Important to note that the only reason Conversion Beam Weapons exist in the lore is so GW could make a reference to Blade Runner's greatest line : "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die."

Please please do a complete series of this, all the weapons for all the factions - this is brilliant, I love the combination of lore and "how to tell what weapon your little toy soldier has" 😄

I think my favourite 'Imperium weapon trivia' is that according to the original Rogue Trader, Las-cannons are also known as 'Blazoogas'.

I know it'd be an insane amount of work, but I'd love to see you do a run down of all the main xenos firearms! Tyranids in particular would be fun, they have some *really* gruesome things available...

It feels weird to be watching a video like this without an appearance by Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum

So chaos use pretty much the same guns as the imperium so here's the Xenos guns. Eldar: long, sleek, smooth, and uses some kinda magnet to throw projectlies. Dark Eldar: long, sleek, uses some kinda magnet to throw projectiles, and are Spikey. Tau guns: thin, blocky looking laser rifles with a smooth round bit somewhere on them. Looks abit like designer kitchen ware. Tyranid guns: HR Giger drew a rifle and stuck it on an angry bug. Uses acids or living ammo. Votann Guns: like space marine guns but smaller. Necron guns: stripped down, minimalist engery weapons with a green tube in the middle and some type of spike on the end. Gene stealer cults: the same guns normal humans use. Ork guns: a pile of scrap cobbled togther to sort of look like a gun. Runs on hopes and dreams.

I really enjoy Ian's videos. They are clear, concise, and, most importantly for the grim darkness of the future, comedic.

This is the kind of thing most 40K KZfaqrs skip, but is vital work. Excellent video right here

My favorite imperial weapon is the psycannon. Nothing screams imperial like shooting mind bullets

I guess if you can see C-beams glittering down from as far as the tanhauser gate, you're going to need better than a 3+ armour save

Orks: whatever they've managed to cobble together. Every bullet is fired at a different velocity and there's probably a few random energy blasts coming out of it for good measure. It will almost certainly have a knife strapped/welded to it as well. Thanks for watching.

1:58 Bolters 5:44 Lasgun 8:28 Autoguns 10:45 Stubbers 12:14 Launchers 12:46 Flamers 14:22 Grav Guns 15:40 Melta Guns 17:00 Plasma Guns 18:42 Volkite Guns 20:12 Needler Guns 21:09 Conversion Beamers

Thank you for this video! When I was putting together my first Death Guard minis, I was having conniption fits because I couldn't tell what weapon was what and the packed in material was not very helpful. Please make more of these weapons of the factions videos! informative and entertaining!

Oh, good take to remark that the boltgun is a terror weapon! In the middle of a fantasy universe where Napoleonic wars and Mars Attack green laser beams are on the same battlefield, one weapon makes sense. And it's for psychological warfare!

Man I really feel like you would enjoy playing Darktide simply to pull out all the guns and shoot them in the meatgrinder. They are so beautifully done and the way they represented the 15-shot locke pattern bolter - just the sheer heft of the thing and the effect it has - is kind of beautiful. I know games of that kind are less up your street but it really made me happy seeing how they had rendered so much stuff I had just read about or seen in rulebooks in first person and beautifully done at that.

"I'm not an American, i don't know anything about guns" 😂🤣😂

The pointers on the weapon schematics, hilarious 😂😂

Would love to see melee and alien!

Surprised you didn’t cover the mechanicus radium and arc weaponry including their lightning guns and digital lasers.

I've always felt like there should be a significant difference between the massive bolt guns marines use and the kind used by human troops or that show up in Necromunda.

My favorite Warhammer gun fact is that quite a few models with heavy stubbers have what is just straight up a real life world war 1 vintage M1919 Browning machine gun. I just love the notion that design is still in use unchanged 38 thousand years later.

"you should be able to differentiation from your, heat ray and your heat ray and your heat ray" 😂

Yey! ‘Unexpected Arbitor’ video, happy days.

I just want to say the way you said "Craaaazy Science Guns" is now my headcanon for Tech-Priests explaining any new weapons to Guard regiments.

Inferno Pistols are named that because of a pun. The Inferno Pistol was originally a unique weapon carried by the Blood Angels Chapter Master, Commander Dante. Thus, it was _Dante's Inferno_ Pistol.

The utter exhaustion by the end. 😂 Thank you, Ian. We appreciate your hard work.

This was great Ian, for a 'non-gun' guy you did a pretty decent job sorting through all the terminology! Well done! 🤘

Excellent resource. I’d internalized the design cues without realizing it.

This was awesome! I really hope you might make this into a series eventually and tell us all about the various horrible hell-guns from the Chaos factions and of course the spooky and weird Xenos guns :D

Very informative. Thank you for explaining how the exotic and rare weapons function in game and in the lore. Nice video. Keep up the good work.

I just love your approach to content creation, it is informative, concise and fun. Thanks!

Very fun video! I've seen other channels doing something similar about specific weapons, but Arbitor Ian's tongue-in-cheeck presentation really works :D

Always enjoy your content, but is next level. Hope you do more of these types of shows. The lore vids are great, but this mix of fluff, explanation and description is quite unusual. Awesome work!

I feel like this whole video was just a set up for that last bit. A+ work, Ian.

Absolutely brilliant video Ian. Thank you so much

A couple of things, this isn't an ACKSHULLY though its more of I like sharing cool stuff, first being las weapons are not _exclusively_ laser weapons. Las is a catchall term for directed energy weapons but laser based weapons do make up the majority. Secondly is that volkite beams don't bounce, they explosively vaporise the targets bodily fluids causing them to detonate and its the flying shards of bone and armour that cause the secondary damage, very much a weapon in line with the purpose of the Astartes. It is my head canon (and therefore official!) that they sound like the heat rays from the 1953 version of The War of The Worlds including the pulsing charge cycle.

Your presentation style has developed really nicely, your delivery is much more natural and laid back now. Very easy to watch, cheers

I really like the use of all the Necromunda art.

I wish you would do a similar video for Xenos and Chaos weapons as well. Or at least another like this one for melee weapons! 😊

Great video. Love to see the melee and the xenos vids too!

Love your informative videos! Thanks for continuing to make cool stuff, man.

Volkite gun : a microwav gun that turn the ennemy's rank into giant barbecue ! Congrats for the 100k by the way !

Ian you forgot Phased plasma rifle in a 40 watt range.

10:38 Bullets go here is an excellent caption.

While you've missed out the smallest version of a lot of those technologies (the digi-weapon), that's understandable, as something small enough to fit into a ring or other piece of jewellery, is usually too small to be worth sculpting as an option for a model (off the top of my head, the only models with digi weapons actually physically represented were the Rogue Traders from the 54mm Inquisitor game, and the 2nd edition Captain Tycho). However, going one step up from a digi-flamer, but smaller than a hand flamer, there's another option, which did actually get models carrying it: the exterminator cartridge. This is a little miniaturized one-shot flamethrower, shrunk to the size of a tacticool accessory you could mount on another weapon, turning it into an ersatz combi-weapon. Unlike a standard combi-flamer, the exterminator wasn't limited to being fitted to a bolt weapon, oh no. You could mount one on ANY weapon, even melee. And that's why the exterminator was one of my favourite flamers, because nothing says "fanatical devotion to the God-Emperor" like a chainsaw greatsword that shoots fire...

"That Guardsman pissed me off..." "What did you do?" "I issued him a Plasma Gun" ;)

I've been a big SFF nerd and a gun owner since the late 60's. I've even fired a Gyrojet, the only firearm ever built that actually shoots rockets. 40K firearms are absurd and make no sense and in most cases are downright silly. That's what I love about them!

Another great video Ian, many thanks.

Good to see you referencing the FFG table top RPGs! I recognize those illos

Next Video Idea: melee wepaons in 40k, Like Power wepaons, swords, knifes, Hammers, all the Things you can equip in tabletop

This video reminded me of the countless hours i spent reading the second edition wargear book as a kid!

Great idea for a video, I’d love to see more vids like this for the other factions, I remember starting my dark eldar army and not having a clue which weapon was which, a vid like this would have been super helpful

Awesome vid as ever! "Martian Heat Ray(TM)" had me giggling much to hard...

What they do: NOT ENOUGH DAKKA. That's for sure.

I'd say another drawback of the bolter outside the hands of an eight-foot tall super goon is that the projectile they fire is only marginally smaller than a 20mm anti-aircraft shell. So there's some recoil.

Great video! A video about Chaos and Xeno weapons would be neat too!

Cracking video as ever, my favourite had always been the Heat Ray, no, not that one, the other one.

Awesome vid thank you! Melee weapons next?

Really interesting video!! I'm a Necromunda player and I base all of my gangs around a spine of lasgunners. Good range, never run out of ammo and strength 3/D1, which isn't that punchy but they do just enough to dominate the table if you have height and fields of vision.

Huh. While the thruster only igniting after the round leaves the barrel makes approximately zero sense, that DOES technically explain why bolt rounds have casings. Presumably contains a charge strong enough to get the round out of the barrel, which would conceivably improve rate of fire compare to existing gyrojet ammunition.

This was a good bit of fun!

That bullpup combi/ plasma bolter is one of the most cursed 40k guns. Who designed that...

7:43 yay, my Lascannon. Three days ago it literally decapitated a necron Lord. I love my lascannon and my deathwatch corebook]

Loved this. Would really like to see a similar video on xenos armament, but I feel like that's gonna be a LONG one considering just how many things you'll have to go through with just the Tau. XD

Ork Weapons would particualrly intrigue me for a future video idea...

Lol with that "PRIMUS" marque on the grav, I know it means something else but sometimes I like to think some marines pray to Les Claypool.

22:34 Honestly, I could use a primer on t'au weapons. Many variants of them that are decently rapid fire and can punch through some armor. And that's ignoring all the fancy high-tech names they have too...

L O V E seeing all these retro shoulder mounted heavy weapons, very fun video, keep on keeping on

You should do this again for some Xenos Factions, would love to see you cover something like Necrons

This video has given me the urge to get something that comes with a *warpfire cannon,* because that is the most metal weapon name I’ve ever heard.

Ouch being called out for our insane gun culture right off the bat ❤ u Ian :)

the issue with stubbers is that GW forgot they are suppose to be lowtech by 40k standards weapons and now we have the high tech ironhail stubbers for space marine tanks

10:02 Sorry Darktide again - I’m currently running my ogryn around with a twin auto cannon - raaaahhhh

Im gutted you skipped the Assault cannon and though it was in the images, you never spoke about the webber... best 2nd ed surprise weapon ever!

2:30 Remember when a .75 caliber hole isn't a big enough middle finger. Make it explode.

Excited about this one

I have to say my least favourite weapon for distinctiveness is the Hot-shot volley gun on the Kasrkin. Basically identical to the standard hot-shot gun, except it has a slightly different end of the barrel. Totally indistinct at table top distances. As you say, they have generally managed to make weapons actually quite identifiable, but they ballsed it up with that one.

Very nice!

Arbitor Ian + Johnathan Ferguson crossover wen

Perfect, thanks

At the risk of being overly pedantic, it is muzzle *brake*, not "break." A muzzle brake is a device that redirects exhaust gasses to reduce or redirect recoil - it "brakes" or "slows" the rearward movement and muzzle climb. Also, to be really pedantic, several of the muzzle devices in your image aren't muzzle brakes at all - they're flash hiders, intended to keep the shooter from being blinded by the muzzle flash. On real weapons, flash hiders are much more common - the muzzle devices on most infantry rifles, for example, are flash hiders, not muzzle brakes. That said, "bullets go here" on the blueprint almost resulted in pizza being spat all over my monitor. All the images were awesome but that one was truly epic.

As a new player this is super useful!

You should do this for other factions too. It took me way too long back in the day to understand witch one was the deveourer and witch was the fleshborer.

Sounds like they're going with the way they've done books for Middle Earth, which I think is the ideal way to do it.

I am certain in 1996, I had some conversion beam armed space marines. They actually had individual C weapons. I definitely remember it! I just can’t find the minis in amongst all of my legacy models. 😢

Waiting for Ian to tell us about the Conversion Beamer - my favorite example of Rogue Trader overkill.

As a Cawdor player in Necromunda thanks for the shoutout to flamers lol

6:16 Just to say that in Darktide (which I’ve not finished but is mostly lore accurate) the lazguns fire a red line of lazer which is straight but flares out around the edges. I would assume GW were consulted on how they wanted these to appear - I was always expecting them to be yellow for some reason.

RPG writer here, appreciate the shoutout to Imperium Maledictum!

Started building terminators last night and literally had a mind blank on all weapons because they're not labeled feels like you need a PhD is 40k to know what they are

Awesome 👌🏻

18:07 Back when orks also used plasma weapons. And I was going to complain about the lack of Mechanicus weapons, but considering that most of them fall in the "only exist on one specific model" range, that's understandable.

good to know that standard bolter round is basically a grenade encased in a bullet

Id kill for a version of this but for common vehicals

More Vidoes on Weapons please!

Watching this as a Votann player is fun :)

The bolter is a lot like the real world Gyrojet, interesting weird little development

I'd love to know how the Chaos Space Marien Boltgun fed by a belt of Boltgun shells through the magazine well works 😂

I remember reading a Horus Heresy novel (not which one) where a character used a Volkite gun and there is sounded really OP and rare. Something about it disintegrating people on a molecular level or some such.

I can't believe you forgot to mention the most well-known of all Imperial weapons: The Web-guns! 😀