter if you're a terminator squad, you will fail one or two (or more) armor saves even at 2+.

I also like my immortals with Tesla b/c my warriors have gauss and my Pharaoh hangs out with them.
And the extra mobility is extremely useful. It allows you to march across the board with your immortals and still shoot at the enemy.

Hope that helps.

[Luke Licens]

Heavy Destroyers would only have 3 shots. Heavy Gauss cannon is only Assault 1. Though still a powerful gun at Str 9 Ap 2. And is 36" range.

You are correct sir, I was confusing the regular Gauss Cannon (24" Str5 AP 3 Assault 2) with the Heavy Gaus Cannon (36" Str 9 AP 2 Assault 1).

So, a more apt comparison might be regular Destroyers. 200 pts gets you 5 of them, so 10 shots, 7 hits rounding generously. That's just over 1 pen and 1 glance vs AV10, just 1 glance vs anything more. The longer range of the Destroyers is going to keep you safer, but the farther you hang back, the easier it is for enemy vehicles to keep you in their front arc.

Trigonometry Time:
Assuming 45 degree arcs for armor facings, if you're in the center of the front facing and 24 inches away you have to move more than 16 (16.97, disregarding the width of the vehicle) inches to get into the side facing. At 36", it takes more than 25" of movement to change facings. Nothing in the game can move that far in one turn and still shoot without teleporting.

[Slug]

Personally I'm looking at the idea of deepstriking a unit of Immoratals with a Cryptek. It could be risky but it's a great way to deal with backfield objectives, a unit of ten can blast away most non meq units that aren't to big and can at the very least contest objectives, also they can do something to most vehicles even a Land Raider, then teleport away. 20 shots ~13 hits you will get a six or two in there somewhere and against meq you will take out a few marines forcing them to either react to your unit or letting you get them out of there. I would say it's a great tactic for the extra disruption it causes, and if used smartly you can punish a player for leaving units on their own.


So that's my take on Gauss hopefully I can test it out soon and report back.

[theHman]

@Slug: Would you still be able to get the double tap on the rapid fire if you Deep Strike? I thought it counted as moving and therefore negated that.

[Sonikgav]

Ive decided to go with 1 Unit of Tesla and 3 of Gauss.

The Gauss stay more or less stationary as backfield fire support and the Tesla group are The Travellers Eternals so they have Furios Charge/Counter Charge and an Assault Weapon.

The Teleporting unit is tempting but for that id have to drop either a Solar Pulse or a Tremorstave and the Staves are part of my armies tactic.

[Slug]

2 shots even if you moved, I did check that just in case, so yes you can, it makes it quite effective way to use veil with a unit of 10. I haven't tried it out yet but hopefully I will get 750 points built by this weekend and I can test it. the only thing about this combo is making sure you don't get caught, sometimes your better off not using it if you will find yourself to close to too many units.

I'm going to be testing the effectiveness of each different Cryptek and see how they can be used, solar pulse is very useful though some armies can ignore it to an extent whilst others will get thrown badly by it so it can be a bit situational but lots of things are.

[Tynskel]

@Slug: Would you still be able to get the double tap on the rapid fire if you Deep Strike? I thought it counted as moving and therefore negated that.

Need to re-read the rules for Rapid Fire.

no moving= 1 shot at 24"
moving/no moving = 2 shots at 12"

[thecactusman17]

I would say Gauss weapons, but that's based on experience with other armies. Weapons which can reliably function against all other unit types are exceedingly rare, so a weapon that can do decent damage to infantry, MCs, and heavy armor is a pretty solid argument. Plus, with warriors and Ghost Arks you can pump cheap squads up to a point where they threaten expensive ones with ease.

[Saturn 3]

Gauss blasters. The more I look at it I like the warriors better 170 points - 10 immortals ,130 points - 10 warriors. I figure rapid firing against marines 5 deaths immortals and 4 for the warriors but the immortals have the 3 up . Maybe take big warrior squads out with veil of darkness and bomb on targets of opportunity? Less of a save but more of em .Costs alot though. Also that veil would come in handy. Remember you don't have to just use it to strike into enemy country but to retreat or to bolster your back lines!