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Ailaros, I'd always aim to bring the right tool for the job, too... but once the right tool gets shot up, I'd rather have a Swiss Army Knife than try to use a sledgehammer to turn a screw.

Missile Launchers are a jack of all trades weapon, and as such, are now, and always have been, less effective versus a certain type of target than a more specialised weapon. against light vehicles, autocannons are more effective, and against heavy armour, the lascannon is more effective. frag missiles can also shoot a blast that does 'ok' but isn't as stellar as say, a plasma cannon or similar weapon.
The only Plus to a missile launcher is really that for tactical marines at least, they are to all intents and purposes, free, so if i'm stuck for points, i will take them for squads if i envision them being for long range support, and give the squads pushing up the field MM's instead.
I have found the CML on tac terminators to be a great buy because, well, they are quite limited in their options anyway, and krak missiles are very nasty when you can DS and hit a vehicle in its side or rear armour.
Aside from those times though, i will leave my missile launchers at home because since they are jack of all trades weapons, there are better tools for the job for only a few points more. My dreads are either ironclads or rifleman, and tac squads will carry either MM's or lascannons (points allowing)

That isn't to say that they are a bad weapon to have, because they are good, they just aren't 'as' good as others

 labmouse42 wrote:
MLs and Melta lost in 6th. While they still have their role, their not as critical as they were in 5th.

To add to this...

MLs are not as good as they were in 5th, yet that does not make them bad. Unit/Tool quality is not a binary solution.

A squad of four long fangs with MLs is still dead solid.

I don't understand why people want to glance something to death with the ML. You could take less ML and just purchase the quality LC and deal with your target, then move on to the next one.

Where I play we still are vehicle heavy, I always want the LC or MM.

They can't shoot overwatch, they can't move and shoot, and this means they are pretty much staying where you put them in the begining.

I just think there are better options for the heavy support role, or a better load out for my Tac Sqd. Rapid fire PG, or PC. The shots are just so much stronger......even if we do have to turn our heads and hope for no 1s.

 g0atsticks wrote:
They can't shoot overwatch, they can't move and shoot, and this means they are pretty much staying where you put them in the begining.

Why shouldn't you be able to fire a krak missile as overwatch? With those you can even move and shoot unlike the PC.

But if you're going for dedicated anti-tank, why not just get a Vendetta with its triple TLLCs and call it quits, rather than having to have a heavy weapons team do that?

 Shadox wrote:

 g0atsticks wrote:
They can't shoot overwatch, they can't move and shoot, and this means they are pretty much staying where you put them in the begining.

Why shouldn't you be able to fire a krak missile as overwatch? With those you can even move and shoot unlike the PC.

True the PC doesn't have overwatch, still just a better weapon hands down imho.

 Anpu42 wrote:
One Mortar is junk, a bunch is Great especially when mixed with Grenade Launchers.

I'm guessing this just replies on a mass of blast template weapons...

 Enigwolf wrote:
But if you're going for dedicated anti-tank, why not just get a Vendetta with its triple TLLCs and call it quits, rather than having to have a heavy weapons team do that?

...because not everyone plays Guard?

I am trying to figure out how hull points has done anything more than remove the chance to blow up a vehicle on rare glances and given lower strength weapons a bit more capability in the new rules.

For MEQ armies the only difference is that occasionally heavy bolters have a shot at killing a light tank.

Missile Launchers haven't changed at all. If marines had access to auto cannons or Assault Cannons on their heavy troops they would have been taking them all along. We don't. The choice is cheap missile launchers, moderate MM, or Expensive LC.

For me the Missile Launcher still fits the exact same spot as always. I will still take heavy armor popping units. The only time you can ignore the 2+ save and the av 13/14 is to watch your local meta and see if they have abandoned the big armor. LC's have always been superior to ML's in the rules but also far more expensive from top to bottom.

The reasons people didn't take LC's have not changed since the drop of 6th edition. It was always points cost versus effectiveness.

It is also because of the vehicle explosion table now. Before you just had to get a 5 or 6 to kill with a missle but now you have to get a 6 to really stop it. Snap firing a lot of twin linked tank weapons is still leaving the vehicle a threat

Hull points increase the siren's call for MLs. But the real kick in the nuts is as sudojoe notes, the vehicle damage table.

I don't think the lascannon is unfairly prices for the ability to pop 2+ armor, and provide a realistic shot of one-shotting vehicles. It's still rare, but with the LC it can happen.

And if its a transport, you get all those S4 hits on the occupants you don't get with the glancing scheme.

This whole dilemma is why I rarely field devastators, btw. Auto/las predators, whirlwinds, and allied thunderfire for the win! Not the division of labor amongst these choices. My list needs to be versatile, not individual units or weapons.

Don't 4 lascannons at BS4 only have something like a .6 chance at blowing up a rhino per turn (via 'splosion)?

I think they do something like 2 hull points of damage to av 11 each time they shoot.

We aren't including cover of course, then the numbers get kinda crappy. It's also just not incredibly impressive for the price you are paying for it. The 2 marines out of cover or 2 wound it does to T6 3+ MC's aren't really worth mentioning either. Lascannons are awfully useful but they also tend to be kinda expensive and feel like wasteful spending a lot of the time.

I guess LC vs ML is one of those situations where they price point can be differing greatly so it's hard to really set a nice standard and give you guys a succinct talking point to rally behind whenever this conversation comes up online again.


Blowing up tanks last edition wasn't something fun either guys. I don't know why yall think ML was all that better before. Ugly business trying to penetrate and then roll a 5 or 6. Especially with 4+ cover. I'd say hull points made them a lot better. Strength 8 gives you a lot of breadth now. I like LC a lot more than I used to now too because of the the 5+ cover and how secure you feel in racking up glances with them but I can't say I feel safe and happy loading up 5 man squads of marines with them in my lists.

I'm not advocating lascannon devastators. Since I'm not advocating MLs either, I guess my pick for devastators is PCs, but that's not really what I want out of heavy support either. I suppose I'm really saying "don't use devastators". Unless you're a wolf. Everything's better if you're a wolf.

Martel732 wrote:
This whole dilemma is why I rarely field devastators, btw. Auto/las predators, whirlwinds, and allied thunderfire for the win! Not the division of labor amongst these choices. My list needs to be versatile, not individual units or weapons.

auto/las pred are cheaper, faster, look cooler, and die harder.

Corollax wrote:
If you're not the Space Wolf codex, I'd strongly advise leaving them at home. Imperial Guard in particular shouldn't touch the bloody things.

Imperial Guard should have been avoiding them last edition, too.

ML's are the Siren's call Heavy Weapon of 40k. Oh sure, a spare S8 missile is great at popping off a random character... in last edition. S4 blast templates...meh.

I used to really like them, but I usually run AC's and LC's now. Just not enough oomph from the ML.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
So why the new found dislike?

There's no new found dislike, only old found dislike. Missile launchers were never amazing in 5th, they were just cheap. And that's still exactly the situation in 6th: they're good if they're free or cheap (tactical squads, Long Fangs) and you aren't willing to turn the carrier into an expensive but effective unit with LCs/etc, and they're garbage if they cost almost as much as better weapons (anything IG).


(Yes, some people thought that missile launchers themselves were good in 5th, but they were just low-skill netlisters who assumed that "ML Long Fangs are great" meant that any missile launcher was a good option.)

After thinking about it, the impotence of the frag missile is almost worse than the impotence of the krak missile. All the people talking about glancing stuff to death at least have that on their side. ST 4 AP 6 small blast? And it gives cover saves?That's craptastic.

Martel732 wrote:
After thinking about it, the impotence of the frag missile is almost worse than the impotence of the krak missile. All the people talking about glancing stuff to death at least have that on their side. ST 4 AP 6 small blast? And it gives cover saves?That's craptastic.

You've obviously never piled 5 frag templates on a unit and watched them fail a bunch of cover/armor saves.

 pretre wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
After thinking about it, the impotence of the frag missile is almost worse than the impotence of the krak missile. All the people talking about glancing stuff to death at least have that on their side. ST 4 AP 6 small blast? And it gives cover saves?That's craptastic.

You've obviously never piled 5 frag templates on a unit and watched them fail a bunch of cover/armor saves.

But I can generate wounds that way with any low strength weapon. You know, the low strength weapons that my army is already full of on my troops? ST 4 AP 6 small blast for a heavy weapon is crap. Ancedotal evidence of it being awesome in a game or two doesn't make it not crap integrated across many, many games.

Martel732 wrote:
But I can generate wounds that way with any low strength weapon. You know, the low strength weapons that my army is already full of on my troops? ST 4 AP 6 small blast for a heavy weapon is crap. Ancedotal evidence of it being awesome in a game or two doesn't make it not crap integrated across many, many games.

If it was just a heavy weapon that only had one profile of S4 AP6 small blast? Yeah, I'd agree with you.

But instead it is a dual heavy weapon with S8 AP3 and S4 AP6 small blast. That's a big difference.

If there are packed troops in front of you, the small blast really counts. I have used it to great effect against deepstrikers.

And, ofc, I would say that I don't take ML in my non-SW armies.

Against a horde army, you might want to start generating those wounds rather earlier than 24", if there were a way to do that...

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
Against a horde army, you might want to start generating those wounds rather earlier than 24", if there were a way to do that...

Ooh, I can see the future. Counterpoint to this will be 'Any horde player worth anything knows to exactly space their models to minimize template hits at all times...'

Yeah...

I find that often players don't take the time to move with such precision. I just think that heavy weapons should be packing more punch than STR 4. Again, its back to specialization. I'd rather have the ammo options of the thunderfire cannon, forget the krak missiles and use real anti-tank weapons against tanks.

I consider both modes of the missile launcher to be crap, making the whole thing crap. I guess for the magic space wolves, its fine, but they would probably win with lascannons too. It's not like grey hunters can't eat endless amounts of horde models anyway.

I can tell you from experience that horde players hate templates far more than small blast markers.

Low strength, high AP, AND IT SCATTERS. Rather have something else. Whats to like about these things? At least with the PC you get high strength low AP, super important.

 g0atsticks wrote:
Low strength, high AP, AND IT SCATTERS. Rather have something else. Whats to like about these things? At least with the PC you get high strength low AP, super important.

Or High Strength, Low AP and it doesn't. What's your point? It allows you two profiles for a low cost. With the PC, you pay more points for the lower AP but also lose strength and gain gets hot. Everything is a trade off.

Is the ML the best weapon ever? No. Is it a good generalist weapon with multiple applications? Yes.

Ian Sturrock wrote:Against a horde army, you might want to start generating those wounds rather earlier than 24", if there were a way to do that...

Seconded. 48" let's you start hammering out those shots pretty early, typically in turn 1 or 2. I'm not saying that it's super-awesome or anything, but the versatility offered by it is pretty decent.

g0atsticks wrote:At least with the PC you get high strength low AP, super important.

And the potential to Gets Hot! yourself.

As I said a few posts ago, this is why I don't use devastators.

In a vacuum, I can see the arguments for the ML. In practice, however, I have always regretted fielding this weapon.

I'll take the home run potential of the PC over the anemic ML all day though. But the reality is that both usually get left at home for me.

I'll also mention that even horde armies usually have something for my lascannons to shoot at. So I'd rather have those in my heavy slots and let my other army elements deal with the hordes.

I think you're talking vacuum as well. Of course, if they were the same points cost and availability, I would take lascannons.

They aren't though.