Editing Autogun (section)

===Rotor Cannon===
[[File:Rotor_Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Rotor Cannon]]

The ancestor of the Assault Cannon, firing smaller-caliber, less-capable ammunition and to date only seen in 30k and in the hands of Voidsmen at arms in the hands of a Rogue Trader. While it had much less armour-piercing ability and stopping power than its successor, the Rotor Cannon is man-portable by both Power-Armoured Astartes and unaugmented humans and can be fired on the move by both, whereas the Assault Cannon requires the user to wear Terminator armour, or for the Assault Cannon to be mounted on a vehicle. Its stats were notoriously awful in the Horus Heresy's first edition, but the second edition replaced Salvo with Assault and made it Pinning (with Shell Shock (1) thrown in for good measure), giving it a potent role in locking down enemies for another unit to engage in melee.

A few forces such as the Toastersniffing Greasemonkeys and the [[Thousand Sons|Dust-Egyptian Space Marine Legion]] have improved the Rotor Cannon's utility by loading it with more useful ammo, such as Biocorrosive ammunition for the Technomonkeys and the Thousand Son's own Asphyx shells that both allow for this (")humble(") weapon to be able to successfully wound its targets much more often. However, the Rotor Cannon's limitations against tougher opposition eventually led it to be phased out millennia before the 40k era, as Imperial Guard infantry forces eventually got access to crew-served versions of Astartes-grade Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, and Missile Launchers for their heavy weaponry, against which the Rotor Cannon could not compete even with its ability to be fired on the move by unaugmented humans.

In the 42nd Millennium, the Rotor Cannon appears to have been lifting, as it's now got an addition point of strength, a degree of AP and (bizarrely) 2 damage, turning it into (if the Assault Cannon is an automatic 20mm cannon) basically a .50 Cal minigun. Really though, that 2 damage makes for a strange statline, as many related and much more powerful weapons lack 2 damage. This includes weapons like assault cannons, reaper autocannons, and even the Avenger bolt cannon. Combined with its less-than-impressive rate of fire this also means it's a portable rotary gun that ''doesn't'' specialize at horde-munching, instead being able to punch bigger holes in an ork Nob than a heavy bolter does (used to, 9e buffed Heavy Bolters to D2 as well), while also having a harder time actually wounding said Nob. Simply halving it's damage and doubling its rate-of-fire to 8 would've made a weapon that would've been the natural rotary version of an ironhail heavy stubber. Possibly the only logical way to resolve this would be to reason that its aim can only be changed very slowly while firing, and so can't be swept across hordes but can be held on a single target for more damage, but even that makes no sense when you roll badly and fail to kill a single ork boy with a burst of fire. A case of GW taking something weird and bad, and making it less bad and more weird.

[[Imperial Navy]] [[Voidsmen-at-Arms]] prefer the rotor cannon to other heavy weaponry on the basic Armsmen squads, as the lack of armor piercing compared to a Heavy Bolter is actually helpful when shooting holes into the ship is a real concern.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Rotor Cannon|r7=30|s7=3|ap7=6|type7=Salvo 3/4|r8=24|s8=4|ap8=-1|d8=2|type8=Heavy 4}}
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