What does the term ap mean in warhammer 40000 5th edition? How do you determine how many times a unit shoots?

Question

Below the specific weapon used by a unit it says ap: then a number. What does this mean. Is the Attacks column of a specific unit the only statistic to determine how many times a unit shoots?

Answer 1

AP means "Armour Penetration".  The number given represents the strongest level of armour that will be automatically defeated by the weapon.  So an AP2 weapon (such as a Demolisher Cannon) will defeat armour with an armour save of 2+ or better.  By contrast, an AP6 weapon will automatically defeat armour with a save of only 6+ or better.

Note that the AP of a weapon does not apply to cover saves or invulnerable saves.  Note also that "AP1" exists, even though there is no such thing as a 1+ armour save.  Weapons with AP1 are particularly good at penetrating vehicle armour and gain +1 to the vehicle damage table.

"Attacks" (A) meanwhile is a statistic for models, rather than weapons, and applies only in the Assault phase.  It describes the number of dice rolled to try to hit an enemy (each dice needing the same score to hit, based upon a comparison of Weapon Skills) before any modifiers for charging, extra weapons or special rules.

"Attacks" does not affect the number of times a weapon may be fired in the Shooting phase.  This is dictated by the "weapon type" which often indicates how many times the weapon may shoot if it is an Assault or Heavy weapons (no number means just one shot).  Rapid Fire and Blast weapons have special rules all of their own and the number of shots they take are dictated by other questions such as whether you have moved and how close the enemy is.

Answer 2

AP is armor penetration.  The number has to do with negating armor saves.  Example: If a boltgun has an AP 5, and shoots an ork boy with an armor save of 6+, the ork gets no save.  If the bolter with AP 5 shoots my chaos marine with a 3+ armor save, then I still get my full save.

The amount of times that your unit or model can shoot depends on the weapon.  "Assault 2" means you can shoot twice per turn.  "Heavy 3" means that if unit does not move, than the weapon can fire three times.  Rapid Fire can fire twice out to 12", or once out to max range.

Hope it helps

Answer 3

ap is amour piercing .

no attacks is for close combat, shooting is in the weapon profile after the weapon type like assault 2 can fire twice