Imperial Guard Storm Trooper armed with Hotshot Lasgun
A Hot-shot Lasgun is an Imperial Guard anti-personnel weapon that fires a much more powerful laser beam than that of the standard-issue Lasgun. The Hot-shot Lasgun is powerful enough even to penetrate heavy armour like a Chaos Space Marine's Power Armour. The Hot-shot Lasgun is issued to Imperial Guard Storm Trooper units and in its smaller, less powerful Laspistol form to Storm Trooper Sergeants and high-ranking Imperial Guard or Imperial Navy officers. These weapons normally require an external backpack-based power source to supply their large energy needs and have become an upgrade for the older version of a similarly powerful Lasgun known as the Hellgun. All Storm Trooper units issued these weapons are also regularly supplied with a large amount of replacements parts, as the weapon is so powerful that its components often burn out under the stress of its use. Among their other skills, Storm Troopers are skilled at repairing and maintaining all of their weapons and are even capable of building their arms from scratch if the requisite components are made available. These weapons are considered the property of the Departmento Munitorum which rarely entrusts these weapons to any Imperial Guard units that are not designated as the elite Storm Troopers.
Hot-shot Lasguns require multiple advanced components to be constructed, including reinforced alloy barrels to withstand the greater heat produced during firing, thermal cooling cells to prevent the weapons from overheating, and gyro-stabilised power packs. As such, only a small number of Forge Worlds in the Imperium possess the technological know-how or requisite materiel to produce these potent weapons.
Sources
- Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition), p. 46
- Only War: Core Rulebook, pg. 176