Editing Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Weapons (section)

===Shooting Weapon Archetypes===
*'''Lasgun/Autogun:''' S3 AP-0 D1. Cheapest and weakest Archetype. Their effectiveness only comes from being wielded by cheap spamable models, assuming it's not a support unit given one for the sake of having a weapon. Even then, they're only ok against other GEQ, and anything better only comes from buckets of dice rolling. 

*'''Bolter:''' Steps up to S4 AP-0 D1. Better than a Lasgun, but only slightly. A pure bolter gun is rarely in the front of a player, with many weapons being an improved variant with higher AP, firerate, or other special rules. Often a middle-of-the-road weapon, the wielders are usually not spammable bodies but are more likely to wound most infantry types and light vehicles.  

*'''Heavy Bolter:'''Much better than a bolter, but it usually has the heavy and/or Sustained Hits x rule, with all the drawbacks it has in comparison to rapid fire or assault, better at killing MEQ and TEQ than normal Bolters. S5 AP-1 D2.

*'''Flamer:''' It has a very short range of 12" and relatively low strength, but it compensates with Torrent and Ignores Cover. S4 AP0 D1. When in range, will deal a reliable number of wound rolls even if the unit has advanced, Overwatched, or is a vehicle in combat. It can dissuade GEQ and less resilient MEQ from being near the given unit.
**'''Heavy Flamer:''' An improved flamer with a bit more range, strength, and AP. S5 AP-1 D1

*'''Plasmagun:''' The classic plasma gun, great against armoured units, with two shooting modes. A safe mode and a Hazardous mode that increases strength and damage but may kills/damages the user after shooting. Regular S7 AP-3 D1 can reliably take down 1-wound infantry, if not more often overkill for the price. Overcharged S8 AP-3 D2 reliably kills MEQ and TEQ and inflicts moderate damage to vehicles (on a good roll to wound).

*'''Plasma Cannon:''' Usually plasma mounted on vehicles or fixed platforms. Pretty much identical to the plasmaguns but with more strength and base damage of 2 or more. They often have more Attack and the blast rule, letting them take down a number of TEQ and below while dealing a chunk of damage to a vehicle on overcharge. 

*'''Melta:''' The cheapest way to deal with heavy armour fast. Very low fire rates, but if it hits it can do D6 damage. For the most part it requires getting close enough to the enemy in question, so it's a very "high risk, high reward proposition," but at least it has some nifty abilities when close enough. Meltas are one of the more efficient ways of killing single models, preferably light vehicles and monsters, but they are often more of a waste against most units as their excess killing damage doesn't transfer to other models.

*'''Autocannon:''' Big guns that have a lot of strength and damage output, but not that much AP. It may have Devastating Wounds and/or Sustained Hits to up its damage output.

*'''Lascannon:''' The big brother of the lasgun. Higher strength than the melta to wound vehicles but slightly less Ap and less damage when within melta rule range. It has a superior range, so preferably used to snipe vehicles over long distances.

Also, take into account that most of these archetypes have a pistol equivalent (laspistol, bolt pistol, hand flamer, erradicator pistol, plasma pistol...) and a version with a greater rate of fire(Multilasers, Storm Bolters, Hurricane Bolters, Multi-melta).