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Meltas are, as many have pointed out, the most reliable anti-tank weapons that are easily available to an army. Unfortunately, many people, especially on the Internet, seem to have confused "most reliable" with "best," relying entirely on melta weapons for anti-tank purposes and disregarding other options. This doctrine is incorrect.

Two factors combine to make this flaw apparent. First, many or most enemy vehicles are transports; ideally, you should destroy enemy transports when they are far from your force rather than when they are close, thus inflicting the maximum possible disruption on the enemy battle plan and rendering the contents as useless as possible. Second, melta weapons require you to close with the enemy, and therefore impose tactical inflexibility on your troops. A meltagun kills from 12" away if the target is not heavily armored; a missile launcher does so from 48" away, and therefore incurs far less risk. A Cyclone launcher or Typhoon launcher is even better; such weapons are essentially autocannons with an extra point of strength and much better anti-horde capacity. Such weapons should make up one's primary anti-tank firepower; they are both more flexible and safer than meltaguns, and can destroy enemy transports and light vehicles before they close into dangerous distances. Even the much-maligned lascannon can be an effective weapon for this sort of long range anti-tank work.

There is one other important consideration to make, however, which is that meltas are generally not only the most efficient method of taking out heavy vehicles, but also necessary to do so. Long range anti-tank weapons are often not useful at all in these cases; AV 14 vehicles are immune to autocannons, can only be glanced by missile launchers, and are rather difficult to stop even with a lascannon. In some armies, such as Tau and certain Imperial Guard builds, more powerful anti-tank weapons exist that can accomplish the same task, but for many lists, melta must serve as the primary anti-heavy vehicle weapon.

Therefore, an army is best served by a reasonable mix of the two weapon types. The primary anti-tank firepower in a shooting-based army should be provided by weapons that can pick off enemy light and medium vehicles (especially transports) from range, such as autocannons. Melta weapons should also be present though, both in order to eliminate enemy heavy vehicles and as secondary "sweepers" that eliminate any vehicles that manage to get through the long-range fire. In this way, the high penetrative power of melta weapons can be used in those cases where it is most important, while the detriments of short range are minimized. Obviously, those units that are equipped with meltaguns should be as mobile as possible, so as to best close in and use their weapons at maximum power.


Note that there are some units, most notably Sternguard in pods, Termicide squads, and the like, for whom the range of melta weapons is not a significant downside. Though such units can be powerful, one should always evaluate the tradeoffs; in many cases, the suicide unit may prove unable to have a significant effect on the enemy, or will prove unable to kill units that are more valuable than itself. Further, such units may be positionally countered by a savvy player, or even directly countered by a player who takes a Dæmonhunters Inquisitor with Mystics. However, they fill a role that other units generally do not, so may be worth taking. If you do decide to take such units, melta is obviously the best option, as its primary disadvantage (range) is mitigated by these units' Deep Strike or other rapid deployment capabilities.

This is totally accurate. You didn't even need to add your caveat at the bottom about some units being ok with the short range.

To some players, this has been obvious from the beginning, to some others they had to learn the hard way. Or they'll soon learn the hard way when they get to a populated tourney.

I've got a great example of an army that uses the 'melta is the only reliable tank kill' concept, and fails hard as a result. I am ashamed to admit I am the author of this list

IG 1750

CCS 4x melta chimera HF

vets 3x melta chimera HF
vets 3x melta chimera HF
vets 3x melta chimera HF

2x devildog HF
2x devildog HF
2x devildog HF

medusa BB
medusa BB
medusa BB

I honestly thought I was on to something. I boasted about my 13 heavy flamers, I boasted about my 13 BS4 meltas, I was knocking out land raider armies in embarrassingly quick one-sided games. My group mates were hot and heavy for battlewagons, and i cut through them, heavy demon armies weren't a problem for me when directing all my meltaguns into crushers or MCs and heavy flaming troops. I even beat some more balanced aggressive marine armies. But don't let the spammy goodness of that list fool you. If you don't pull the guy that is planning on driving armor 14 to you, or forced to deepstrike his CC army next to you, you lose.

I took some really bad beats... and then the W/L ratio cranked hard to the loss side. Its an entirely armor 12 army, with only three units having a 48" range tops. Those three units are open topped. The first guy with 30 lootas that used smart target priority took me down. Then space marine bike armies with MMAB started taking me down, then my friends 'for fun' IG army with hydras and autocannon vets in chimeras with heavy bolters ate my lunch.

Fetterkey hit one really important detail to 40k that people forget. When you kill a 'transport' vehicle in your own half of the table. Did you do anything at all? Not really. the unit inside was already 'transported'. Now land raiders are exempt here, as they are fully armed tanks in addition to their transport capacity, and conventional weaponry is nearly hopeless against it. And how about vehicles that aren't interested in letting your melta weapons get close to them. Vendettas and fire prisms come to mind.

Nowadays my IG list looks a LOT less spammy, and has an even spread of anti-tank weapons. I'm running one or two foot platoons with autocannons, to take my BID orders, I'm running a squadron of vendettas for some mobile TL lascannons, I still have 8 meltaguns, and still run 1-2 medusas. Devildogs still make an appearance on occasion as well. I don't just light up land raider spammers anymore, or really any spammer anymore. But my W/L has certainly evened back out. And I have the tools to win a spearhead, a dawn of war, and of course a pitched.

Funny how not just replicating a single weapon over and over will give you that added flexibility huh

Well said. I see why people like melta weapons so much but really I find them too limited, you have to get in close, most of the time people are guning for units with melta weapons, if you can get in close enough with the things you probly only have one shot before the unit is wiped out or forced to flee.

I find with most suiccide units that they either scatter out of melta range, or end up in some sort of deep strike mishap, sure drop pods avoid the mishap problem but dont solve the range issue and in kill points games your suiccide sternguard, or tac squad has just given the enemy 2 kill points to possibly gain one.

I do use melta guns but there not my only choice for anti tank weapons, I mainly use them as t4 or less character killers without that pesky eternal warrior rule.

fot my AT, I prefer the Lascannon, Missile launcher, and the Assault cannon for av 10-11 which also makes a very anti good infantry weapon.

Melta guns I keep one or 2 around, Multi meltas I leave on vehicles. Typhoon land speeders with one, dreadnoughts, leaman russ vanquishers with a pair i find particularly effective, and the devildog with the melta cannon and a multi melta.

Yes these units can get quite expensive, but sometimes its quite worth the expense.

Some choices are unused and stated as over pointed but things like a devie squad with 4 lasscannon and a lasscannon razorback, 300 points 5 lasscannons, 1 twin linked and one with bs 5 or a guard infantry platoon with heavy weapons squads added in, lasscannons at 105 for 3, or missile launchers at 90 points for 3, 75 points for 3 autocannons, for a total of 655 points you can get upto 8 scoring units, and 15 lascannons. for 630 points you can get 15 missile launchers, and for 605 15 autocannons. for another 60 points you can add 6 melta guns to those formations.

It's nice to see people are coming around to the notion that successful armies need flexibility, which is hard to do in an environment chock full of armies based on redundancy (aka "spam").

Of course, as Shep points out, redundant armies are rock-scissors-paper to other redundant armies, and rock-paper-paper to flexible armies.

Flexibility can be analyzed as having two parts:

(1) Complementarity, where long-ranged anti-vehicle weapons like Lascannons, Missile Launchers, and Autocannons complement short-ranged ant-tank weapons like Melta Guns and Multi-Meltas. Units can complement units, like a Vendetta complementing a Devil Dog, or models within units can complement each other, like a Lascannon armed model in the same Tactical squad as a Melta Gun armed model.

(2) Applicability, where a weapon that can be used against one target can also be used effectively against another target. A Medusa's regular Siege Cannon ammunition is more flexible than its Bastion-Breacher ammunition despite being less effective against heavy armour because it has that large blast marker for use against dismounted infantry as well as S10 ordnance to use on bunkers and armour. A Melta Gun can Instant Death infantry as well as AP1 heavy armour. This also applies to range, with a 36" ranged weapon doing everything a 24" ranged weapon can and the extra 12" of effect.

My experience has been somewhat like Shep's, except that I was the guy in the Land Raiders, and I learned to sit back and let the Land Raider's Lascannons do my talking. Eventually most of those Land Raiders were replaced by Chaos Space Marine squads with Lascannons so that my army had the flexibility to engage at long ranges as well as at close range.

My main problem now is trying to convert some Autocannons for a third squad of Havocs...

Shep wrote:
Funny how not just replicating a single weapon over and over will give you that added flexibility huh

Amen Brother Numsi

The OP is dead on, thats why I always take one infantry squad the heavy weapons and heavy weapon squads gives you an advantage over pure mech list in my opinion.

Yep. Just another reason the CSM codex is so full of fail.

Space Wolves, now, are going to be rather revolutionary; say it with me, 5 ML Long Fang squads! Wooo!

Anti Tank imo I like dishing out a mix of melta and lascannon, the lucky shot on a blastmaster never hurt whatever really get's the job done lol.

I completely agree. You need a mix of range and melta weapons to have an effective fire base.

But what about armies that don't get meltaguns? :(

I see your point though (this is also why I personally hate the multimelta, "Oh look, a longer ranged meltagun, but you can't move while firing it to get close enough to melt something, happy hunting! ")

starbomber109 wrote:I see your point though (this is also why I personally hate the multimelta, "Oh look, a longer ranged meltagun, but you can't move while firing it to get close enough to melt something, happy hunting! ")

Thats why I limit them to vehicles, move and fire, speeders make it easy to get them aound the sides or sometiems rear of vehicles.

I am in agreement. Melta is good, but in certain situations. This is why in my large crusader squads (with my BT) i stuck to Flamers, IMO a lot more useful in their AI role!

Awww...why do you have to hate on the meltaguns?

We dont hate them we jsut dotn think that they should be the only anti tank in a list, which seems to be the predominant anti tank tactic now, suicide sternguard, suicide termies, suicide outflanking meltavets, regular meltavets, vulkan lists, ect. ect.

Personally I belive for every melta weapon there should be at least one ranged AT weapon.

I think people are finally starting to realize now that that need a good mix of long range AT to effectively deal with mech armies seeing that mechanized lists are so prevalent now. It takes time for a trend to work it's way through the general population and I think we are now at the point where to vast majority of armies we see are mech in some form or another.

The melta though is still the best AT weapon and having to deal with their shorter range is not by any means a bad thing. For instance 24" is still fairly long range and S8 coupled with AP1 can pop AV13 and below, in fact the melta can wreck AV14 outside of half range but you will need hot dice. Assault units have to close with the enemy so they are an excellent place to pack meltaguns. Fire Dragons mounted in a skimmer is also an excellent unit for tank hunting. Deep striking Oblits are another dangerous tank hunting unit as well and they can be hard to neutralize unless you take them into account during deployment.

So the melta is definitely the best AT gun at the moment but armies with also access to long range guns should invest in them as well.

sourclams wrote:Yep. Just another reason the CSM codex is so full of fail.

Space Wolves, now, are going to be rather revolutionary; say it with me, 5 ML Long Fang squads! Wooo!

Now I dont want to open up the CSM Codex box here (as there are many good arguments as to why this codex is not loved by the masses - and there are many other threads), but I dont think this statement is supported by the OP's argument. The CSM codex has great options for complementary long and short range anti tank options - and this is exactly how I like to use them. I get great utility out of an infiltrating Melta squad of 5 chosen, backed up by a 4 ML or Autocannon squad of Havocs for transport popping/infantry killing. Defilers are great long range tank crackers, whilst land raider acting as a shield wall for a vindicator is very effective at getting into range/protecting that vindicators side armour. Oblits are great allrounders, good for close, good for long distance.

I mainly play against IG and Eldar. for Eldar I love the autocannon, two s 7 shots against those AV12s are more effective than a single s8 Krak shot (in my experience). For IG I like a ML - the st 8 is enough for light medium tank popping, and the small blast deals effectively with their heavy weapons squads.

personaly I like the vanquisher cannon, no downsides to it, it has the range of a battle cannon and the hitting power of a multi melta without the melta rule at a relatively low points cost. It should be on more vehicles than just the leaman russ. a rhino based tank hunter varian with one would be awesome.

The vanquisher is great except for the part where it isn't AP1, costs way too much, and when shooting from long range will likely be firing through cover.

Melta guns are very good for killing heavy armor. That is what they should be used for. Besides railguns and lance weapons there is not really anything that kills heavy armor from range very well.

That is why most solid lists take a lot of autocannons, missile launchers ect.

Tau have missile pods, rail rifles
SM has dakka preds, rifleman dreads
CSM has oblits
Eldar have lances
IG has everything including cheap lascannons
Nids have nothing reliable
Necrons don't really have much
Chaos has nothing
Orks have lootas
DE have mass lances

Most good lists of all of these armies already employ the long range anti light armor weapons.

Funny that the best armies have these quality long range weapons as well as easy access to melta weaponry.

Notice Tau, eldar, SM, IG, and DE all have that.
CSM to a lesser extent.

Kinda funny how that works out.

ManwithIronHands wrote:personaly I like the vanquisher cannon, no downsides to it, it has the range of a battle cannon and the hitting power of a multi melta without the melta rule at a relatively low points cost. It should be on more vehicles than just the leaman russ. a rhino based tank hunter varian with one would be awesome.

Or better yet- a SUPER Heavy Weapons Team. It'll take 3 Guardsmen to run and 2 turns to set up, but after that you have a Vanquisher cannon mounted on a swivel ready to kill anything on the field! (Incidentally it'll cost the same as taking a Vanquisher tank and have a rule or two gamers can argue over for years on end)

This is why I think vendettas are a must have for IG armies. Fairly cheap, lots of tactical options, and incredible ranged AT firepower. Compliments the rest of most IG armies extremely well.

Timmah:

You curiously forget to mention Chaos Space Marine Havocs with Autocannons, and Chaos Predators. The latter being able to mount a Havoc Launcher can make it an even meaner anti-light vehicle platform, and lightwise help it handle what spills out of the transports. It also help turn a Lascannon Predator from a tank-hunter into something with more flexibility.

darkkt wrote:

The CSM codex has great options for complementary long and short range anti tank options - and this is exactly how I like to use them.

I don't want to derail the OP's thread so I won't go into this enormously, but the reason the CSM codex is full of fail and illustrates the OP's points very well is because you are basically limited to 3 FOC slots for long range AT. If you can't take it on a Heavy, you're either shoe-horning units that aren't meant to perform the ranged AT role (10 CSM with a lascannon) or are forgoing entirely.

Defilers are great long range tank crackers,

No.

ph34r wrote:The vanquisher is great except for the part where it isn't AP1, costs way too much, and when shooting from long range will likely be firing through cover.

meh ap1 doesnt healp all that much, yeah it makes a pen hit 50/50 to destroy, with the other 50% doing something nasty. but you gotta trade of something, and a vanquisher isnt all that much at 155 points, for more than twice the reach of a multi melta and more than 4x the reach of a meltagun, av 14 13 10 makes it a tough nut to crack. the ability to move and fire heavy waepons as well make it quite formidable. For 250 points you have a tank with bs 4, +1 weapon strength vs vehicles, and reroll to wound vs MC with a vanquisher cannon, lasscanon, and 2 multimelta, that it can move and fire. I wouldnet want to be an MC or tank within 12" or even 24" of that thing.

Yeah cover can be an issue but that can be negated by good deployment and the mobility the tank has. I'm not saying that its the be all end all of anti tank but its a great long range option.

AP 1 means everything you roll is at least a 2. So even if you only get a 1, its still pretty/very useful against a lot of tanks.

I didn't mention other CSM heavy support choices because they are all pretty much inferior to oblits. Sure you can buy 4 autocannons with havocs. But you get 3 lascannons that can move (slowly) for cheaper. Lascannons are good for popping av11, its just usually they are expensive.

Same goes for the triple lascannon predator. Its inferior to oblits in most circumstances, though it is a bit cheaper.


Another observation. All of the top tier armies at the moment can get autocannons (or better) in a non heavy support role. This could be the reason CSM is good but not amazing anymore.

I was just about to start a thread on the same subject.

I see all of the kids taking melta these days and not taking any long range fire-power.

Don’t get me wrong, I like melta on the right platform, but your army should not be based around it.

If I see someone taking melta weapons to the exclutions of all others, I know it will be an easy win. Really, how do you expect to use multi-melta in a tac squad?

I am an old-school player and in lascannons I trust.

Ditto to everyone's comments...thankfully the IG has all the tools to create a balanced list AND to handle most spam armies out there....

The manticore and basilisk fulfill the role of long range heavy AT busting for me, since with indirect fire at range you can deny cover saves and you hit the side armor, autocannons and multilasers for light armor, and meltas take over what the LR weapons cannot finish off....

In emergencies and as a last resort, there are times when your rolls suck in the shooting phase and some vehicles survive (mostly due to poor damage result rolls....ever get days when you roll 1 and 2's for the damage?)..then krak grenades from veteran squads/StormTroops/and even RRiders will try to finish off those with AV10 rear armor (it is usually the RRs who do this, as I only dismount vets if necessary, and RR's are suicide units anyway). This works especially well if the vehicle was immobilized previously, as all the CC attacks autohit...

Nightwatch wrote:Awww...why do you have to hate on the meltaguns?

I don't hate meltaguns, but I don't worship them either.

Timmah wrote:Same goes for the triple lascannon predator. Its inferior to oblits in most circumstances, though it is a bit cheaper.

The triple lascannon Predator isn't very good, as the las turret is overcosted by at least 30 points. The auto/las Predator, on the other hand, provides a good threat to light vehicles, and for a fairly cheap price.

It really depends on the army. I am playing Eldar and while Bright Lances are great albeit expensive, they are one of very few true anti tank options available at long range. The only other options would be a prism, a falcons pulse laser (a complete waste), or an EML which cant do much to high AV, two of those choices suck up a full HS slot. Combine low choices available for cheap anti heavy AV that with the low cost of Fire Dragons I will never leave home without a squad because they're a reliable piece for me.

Eldar are a special case; Fire Dragons are indeed so good that they can easily be your primary anti-tank firepower. My post is mostly focused towards Imperial armies, and Marines in particular, which I have much more experience with.