Ye Olde Inn

As a proud owner (but late-to-the-party player) of Space Crusade, I see the great mystery in English of what a "Devastator" is meant to be from the Alien Event Card of the "Ork Mekaniak."

Using autotranslate on parts of the German Edition (StarQuest) I am inclined to believe it was intended to be a Plasma Gun so that's how I'm going to treat it when I play (we hope to play most Friday afternoons starting in December). Any problems with this idea?

I also like Gold Bearer's comment here

I realize you could also make it a "Flamer" but since this never appears in the board game I'd treat it as a synonym for the same gun (I haven't seen how the "flamer" functions in Voyage Beyond computer game yet) as the old name for the Plasma Gun (called the Black-hole-blaster in the German version!).

"Devastator" in 40k refers to a heavy weapon, which if I recall correctly is Space Crusade would be anything that shoots that isn't a bolter.

So you'd just pick any heavy weapon?

That would be how I would interpret it. I don't know if that is how they intended it, or if they changed what the word meant at some point, so I'm not overly confident in it. The French and German translations both use the plasma gun instead of another devastator-style word, so that would indicate that it was meant to be a plasma gun. Giving the choice seems a bit more fun, especially since the ork dies right after using it anyway.