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Hey guys. I've been working on my Ork army, in relation to the new 6th ed. rules, and figured i'd share so thoughts on Lootas, and the Mek upgrade.

Since 6th landed, everyone has been shouting from the rooftops how great lootas are. I completely agree, and i reckon a unit of lootas may be the best flier defense in the game atm. Snapfire reduces Ork effectiveness by 50%, but is less of an issue when your doing between 8-24 shots. Being able to move your lootas, and still snapfire is brilliant.

However, i believe people are seriously overlooking the usefulness of the Mek upgrade. As well as Mek's tools, the str8 AP2 KMB gives you a (small) chance at dealing with AV14, as well as giving you a better chance of penetrating and blowing up (due to +1) enemy armour. The gratest benefit to meks, however, is that they count as characters in a loota squad. This means that the controlling player is allowed to allocate any rolls of 6 to hit to a specific model; With the reduced effectiveness of Power weapons, this gives the Ork army a better way to deal with Terminators that most other armies atm. With 2+ saves going to be extremely powerful, i am expecting to see much more of them appearing.

Thoughts?

Het.

KMB only range 24", Deffgun 48" might be a issue, otherwise seems pretty neat, especially in larger squads.
On the flier defence side, played a game with 2x 8man loota squads, the opposing 2 fliers lasted untill turn 3....damn lootas are good...

Actually, overwatching meks are nasty, being able to choose to gun down Sarges etc

The range of the KMB is too small, though you can you probably will not move the lootas closer to the enemy. Then gets hot is in fact an issue however small.
Trying to wait for a 6 just to allocate a wound is not really viable.
Thinking 3 guys will even get 1 hit is not really reliable.
Essentially lootas are better for your firing needs.

You could argue about mek boy tools though, as they can keep vehicles alive for you, it could be worth having mek boys just for this.

Fortifications, hydras and other aeroplanes including the dakkajet are better antiflyer units than lootas. Though lootas are useful anyway so the antiflyer routine is just a bonus.

My thoughts about using precise shot on terminators has a very specific application.

From what I've seen/ read, the Space Marine chatter is to run terminators with TH/SS at the front to soak wounds, and PF/ LC behind to deal more damage. The Mek using precise shot would be able to bypass this defense, and take out the models who are a greater threat to the boys. This can also be used to eliminate Squad leaders that will be used to challenge out Nobs from Boyz squads.

I'm not at all suggesting it's an "I win" button, just a useful observation i noticed when list designing! =)

I've actually found meks most effective in a burna wagon. 12 burnas and 3 meks. gives you some snap shots when moving and not in burna range, ability to repair the wagon when needed, and they still get to fire when you drop templates

The KMB mek is the single worst model in our army, even beating the zzap gun.

The chance for a KMB to a wound on a model with toughness less than 7 is 27.7%
It that model has a 5++ save or cover, the chance goes down to 18.5%
If the model has cover from ruins, rocks or is equiped with iron halo or mark of Tzeench, we're down to 13.8%
Storm shields or similar saves drop the chance to 9.2%
Half each of those probabilities for the chance to kill a model by allocation - that's 9.25% for your LC Assault Terminators.

In comparrison:
The chance of the mek to kill himself is 13.8% per shot.
The chance of the mek not hitting anything in 5 game turns is 13%
A loota has a chance of 9.9% to kill any TEQ, no matter their equipment.
Any ork with a big shoota has an 11% chance to kill a TEQ, no matter their equipment.
A single slugga boy on the charge has a 15.7% chance to kill a TEQ.
Any ork biker with a dakka-gun has a 17.4% chance to kill a TEQ
Each supa-shoota on a dakkajet has a 28.1% chance to kill a TEQ

So screw those stormshields and simply gun them down. We didn't care about them before, I don't see why we should start caring now. If you really want to allocate wounds, get those meks a big shoota.

Edit: As Dakka still hasn't made TEQ official canon: TEQ = Terminator (or) EQuivalent

Yeah, I agree with Jidmah. Besides, Lootas are one of the only units we have that can shoot more than 36" - putting KMBs in there is a waste of long-range firepower. Shooting at AV14 for the off chance that you hit, let alone roll a 6 for armor pen to knock off just ONE hull point, is a really, really serious misapplication of long-range firepower.

I got a battle weagon with 12 normal loota's and 3 meks with big shoota's.

- meks repair battlewagon if needed or meks shoot with 9x S5 shots with precision strike at 36 inch...