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Are Pintle Mounted weapons on tanks or Chimeras worth the points? Have they ever mattered in games you've played? I ask because I'm building an armored / mechvet IG army and the points for pintle mounts on everything add up.

IMHO yes.
It's 10 points to add a few more S4 shots when standing still, and to make your vehicle that much harder to glance to death.

Maybe not on transports, but on tanks, yes.

I don't think so. IMO, they are useful against horde armies, but the number of armies which are meltavet makes me wonder whether they really are worth the paper they're written on.

MC

but the number of armies which are meltavet

There is only one army which is meltavet.
Imperial guard.

I never invest points into a pintle-mounted weapon unless I simply have some points left over and don't know what to do with them.

I would only spend points on pindle after you are don with the army list.
Then using remaining points that can't go anywhere else.

Boyz before toys I guess.

My 7 Cents.

Thanks for the advice everyone. For some perspective armywise this is what I'm working on-

1 CCS (Regimental Standard, Heavy flamer, lasguns) w Chimera
3 Veterans (Grenadiers, voxcaster, 3 flamers, 6 las or shotguns) w/ Chimera
2 Hellhounds (not squadron)
3 LRBT (one with Pask, Bolter sponsons, other two naked, all with lascannon)

If I deduct the pintle weapons I come in at 1498 pts. I would have went Heavy Bolter on the LRBT's but the models only come with lascannons for the front mount.

Don't put sponsons on LRBTs. Put pintle-mounted heavy stubbers on any tanks that don't have ordnance and can be expected to target infantry.

i know i'm goin' OT of sorts, but
"1 CCS (Regimental Standard, Heavy flamer, lasguns) w Chimera ".
for the same 15 points you're spending on 1 heavy flamer, you could get 3 flamers.
just my personal taste i guess.

That's a good point you brought up and I'm glad you did. I'm revising my CCS to have two regular flamers instead and add the pintle weapons back to my tanks.
That puts me at 1503 pts.

First thing: There is absolutely no reason to take a pintle-mounted storm bolter over a pintle-mounted heavy stubber. The SBs AP5 is useless against almost everything - medium to heavy infantry doesn't care and light infantry will hug cover anyways - while the additional shot of the heavy stubber gives you a 50% killyness advantage ofer the SB.

Second thing: A nice advantage of pintle-mounted machine guns is the fact that they count as defensive weapons. That means you can drive your chimera 6" and fire your MLas and add the light machine gun fire from the pintle-mounted heavy stubber. That increases your shot output while moving by 100% and your effective firepower of the chimera by 60 to 80%. And all that for 10 points.

(I calculated killyness against T4 and T3 targets with a 4+ save.)

In my opinion, if you got the points left and you need more mobile anti-infantry firepower, a pintle-mounted heavy stubber can be a great addition. Furthermore, you have more weapons on your vehicle, which increases the chances of the vehicle surviving over the game. (Being glanced to death by weapon destroyed and immobilized results gets harder the more weapons the vehicle packs!)

I have a pintle MM on my LR

I run 7 chimeras at 1500-1750 level, and all of them have heavy stubber, its a great weapon heavy 3 great range and can be fired on the move. i always count my chimeras as 65 points and use the stubbers as standard

Loricatus Aurora wrote:I have a pintle MM on my LR

As awesome as that sounds, do you count it as a heavy stubber, storm bolter or is it just for looks?

I think he means Land Raider, in which case he's speaking literally.

Aye, Land Raiders can take a pintle-mounted Multi-Melta. Which increases that AT capabilities of the Crusader and Redeemer patterns by a lot.

Now I want a multi-melta for my Russ'. It would really class the vehicle up a notch. Oh well, maybe next codex...

Kaldcb wrote:I run 7 chimeras at 1500-1750 level, and all of them have heavy stubber, its a great weapon heavy 3 great range and can be fired on the move. i always count my chimeras as 65 points and use the stubbers as standard

I do exactly the same. My squads have the anti-tank weapons whilst the Chimeras crank out 9 shots a turn to deal with the hordes.

I always take stubbers on the chimeras. 9 shots stationary/6 on the move is pretty good on meqs. i almost always force a couple of saves on the meq players, and the horde guys hate hate hate those stubbers!

I would say only stick them on if you have points left over. I do have a regular opponent who swears by them, only because he always wounds with them, and I always fail the saves

For Chimeras, pintle mounted heavy stubber only worth it if you have extra points. There is something to be said about keeping your Chimeras cheap so you can buy other stuff.

The pintle mounted multi melta is a good buy for Land Raiders especially the Redeemer and the Crusader since you can use the machine spirit to fire it on the move or at a second target.

The MM on my Redemeer always misses, but it inspires an inordinate amount of fear in my opponents. 12" move + 12" melta is a frightening thing. I just wish I could take 4 of them.

I may or may not be sold on pintles for everything but I now definitely need to jam as many multi meltas in every Vet Squad carrying Chimera I own!

Unfortunately, vet squad can't carry multi-meltas. Normal meltas are alright, though, and do the job far better because they are assault weapons.

If the heavy stubber is going to complement your other weapons AND the vehicle is going to be moving at combat speed a lot then definately use them!

On an anti-tank configured LRBT or a chimera that's going to be zooming about then they're a waste of time. On a anti-infantry LRBT or a chimera that'll be sitting back then it's useful extra firepower.

just remember; for every 6 pintle stubbers (rounding up), you can simply have another chimera. And I'd put another ML/HF chimera on the table any day of the week ahead of 18 S4 (~2 dead orks a turn in cover); shots that I may or may not even be firing if the target's non-infantry. I like 3 things about chimeras; they're dirt cheap, can ping other transports, and offer a big scary heavy flamer (that cares little for the meager BS3) to enemy assaulters. There's little you can add to them to make them do those 3 things better.

As for russes; their jobs are, to me, almost exclusively to nuke things with low AP templates; not a job stubbers are good at helping. Artillery just sits back/out of LOS and shells stuff. No need for stubbers there.

The only exception I see is if you build your army around a tank gunline; lots of russes/artillery, with pillbox chimeras as standing cover. Bring a handful of ML/HB/stubber with an infantry squad inside with autocannon/grenade launcher or the like. 130 pts for 2 S7, 4 S6, 3 S5, 3 S4, and 4 S3 out 24" (though mostly 36") from an AV12 scoring tank is pretty funny (and a pain in the ass to roll), if not particularly cost effective; that's just under 5 saves on T4, after all.

So my personal opinion (that I'm fairly sure I'm not alone in) is that they're likely not worth the 10 points at the end of the day. Though if they were only 5, I'd likely jam them on everything that could fit them, so take that for what it's worth.