Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Imperial Guard (section)

====Special====
*'''Flamer:''' An assault 1d6 S4 that autohits from 8" away. You cannot depend on this weapon alone to beat hordes like it used to with its average 3.5 shots. Still, being an assault weapon that always hits, there's no penalty for advancing and firing, especially for Special Weapon Squads. It's also pretty useful insurance against charges as it always auto-hits during Overwatch and cautious opponents will position their charges at least 9" away to ignore its 8" range, thus degrading their odds of making the charge. Flamers are most effective when taken in {{W40Kkeyword|Catachan}} special weapon teams of 3 because they can reroll their D6 shots with ''Burn Them Out!''.
*'''Grenade Launcher:''' Not bad, but there are better things available. Krak grenades in particular took a big hit, with insufficient strength, AP and shot volume. Apart from being an assault weapon, you're not getting much besides the frag and krak grenades discussed above.
*'''Hot-shot Volley Gun:''' A {{W40Kkeyword|Militarum Tempestus}}-exclusive, replacing their access to the Sniper Rifle (also mounted on Taurox Prime APCs). Essentially a bigger Hot-shot Lasgun at Heavy 4 24" S4 AP-2, and Scions have enough BS to hit on 4+ on the move. It cannot be boosted by FRFSRF, but its longer range allows it to more easily proc {{W40Kkeyword|Storm Troopers}}' extra shots. This, and not the flamer, is ''the Scion's response to hordes''.
*'''Meltagun:''' Good against ''anything with lots of wounds'', not just vehicles. 12" Assault allows it to be fired even if you ran. S8 AP-4 D1d6 makes it more powerful than supercharged plasma and safe. If you manage to get to within 6" and fire it, you roll 2D6 and take the highest. This improves the average damage to 4.47 from 3.5 and also providing more consistent damage output. As of Chapter Approved 2018, you're paying 10 points for regular guardsmen and 14 for anyone with BS of 3+ or better. 
**Note on the maths: On a model with 3+ BS, the meltagun within half range has a slight advantage in terms of average damage dealt per point over a supercharged plasma gun in rapid firing range against T8/3+ targets and TEQ-characters. Guys with a BS of 4+ are almost always better off with plasma (it helps that regular guardsmen are, regrettably, extraordinarily expendable when the gun gets hot). 
**The choice between plasma and melta should be based on what you want your infantry units to be doing. If your dudes are going to be sitting in a static gunline, plasma is probably a better choice. If you are getting your men close to murder tanks, big monsters, and/or armored characters melta can be the better option.
*'''Plasma Gun:''' See the Plasma Pistol, but in Rapid Fire. You only need to supercharge against [[Grey Knights|mean]] [[Tyranids|bastards]], but against mean [[Chaos|bastards]], you ''need'' to supercharge.  Given that you have a *huge* variety of ways to re-roll 1's ('''"Take Aim!"''', '''"Born Soldiers"''', '''"Harker's Hellraisers"''',  '''"Hero of Hades Hive"''', etc.) casualties from supercharging can be easily minimized.
**Given it has the same 24" range and Rapid Fire profile as Boltguns and Lasguns, Plasma Guns should be the default special weapon choice in most squads. Remember, it is 7 points on BS4+ models (Chapter Approved 2018 only made it 11 points for models that do not have a 4+ BS). As for BS 3+ units (vets, Scions, etc.), there is some room for debate between plasma and melta (see subpoints under Meltagun).
*'''Sniper Rifle:''' May target enemy characters even if they aren't the closest model, but with its mediocre bolter-tier stats they're really fishing for Mortal Wounds on 6s to wound. Cannot be taken by rough riders. 
**At just a measly 2 points, it's the cheapest special weapon your squads can buy, but Ratlings can have 5-10 of them, <s>don't have to buy them</s> , and have the special abilities to get the most out of them, so if you ''really'' want sniper rifles you might as well just get them with the hobbits, or not at all.
**Command squads with these can be Ordered, which in combination with Cadian 'Take Aim!' makes them hit about 89% of the time. Not as good as Ratlings, since they're vulnerable to return fire and can't scarper back out of LoS, but command squads are more accurate this way.  This is, of course, a rather inefficient use of orders, but you may have orders to burn.