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Because of the new vehicle damage chart could this mean the rise of melta?

Did it ever go away?

Yeah, melta has pretty much been the go-to antitank choice for Imperials for a long time.
Of course, that's why I like the 30K Legion list: armored ceramite is an option for just about every vehicle.

Hell, I was using melta all through 6th when everyone else went ga-ga over plasma. With vehicle changes, everyone going to be packing a few though because they'll be afraid of running into AV14 vehicles. Still, just glance them to death.

Another plus point for Sororitas

 Byte wrote:
Did it ever go away?

Yeah, it was always being used. Now the exact ratio of grav:plasma:melta weapons might change a bit as grav weapons are not the anti-tank powerhouse they used to be, but overall it just reinforces the often said but often ignored idea that balanced armies and balanced loadouts win over time.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Another plus point for Sororitas

Yes, I have 4 MM Immolators and 4 squads of 4x Melta Dominion to ride in them. I'm not too worried about the vehicle damage chart.

Plasma and other forms of mid-strength shooting are still the go-to. That hasn't changed.

Were people really relying on blowing up vehicles to make them go away? Huh. I've always gotten by on just abusing the poorly implemented HP system to glance them to death, which mid-strength shooting generally does a better job of.

Even with vehicles universally getting a durability buff, I don't see people suddenly spamming high AV armor anytime soon (sans the occasional Russ spam), so mass strength 7-8 shooting is still my bread and butter for wrecking vehicles.

Hull points are still in the game remember. Sure the damage table is a bit better now, but 3 glancing hits, (or 2 grav shots) will still wreck most vehicles.

Melta didn't go anywhere, but the new addition didn't really change all that much to give it a reason to become dominant.

Only removing hull points would cause a rise in meltaguns imo.

Mmm, melta bombs are armourbane now, or were they always armourbane?

Either way, no more armored ceramite for you!

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Hull points are still in the game remember. Sure the damage table is a bit better now, but 3 glancing hits, (or 2 grav shots) will still wreck most vehicles.

Melta didn't go anywhere, but the new addition didn't really change all that much to give it a reason to become dominant.

Only removing hull points would cause a rise in meltaguns imo.

Remember grav got fixed so it allows saves now, its not quite as good as it used to be.


And melta will surge back, with MC getting back to sane power, and tanks getting this extra nudge in durability, its enough for the melta to be required, if only for that land raider that just CANNOT be glanced by S7 spammers.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Hull points are still in the game remember. Sure the damage table is a bit better now, but 3 glancing hits, (or 2 grav shots) will still wreck most vehicles.

Melta didn't go anywhere, but the new addition didn't really change all that much to give it a reason to become dominant.

Only removing hull points would cause a rise in meltaguns imo.

Remember grav got fixed so it allows saves now, its not quite as good as it used to be.


And melta will surge back, with MC getting back to sane power, and tanks getting this extra nudge in durability, its enough for the melta to be required, if only for that land raider that just CANNOT be glanced by S7 spammers.

I always allowed saves anyway, so nothing has changed. It was a pretty TFG move to not allow them, as the intention of the rules was obvious.

"Surge back" to deal with 1 or 2 lists with landraiders? I doubt it. Str 7/8 can deal with 90% of the armour out there, especially when shooting at side armour.
Most imperial lists already have some melta, or some other weapon dedicated to hitting AV14 targets, I doubt they will need much more than they currently have.

While S7-8 can deal with most of it, I have seen lists taking none or nearly no serius anti-tank measures in 6th, as nobody fielded tanks.

Now that with both new IG bringing lemons, and the damage table change giving the land raiders some space, more of them will pop up (remember, 6 codices+Inq got raiders! most are IoM though), especially with IH traits making an IH LR with an embarked IH techy practically unkillble other then mass of haywire, or explosions.

"Surge back" does not nececerly mean to the spam level to deal with 5th parking lots, but it WILL be higher then it was on 6th, if only because the same amount of armor needs more anti-tank now.

(as for the grav thing-I knew that, you knew that, some guys seriously didn't get it.)

It depends a lot on your meta. If you are in an area with no mech then there wont be much of a change.

For the people I play with, I do expect them to bring more anti-tank, as I love my soulgrinders, and they got even better in 7th.

The new imperial guard codex being released might have more to do with an increasing need for meltas due to mechanized lists with scoring vehicles now.
I would say that if armies do begin to take more anti tank, then scoring vehicles would be the biggest cause. Landraiders were pretty easy to block or ignore before but now, with some armies have them as scoring troops, they have become more of a priority.

if only because the same amount of armor needs more anti-tank now.

I'm not sure if it does though. A Landraider in 6th edition being shot at with lacannons was more likely to be glanced to death before it would suffer and explodes result.
7th edition does not change this, it just makes that explode result less common.

I guess if your list focused on using meltas or other hard hitting weapons that relied on "explode!" results before, then you might feel inclined to bring more, as the explode result you need is more difficult to get. But for armies that relied on glancing down vehicles, I don't expect to see much change.

My whitescar army list at 1k points uses 3 squads of bikes with gravguns, 2 squads with meltas and 1 squad with flamers. I personally don't think I will need to change the ratio.

There isn't anything in the game armor 14 on the rear that can't be easily ignored.

What? Cover saves for vehicles against Grav? Lame! Call it TFG if you want, but really what isn't anymore? 40k is TFG.

Good thing I didn't plop down $90 for the only unit that can actually use them... Cents look even less worthwhile now considering that putting them in the backfield costs almost 400 points and nets you a measly 3 TLLC shots and 3 missiles.

As for Melta... well I can't really say I actually use it. I don't like being that close with a shooting unit...

 herpguy wrote:
There isn't anything in the game armor 14 on the rear that can't be easily ignored.

This was true last edition, but as said, now landraiders are scoring they can make a real difference to the outcome of a game. If an opponent brings 2 landraiders, and you have nothing to deal with them, then you are effectively giving away 2 objectives unless you can get troops choice next to it to contest it.

Good thing I didn't plop down $90 for the only unit that can actually use them...

Space marine bikes? I consider them better than grav centurions tbh. Obviously less firepower, but are self reliant in terms of movement, faster and a troops choice. (also much cheaper in terms of points).
I always played gravguns allowing cover saves, and think they are great. Now the vehicle damage table got more resilient, grav guns are better than ever.

And a few can even get troop land raiders, who can just tank shock you out of any objective and claim it for themselves if you can't kill it.

 Alienoid wrote:
Because of the new vehicle damage chart could this mean the rise of melta?

if anything I think this is another nail in the coffin for melta. Now that even a melta pen is only gonna kill something 1/3 of the time, stripping all the hull points is that much more effective.

Melta is my tau's main anti vehicle or big bug weapon. Missilepods are a close second but are grossly weaker against AV13 and cant even touch AV14.

If anything this edition weakened normal meltas and entitled people to bring multi-meltas more. Reasoning: meltas have less odds of popping a vehicle than before, and without a multi-melta or a drop-pod you probably wont get more than 1 maybe 2 in range to get that tasty double-pen roll.

They arent a 50-50 explode anymore against a Landraider, its now a 5+. Thats pretty big considering the weapon was designed to only need 1 shot.

 Exergy wrote:

 Alienoid wrote:
Because of the new vehicle damage chart could this mean the rise of melta?

if anything I think this is another nail in the coffin for melta. Now that even a melta pen is only gonna kill something 1/3 of the time, stripping all the hull points is that much more effective.

For light armor yes, I fully agree.
But against AV13+, you're immune to S6 which is very common and only losing a hull point on 6's for S7. That's just too low of odds to be reliable I feel.
My personal yardstick is I need to be damaging armor on 5's at worst to reliably get the kills.

Is everyone forgetting that melta can strip hull points too? In fact it can strip them exceptionally effectively. I always ran a lot of melta. Not because I was looking for an explodes result but because a squad with 4 in had a reasonably good chance of causing 3hp of damage anyway (without cover). Yes its gone from a 4+ to a 5+, but thats not a massive difference when most melta squads had at least 3 if not 4 melta weapons in them anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Against av12 at bs4 4 melta shots will cause 2.4 hps of damage.
8 st7 shots will cause 1.8hps of damage.
Against av13 at bs4 4 melta shots will cause 2.2 hps of damage.
8 st7 shots will cause 0.9hps of damage.

If in range melta is better at stripping hps.
Against av12 it is a 4:11 ratio melta to st7 in how many shots are needed to do the same hps worth of damage. That is not including the extra damage modifier. There are plenty of ways to get melta in range so don't try and make range too much of an issue here. Besides if you are in range of melta you are likely not getting a cover save, whilst it is easy to hide in cover from long ranged autocannons for instance.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Is everyone forgetting that melta can strip hull points too? In fact it can strip them exceptionally effectively. I always ran a lot of melta. Not because I was looking for an explodes result but because a squad with 4 in had a reasonably good chance of causing 3hp of damage anyway (without cover). Yes its gone from a 4+ to a 5+, but thats not a massive difference when most melta squads had at least 3 if not 4 melta weapons in them anyway.

4 melta shots only come on elite/HS/outside FO chart and are generally expensive. Then you have to invest in a delivery system and often when you deploy it, get into melta range and fire off your squad is gonna die the next turn to reprisal.


Now if you are spending that much and you aren't going to destroy the vehicle, you might be in a tough cookie.

I'll stick with squadrons of 3 attack bikes, paying 150 points for 3 Relentless Multimeltas. They did work in 6th and I can't imagine that they won't continue to get it done in 7th. This is doubly true now that I can park them on the second deck of a ruin.

 Exergy wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Is everyone forgetting that melta can strip hull points too? In fact it can strip them exceptionally effectively. I always ran a lot of melta. Not because I was looking for an explodes result but because a squad with 4 in had a reasonably good chance of causing 3hp of damage anyway (without cover). Yes its gone from a 4+ to a 5+, but thats not a massive difference when most melta squads had at least 3 if not 4 melta weapons in them anyway.

4 melta shots only come on elite/HS/outside FO chart and are generally expensive. Then you have to invest in a delivery system and often when you deploy it, get into melta range and fire off your squad is gonna die the next turn to reprisal.


Now if you are spending that much and you aren't going to destroy the vehicle, you might be in a tough cookie.

Honour guard with 4 meltas and pod comes to 175pts. Where can you get 11bs 4 st7 shots from at the same cost?
Also dual melta speeders: 4 multi-meltas for 160pts
3 attack bikes: 3 multimeltas for 150pts (BA) and 165pts (SM)

I'm pretty sure Melta was already quite popular if you knew you were going to be fighting a lot of vehicles, and the new table does nothing to stop you from just HP stripping the tanks to death.

 Alienoid wrote:
Because of the new vehicle damage chart could this mean the rise of melta?

The opposite is going to happen, weapons with high AP are relatively more effective now (autocannons glance vehicles to death just as effectively as before). The damage table change is mostly a huge nerf to low ap weapons that rely on getting penetrating hits to explode or immobilize vehicles in one shot (Lascannons in particular got a heavy nerf, as they only explode vehicles half as often now).

Melta will still have it's place, as it has a number of other advantages beyond AP1 (assault 1, doesn't Get Hot, reliably damages AV14, causes Instant Death against T4 models, low point cost).

Poly Ranger wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Is everyone forgetting that melta can strip hull points too? In fact it can strip them exceptionally effectively. I always ran a lot of melta. Not because I was looking for an explodes result but because a squad with 4 in had a reasonably good chance of causing 3hp of damage anyway (without cover). Yes its gone from a 4+ to a 5+, but thats not a massive difference when most melta squads had at least 3 if not 4 melta weapons in them anyway.

4 melta shots only come on elite/HS/outside FO chart and are generally expensive. Then you have to invest in a delivery system and often when you deploy it, get into melta range and fire off your squad is gonna die the next turn to reprisal.


Now if you are spending that much and you aren't going to destroy the vehicle, you might be in a tough cookie.

Honour guard with 4 meltas and pod comes to 175pts. Where can you get 11bs 4 st7 shots from at the same cost?

8 BS4 Str7 shots is 115 points(CSMautohavocs). 16 would be 230 points, 11 would be 158 points.

Your honor guard drop and either kill a tank or dont. If they dont, the tank will likely move out of range. Your opponent will either kill the honor guard or wont, but it is unlikely to every get another perfect melta shot on a tank.

Autocannons have a 4' effective range. Every turn they arent killed they can find a target. They also cannot be defeated with bubble wrap.



Yes meltas can glance stuff to death, yes the can pen things and blow them up. But they just got worse at killing vehicles while mid strength spam stayed the same.

 Exergy wrote:
Yes meltas can glance stuff to death, yes the can pen things and blow them up. But they just got worse at killing vehicles while mid strength spam stayed the same.

True, melta took a hit to first strike killing ability. However, AV14 has become much more prevalent since the new Guard codex and the integration of Lords of War. ACs may have a slight edge at stripping hull points but they have no effect on the heaviest vehicles and buildings. Also, a single penetrating hit can be enough to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of a vehicle. You can stop it from moving or even take its weapons out. Even with the worst roll you are causing it to fire snap shots. For blast vehicles, that tops them firing for a turn.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
Yes meltas can glance stuff to death, yes the can pen things and blow them up. But they just got worse at killing vehicles while mid strength spam stayed the same.

True, melta took a hit to first strike killing ability. However, AV14 has become much more prevalent since the new Guard codex and the integration of Lords of War. ACs may have a slight edge at stripping hull points but they have no effect on the heaviest vehicles and buildings. Also, a single penetrating hit can be enough to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of a vehicle. You can stop it from moving or even take its weapons out. Even with the worst roll you are causing it to fire snap shots. For blast vehicles, that tops them firing for a turn.

I'll agree that if people start taking more heavy AV14 that makes melta better

but the new vehicle damage chart has not done melta many favors.