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So, planning my powerblob army, I crossed a conundrum. I know I want to upgrade the grenades my Guardsmen carry so they can chew through vehicles as awesomely as they chew through infantry, however I am now faced with a choice. Melta bombs or krak grenades? I'm curious as to what other viewpoints dakka can share on this issue...

As far as I can tell here are the pros and cons of each choice.

Krak Grenades
Pros
1) Each Guardsman gets krak grenades, so the number of grenade attacks I can make increases immensely. This makes it so that even hitting on a 6, I am likely to get enough grenades sticking to a moving enemy vehicle to wreck it.
2) S6 is more than enough for dealing with Rhinos, Predators, Leman Russes, and most other tanks I'll be facing on the battlefield.

Cons
1) 10 pts per squad makes them a bit more expensive than melta bomsb
2) While S6 can hurt most vehicles, it'll be useless or next to useless against Land Raiders, Monoliths, and any walker that doesn't have all around AV10.

Melta Bombs
Pros
1) S8 +2d6 means that even the toughest Land Raider or walker is going down. Monoliths still pose a problem, but they're a fairly rare sight...at least in my local meta.
2) Cheaper than krak grenades at only 5 points.

Cons
1) Since only the Sergeant gets them, I'm only tossing 3 melta bombs at enemy vehicles. Moving tranpsorts would be relatively safe againtst a melta bomb attack, even with rerolling thanks to my firiendly neighborhood Eviscerator waving Priest.
2) Once again, since only the sergeant has them I'm now at risk of not only losing my power weapon for a squad, but my antitank abilities as well if the Commissar decides that the blob needs a little 'encouragement'.


Edit:

For further information, I'll just say that the grenades are a secondary line of antitank weapons at best. For most anti tank work most of my power blob lists pack: 2 battle cannons, 6 melta guns (SWSs), 9 lascannons, and 6 missile launchers. I personally think that's enough AT, but I do want grenades as back up.

None at all if you ask me.

Take meltaguns in order to shoot down the transport before you run into what is inside (assault range = effective melta range).
You dont want to assault vehicles anyways because this leaves you bunched up for flamer and blast weapon fun.
If you want to defend yourself against a tank shock, maybe use meltabombs+meltaguns.

Well, first of all, krak grenades end up being cheaper when you buy meltabombs for every sergeant. That being said, I use meltabombs in my squads and though they've cracked open plenty of land raiders and dreadnoughts, being shot up, flamered, and assaulted by the contents of the wrecked/exploded vehicle is not fun. I'm running at least one meltagun in the blobs now, plus the melta PCS to ensure I kill things before I assault the insides.

I would go for meltabombs for insurance.

I'm guessing you're going for cheap, but why not both?

Blacksails wrote:Well, first of all, krak grenades end up being cheaper when you buy meltabombs for every sergeant. That being said, I use meltabombs in my squads and though they've cracked open plenty of land raiders and dreadnoughts, being shot up, flamered, and assaulted by the contents of the wrecked/exploded vehicle is not fun. I'm running at least one meltagun in the blobs now, plus the melta PCS to ensure I kill things before I assault the insides.

I would go for meltabombs for insurance.

I have considered that, the meltabombs are indeed a final line of defense against vehicles. I've got 2 battle cannons, 9 lascannons, 6 missile launches, and 6 melta guns in my list, so hopefully I should be trashing the enemy's vehicles before I charge them...but the melta bombs are a last rank of insurance. Going off that logic, it becomes much easier to go for cheap.



@chaos0xomega

well, besides the expense, it just seems tha tboth would be overkill, especially when I look at the rest of my anti tank.

Sorry, I made a stupid back there, I forgot you had to pay 10pts for each 10-man squad...go with meltabombs, cheaper and in 30man blobs, you still have three of them.

I would definitely go with the melta bombs. Remember that half the point of blob squads is that you have a huge mass of meatshields which are hiding a few damage dealers, its basically inevitable that Guardsmen are going to die before they hit combat which means you are rarely going to get full use of the Kraks. Considering that you aren't particularly fast you aren't going to be assaulting vehicles a hell of a lot anyway, vehicles you are assaulting are more likely to be assault vehicles like Land Raiders which have just delivered a squad into your lines. Probably the most likely situation for blobs ending up in combat with a vehicle is being assaulted by a Dread. This alone probably puts the meltabombs ahead of the Kraks, hitting on 6's sucks but at least you have a chance of destroying it and not being tied up for the rest of the game.

Ah, well in my theoretical footguard list, I had powerblobs w/ meltabombs to try to take out enemy heavy armor, and my long range antitank consisted of a horde of Missile Launcher teams (which is better suited to AV13 or less).

ChrisWWII wrote:
Cons
1) Since only the Sergeant gets them, I'm only tossing 3 melta bombs at enemy vehicles. Moving tranpsorts would be relatively safe againtst a melta bomb attack, even with rerolling thanks to my firiendly neighborhood Eviscerator waving Priest.
.

each sergeant gets only 1 meltabomb attack

It depends on your Meta, I guess, but I think there are a total of two vehicles in my store that have better than rear AV 10. I believe the entire list for all codices is three Leman Russ variants, a Land Raider, and a Monolith. If you have to choose one, I'd say Krak since it affects 95% of the vehicles you see.

If assaulted by a walker with AV 12 or 11, just kiss the guys goodbye. You hit on a 6 with grenades. With Krak, that's a 1/36 chance of a *glance*, of which you'll need at least three to take down an Armored Sentinel, more for any other walkers. With melta bombs, you only have one attack for every ten. On the plus side, when you do hit with a MB, your odds of doing something go up drastically. Neither case is worth spending points on. Kill it before it gets to you or run away, or just write the squad off as a tarpit.

I go with melta myself.

Anything that has rear armor that can be hurt by krak grenades can also be hurt by frag grenades. 20-odd frag grenade attacks are often good for at LEAST a stunned result, if not an immobilization or a choice weapon destroyed.

Meanwhile, there is not substitute for meltabombs against walkers or heavy vehicles.

If you're going to spend points to upgrade your guardsmen's grenades, then they should at least be able to handle things that their free grenades can't.

Exergy wrote:
each sergeant gets only 1 meltabomb attack

I have 3 squads per blob.

ElCheezus wrote:If assaulted by a walker with AV 12 or 11, just kiss the guys goodbye. You hit on a 6 with grenades. With Krak, that's a 1/36 chance of a *glance*, of which you'll need at least three to take down an Armored Sentinel, more for any other walkers. With melta bombs, you only have one attack for every ten. On the plus side, when you do hit with a MB, your odds of doing something go up drastically. Neither case is worth spending points on. Kill it before it gets to you or run away, or just write the squad off as a tarpit.

Definitely hoping to do the 'kill before it gets to me' school of thought. I'm thinking that the extra damage of melta bombs is going to be much more useful, especially with rerolling to hit. I may only get one hit in, but that one hit should be able to penetrate and do some damage at the very least no matter how tough my opponents armor is. NOt to mention that, if I'm using it as a tarpit, I'm throwing 3 rerollable melta bombs a turn (plus 2 6+2d6 armor pen attack from my priest's eviscerator) sooner or later I am going to hurt the damn thing, especially if I'm locked in combat for a few turns.

Ailaros wrote:
Meanwhile, there is not substitute for meltabombs against walkers or heavy vehicles.

If you're going to spend points to upgrade your guardsmen's grenades, then they should at least be able to handle things that their free grenades can't.

In all honesty that is beginning to tip the scales heavily in favor of melta bombs...

Another bonus of Meltabombs is that you have a better capability to deal with Tank shock, if the sergeant is in the way. The problem is that this is still very risky, if you fail (which isn't unlikely) then this vehichle can just escort you off the field unless you have a CC close by.

I'm in favour of krak grenades becuase you only have to give them to one or two of these three squads. I wouldn't rely on them to target vehichles, you shouldn't be doing this with blob squads anyway. I'd have the kraks as a safeguard against walkers so as to avoid getting tied up by them. 20 kraks should have a better chance of killing a dread (unless it's AV13) than 3 meltabombs given that you always need sixes to hit.

I would go with neither (at least partly because I would have meltaguns in the squad). At moving transports, a 6 to hit would favour krak grenades, but as Ailaros points out, you can do that sort of desperate measure with frags. At walkers in close combat, yes, meltabombs would be a good thing, but you'd still need a 6 to hit from a maximum of 3-4 attacks. IG are not totally screwed if assaulted by a dreadnought, remember. You can allocate a wound to the commissar, hope to fall back, and then use the GBITF order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should point out that meltaguns, being AP1 and on a model that's not already an investment, are better than meltabombs for resisting tank shock, no question.

Ailaros wrote:I go with melta myself.

Anything that has rear armor that can be hurt by krak grenades can also be hurt by frag grenades. 20-odd frag grenade attacks are often good for at LEAST a stunned result, if not an immobilization or a choice weapon destroyed.

Meanwhile, there is not substitute for meltabombs against walkers or heavy vehicles.

If you're going to spend points to upgrade your guardsmen's grenades, then they should at least be able to handle things that their free grenades can't.

Ailaros has spoken!

But seriously, listen to this guy, I have seen his battlereports and power blobs

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:I would go with neither (at least partly because I would have meltaguns in the squad). At moving transports, a 6 to hit would favour krak grenades, but as Ailaros points out, you can do that sort of desperate measure with frags. At walkers in close combat, yes, meltabombs would be a good thing, but you'd still need a 6 to hit from a maximum of 3-4 attacks. IG are not totally screwed if assaulted by a dreadnought, remember. You can allocate a wound to the commissar, hope to fall back, and then use the GBITF order.

I should point out that meltaguns, being AP1 and on a model that's not already an investment, are better than meltabombs for resisting tank shock, no question.

I would second this. Meltaguns are a great investment in a combat blob that will get close and personal. It's certainly a better expenditure of points than melta bombs, which may or may not come up. You don't want to charge vehicles, because that clumps you up like crazy and makes you template bait. Against dreadnoughts, your odds of killing it with meltabombs are slim indeed.

The problem I see with melta guns in power blob squads is that if I shoot my melta gun at a tank I want to blow up, and it blows up, well, yay for me! But now, my blob squad can't assault anything, which is what I'm fielding blob squads to do in the first place. I do have melta in my list...I just put melta in my SWSs so that I can both shoot melta at tanks, and have a blob charge any nice things that pop out. Melta bombs are there as a last line of defence in case I get charge by a walker, of if I wasn't able to take out the enemy's tanks with long range fire/melta.

Ailaros wrote:I go with melta myself.

Anything that has rear armor that can be hurt by krak grenades can also be hurt by frag grenades. 20-odd frag grenade attacks are often good for at LEAST a stunned result, if not an immobilization or a choice weapon destroyed.

Meanwhile, there is not substitute for meltabombs against walkers or heavy vehicles.

If you're going to spend points to upgrade your guardsmen's grenades, then they should at least be able to handle things that their free grenades can't.

Actually, this is a very good point. . .

I want to add something: assaulting vehicles (not being assaulted by walkers etc) with an IG blob squad is something of an act of desperation. If it's a transport, you will be exposed to the unit inside next turn; whatever happens, you will be clumped for templates and blasts next turn; if you blow up the vehicle, you are likely to lose a fair few guardsmen. At least using frag grenades to glance the back armour avoids the 3rd problem, and there's no point pouring points into an assault option that leaves you so exposed.

ChrisWWII, there will often be times when you would rather blow up a vehicle than assault it. There will often be times when you are 6-12" away from a vehicle which is the closest enemy unit, so it makes sense to fire the meltas rather than run. There will be times when your opponent moves vehicles up that are a greater threat to your blob squad than his infantry units (ie anything with a template weapon, usually a HF, on it). Meltaguns are primo protection for a combined squad.

Apart from anything else, why not take them? Plasma is expensive and rapid fire, grenade launchers lack punch, don't get me started on sniper rifles. Flamers are the only competition. But I would say that the blob doesn't need much help with light infantry (especially with FRFSRF) and there's the whole problem of shooting yourself out of assault range.

I view special weapons shooting as seperate from assaulting - ie I would usually depend on one or the other, not using both in one turn. Any serious anti-infantry shooting, you may lose the ability to charge. Shooting a transport, then charging the occupants, is the holy grail of any assault unit, but unless you are 1-2" away from the transport in question, your opponent can probably place his disembarked models out of charge range.

So, I think that meltaguns expand the list of targets a blob squad is good against, and should always be taken. This obviates the need for anti-vehicle grenades. (we went a little off-topic there, my bad)

I-b-h-t-e, I agree with you on one thing: the only specials worth considering for blobs are flamers and meltas. I'll disagree with you saying that you *should* take them. You logic of taking the meltagun over the flamer is good, but I still wouldn't spend 10 points on diversifying a blob. They assault, and they have grenades that can hurt most vehicles in a pinch. If you need to take out vehicles, there should be multiple other units capable of it. If you don't have other units that can do it, then you have a problem with your list. Taking your argument (that the meltagun is the special of choice) a step further, I conclude that no specials should be taken unless you literally have 'spare' points.

If you really want to add some anti-vehicle, meltabombs are half the cost. There's less range, but we both acknowledge that we're talking about an act of desperation that should only rarely be used, so I think cheaper is better.

At least in my infantry squads, I've given them flamers as the special weapon. When I was building, I figured that specialization was a bit better than adding in melta guns to be honest. As it stands, blobs are death incarnate to most MSU infantry units, and with FRFSRF can do a hefty number to light infantry blobs, flamers give them an even heavier punch against light infantry swarms, which I still view as something powerblobs are a little weak against.

Bounty hunt, to be honest I think we look at the issue two seperate ways. As you said, you see special weapons shooting and assaulting as seperate from one another, but I'm viewing it as one big thing. I want special weapons that will boost some of the weaknesses of my blobsmen, while at the same time making it so they aren't trying to do too much.

Interesting. I admit that flamers were my original idea for weapons, then I decided that putting the meltaguns into small squads would make me too vulnerable against vehicle heavy armies. And it honestly never occurred to me to not give guardsmen any special weapons at all. I shall sally forth, play some games and see how much play the meltaguns get.

ChrisWWII wrote:The problem I see with melta guns in power blob squads is that if I shoot my melta gun at a tank I want to blow up, and it blows up, well, yay for me! But now, my blob squad can't assault anything, which is what I'm fielding blob squads to do in the first place.

You do realize you can assault the occupants of the blown-up transport with the unit you used to blow it up, right?

Myself, I would not try to assault vehicles with a blob squad, when/if the vehicle explodes in combat, how many of your guardsman do you think will survive?
With krak grenades you want to get as many in base contact, in which case most if not all will be hurt in the explosion or with meltabombs your sergeants will die, since the explosion makes models in range suffer a S3 hit (which are the sergeants who are in base contact) and they are just as likely to die as normal guardsman.

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:Interesting. I admit that flamers were my original idea for weapons, then I decided that putting the meltaguns into small squads would make me too vulnerable against vehicle heavy armies. And it honestly never occurred to me to not give guardsmen any special weapons at all. I shall sally forth, play some games and see how much play the meltaguns get.

This is integral to my list building strategy. I decide before I make a list what the minimum a unit needs to be viable. Veterans need 3x Melta or 3x Plasma, minimum. Blobs have to be at least 21-man with a commissar and power weapons for each Sergeant and the Commissar. PCS can be fielded with 2x Melta, or 3x flamer /GL. After building a list with the minimums, then I move to spending the last few points on upgrades or extra weapons. Since IG are so efficient without bells and whistles, this leads to more units with more firepower and more redundancy. As such, I never start with specials in blobs, since that's not the minimum. Upgrades, then, are all dealt with after the list is settled, and can be decided based on what the list as a whole needs.

When it comes to grenade upgrads (because I like to stay at least somewhat on topic), it's the same thing. If I had points left over, and decided my blobs needed a little more punch vs armor, it would depend on a) how many points I had and whether I could buy the same thing for each of my blobs, and b) whether it were light or heavy armor they would need to face. If my meta has a good number of Land Raiders in it, MBs would be a decent choice.

Of course, if you have three 21-man blobs (like I do), that's 30 points of MBs. I'd be more likely to spend that on more meltas for my PCS (which starts with two), or if I had enough points, I might even just buy another platoon (I have 2 blobs "owned" by one platoon, so adding another platoon would only cost me the PCS) to give them 2x meltas for 50 points, or a SWS with meltas for 65. A lot of upgrade decisions should be based on what the list already looks like and needs. Flexibility is good, but I'd rather have two focused units instead of one that's mediocre at a secondary role, all else equal.

Yeah, I'm also riding the el cheezus train of NO upgrades to a power blob (save power weapons of course), and they aren't really doing any worse than they did WITH upgrades like flamers and meltabombs. Of course, you have to have the rest of you army able to handle things like dreads, etc. (which I currently do).

One thing to note about dreadnoughts, though. With 3 meltabombs, you've got a pretty decent chance of blowing the dreadnought up BEFORE it is able to throw 30 guardsmen off the table. If you're relying on putting a wound on a commissar to break the blob so that you can shoot the dreadnought, you just kissed a LOT of points goodbye.

If they have meltabombs, though, they'll be tarpitted for a little while (not that close combats don't already take awhile with power blobs), but in the end they'll come out fine, rather than horribly tarpitted the entire game or run off the board altogether.

As for meltaguns in power blobs, I like the idea, what with AP1 and several of them being takable in a blob (which, by the way, can still take BiD, even if it's a power blob), while still increasing their coolness against things like terminators and monstrous creatures.

Melta of either type is not necessary if you don't have a lot of treaded opponents to face off against, or people with lots of monstrous creatures, but it's not a total waste in a power blob either.

Moral of the Story kids:

1) Don't Assualt transports with power blobs.

2) Meltabombs are nifty when facing walkers.

I'm far more of an experienced CSM player than IG, and with that experience I can say this with a lot of confidence: You only need 10 krak grenades to deal with 1 target, and in most circumstances it's more than enough krak to multicharge a pair of AV10 rear armor vehicles, and that's without 20 more frag grenades to back it up. A 30 man power blob can take 10 krak grenades for one squad and leave the other 20 guardsmen without krak. The 1 certain conclusion I can make is 30 krak grenades is pointless overkill against anything vulnerable to krak, and 10 out of 30 guardsmen with krak is more than enough.

On the subject of melta bombs V krak grenades it's actually a 3 way race between melta bombs, melta guns, and krak grenades.

If the goal is to defend against death or glory krak grenades are almost useless against front armor, melta bombs are good, but melta guns are better. A free AP1 hit with a 15 point melta gun trooper against a tank is better than a free non AP1 melta bomb hit with a 25 point sergeant. Melta guns are better to defend against DoG.

If the goal is to wreck tanks on the IG players turnit all depends how fast the tank is moving. If it's a BA army, orks, eldar, dark eldar, or a Land Raider the tank is probably moving 12" a turn and the melta gun is better. If the tank moved up to 6" then the melta gun is better than the melta bomb because the gun is ap1. If the tank is stationary it's probably AV10 in the rear and the best solution would be krak grenades. Overall the melta gun is best.

If the goal is to defend against walkers it depends if the squad is assaulting or being assaulted. If the squad has the opportunity to assault it has the opportunity to melta gun the walker that is the obvious best answer. If the squad is being assaulted krak grenades won't do much as AV12 walkers are the most popular type of walkers followed by AV13 ironclads and AV11 Killa Kans. The only thing that will work is melta bombs against AV12, but even then it's not a good situation. Most marine AV12 walkers are less than half the cost of a blob so the dread is tarpitting the blob more than the blob is tarpitting the dread. Add on top of that any failed morale checks will result in a melta bomb being executed, and the dread is sure to win just about every round of CC. The answer is blobs need to avoid combat with high AV walkers, because if blobs run into high T MC such as Talos or Wraithlord the answer is to not get into CC with it.

Yes, meltaguns are generally better, but if you're bringing priests, 3 rerollable eviscerator hits and 3 rerollable meltabombs are likely going to put a hit down, which is very probably going to put a penetration what with rear armor and all. Plus, if you immobilize them first, then those grenades hit 100% of the time, rather than roughly 50%.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Moral of the Story kids:

1) Don't Assualt transports with power blobs.

Actaully, that's not the moral at all. That's the opposite of the moral actually. Assaulty armies can do just fine against transport armies, even against tailored lists.

@schadenfreude - I have heard the idea of one batch of krak grenades in a combined squad before. I can see the merits, especially as you keep the grenades as the first men get picked off. The problem that prevents me trying this (and I'm sure many would share my point of view) is how much of a pain keeping track of this on the table would be. You'd need to put visible krak grenades on 10 of the models, making sure to take the right ones off according to wound allocation. Doing wound allocation at all would become a notch more complicated. And like a lot of players, I have a sort of urge toward uniformity. If it's a squad I plan to combine, I like to have each squad equipped the same, it seems a little odd that one of them is upgraded.

Exactly.

It's a good idea that has all of these niggly little unsettling things about it.

"Hey, sarge, why does Bob get a krak grenade and I don't? You're not holding out on me just so that I get killed by wound wrapping are you?"

"I would if I could ever figure out which one of you actually had them, soldier."