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With the new mek gunz, points reductions to the existing ones, cheap ammo runts and the movement of lootas to HS. Has the mek gun reduced the appeal of lootas?

Lets take a look at damage output:
210pts for 15 lootas, 210pts for 10kannons with 10ammo runts.
Lootas put out an average of 10 st7 ap4 hits. The kannons put out an average of 7.5 st8 ap3 hits (until about turn 3 where this drops down to 5 due to the ammo runts having been used).
When snap shooting flying targets lootas get 5 hits on average, compared to the kannons 3.1hits.

So roughly equal damage output when shooting av10-12 and t6 2+(or 4+ or worse) mcs. Whereas against av13-14 and any 3+ the kannons take it. Against horde the lootas have an edge (although you have to ask - why are you shooting these against horde?)

Now durability wise the kannons are far better with their t7. It will take many t7 wounds to seriously hamper the firepower of the unit, whilst a loota unit taking 5-6 t4 wounds will take a severe hit to their damage output.
The remedy would be to put the lootas in a BW or a bunker. In a bunker only 8 can shoot so thats out of the window. Whilst a BW is the same points as another 5 strong ammo runt kannon unit. So if making them comparably tough, you give the kannons 50% better firepower.

The kannons it seems to me personally are a far better choice. The only downside is that you would have to use 2HS slots to gain the same(ish) initial damage output as a single 15man loota unit. But double FOC will help cover that.

I will be using both. But my mek gun setup will be different. Its going to contain 3 bubble chuckas, and 2 traktor cannons. Usually I will only get the bubble chucka shots, and the traktors will snap fire. But if a problematic flyer shows up, the chuckas can take a break and then I will expend my ammo runts.

This way light armor is covered by lootas, hordes are covered by 3 pie plates of varying strength, and flyers are covered by the traktor kannons.

I may even run my battlewagons as trukks, and run a 6 man squad of kanz. Thought at 300 points with only str 7 klaws, this is hard to justify.

Also as you need 2 heavy slots to make up for one loota unit, I think I'd rather just take 2 units of lootas.

I've been tinkering with the same math but also included a gorkanaught and I still think lootas are going to be sticking around as they can compete with gunz & naughts.

 Orock wrote:
I will be using both. But my mek gun setup will be different. Its going to contain 3 bubble chuckas, and 2 traktor cannons. Usually I will only get the bubble chucka shots, and the traktors will snap fire. But if a problematic flyer shows up, the chuckas can take a break and then I will expend my ammo runts.

This way light armor is covered by lootas, hordes are covered by 3 pie plates of varying strength, and flyers are covered by the traktor kannons.

This I think is one of the strengths of the new Mek Gunz. 5 gunz means you can throw a few Traktors into other Gunz and not really lose much. If your opponent brought that Flyer that just HAS to die, a couple traktors are usually enough to hit and immobilize, and you can Ammo Grot the Kannons (or Smashas, if you're me) trying to get those last few hits. Opponent has no flyers/skimmers/FMCs? Other than being the luckiest player in the world, use Ammo Grots on the Traktors if you really have to stop a vehicle. It allows 1 unit to serve 2 purposes, and be no less efficient at it than it previously was.

all 3 of my heavy slots are artilary,

if I already had lootas Id keep em, but artillary wins for sure.

not by much, but it does.

when you start putting a warboss in MA in there and walking them up the board while shooting, then they get out waaaay aahead lol

Artillery all the way. By the way, I think people need to be looking at tankbustas, they are hitting AV12 better than Lootas now, have melta bombs, and are only a little bit worse than lootas at AV11 and AV10. Also in the eilte slot, not competing with artillery units.

I still like my lootas as they double as somewhat okay anti-air and have longer range than guns, however if I'm going to make an unbound list then I'll want some smasha guns, lobbas and traktor cannons probably.

And yes, tankbustas are my next buy surprisingly. They always had the ability to kill those pesky MC:s, now they can kill tanks too and are cheaper. Heck, with the Tankhammers being so good they can be an effective close combat unit too.

More ao then just kannons, the dervisifaction of all the mekk guns is much more appealing. Don't sleep on the now super cheap loobas. 5 str 5 barrage shots on t7 artillery with ammo runts to reroll thw first hit? Yes please.

Totally agree. There are so many options avaliable that every angle can be covered! If, nay, when, I start collecting orks, I would use grot tanks with grotzookas to provide the mid strength blasts and leave the heavy slots for the AT guns. But Lobbas provide a very good source of anti troop for many lists!

I hadnt considered that point about tank bustas Rautakani! They do look good for their points now.

Why are lootas better? 2 FOC. 90 Lootas. That's why.

The DAKKA DAKKA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

Lootas have Mob Rule. Artillery has Ld 5.

Not that I'm advocating one unit is superior, but there's valid reasons Lootas cost seemingly more.

Lobbas dont need los so hide those suckers. Also the new Mob kills a lot of points of lootas. Imagine losing 5 from the ob rule, thats 90 points from one failed leadership test. Its bs.

Against ground armies, the gunz are better. But Lootas are not much worse, and double as decent anti-air.

In lists with both Dakkajets and Mek Gunz, there's not a lot of reason to get lootas.

Lootas will most likely cause more high strength damage than mek gunz. The offset is they die easier and lack high ap....and cost a lot more.

The durability factor is the main reason i probably wont use them anymore. Im tired of my lootas dying turn 1-2 because my opponent had ONE gun that can shoot across the table either with ignores cover or shoots so much my cover means nothing. Even with the price drop, that durability always irritated me.

My biggest issue with mek gunz vs lootas is lootas are far more reliable against air since they can kill air without sacrificing ground target shooting. A non traktor kannon wont kill air barring really nice luck since they shoot so little. Yeah, the mek gunz will hurt the flier more often IF they hit...but...ugh lol. Durability comes into play again though, i rarely get my lootas to even fire at air since i always get them countered turn 1-2

 Vineheart01 wrote:

The durability factor is the main reason i probably wont use them anymore. Im tired of my lootas dying turn 1-2 because my opponent had ONE gun that can shoot across the table either with ignores cover or shoots so much my cover means nothing.

Which one gun is capable of killing an entire squad of orks and ignores cover or gets at least 15 shots?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:

The durability factor is the main reason i probably wont use them anymore. Im tired of my lootas dying turn 1-2 because my opponent had ONE gun that can shoot across the table either with ignores cover or shoots so much my cover means nothing.

Which one gun is capable of killing an entire squad of orks and ignores cover or gets at least 15 shots?

The splinter cannon. Of course, it's not one gun, it's 12 of them, pumping out 72 poison shots.

IG artillery
Noise marines
Anything with a gakload of shots that dont ignore cover but who cares with that many shots
Tau
outflanking bikermarines
Flamers

theres a lot of crap that can kill lootas very fast.

Don't forget Lootas' longer range - twice that of tankbustas, and 1.5 that of mek gunz. Our army is relatively short-ranged for shooting, so a bit of 48" goodness can be very useful when up against distant enemy threats.

I expect to see a lot of armies having mek gunz, lootas _and_ tankbustas.

You guys all have more experience than me with orks. But I would consider 5 st7 and 3.1 st8 hits against flyers equal...

Against most other things that higher st also makes up for a few less hits. And probably a good 40% of armies out there are meq... where ap3 really matters. Kill anything better than a tactical marine and its made its points back.
The most extreme example is a wraithknight. Lootas are going to need to be in a BW against eldar firepower, 15 will take off 1w. 15 kannons costing the same (with ammo runts) will take off ~4w.

And kannons are the most basic of mek gunz.

The ld of 5 is an issue if firepower is focused upon them however. Well pointed out DarknessEternal.

I honestly don't think there is a big leadership issue with mek guns. We're talking toughness 7 here guys, they are going to need a lot of heavy fire power to put a dint in your artillery. 3 points per additional wound as well they aren't going anywhere any time soon.

We've got awesome 25 pt rokkit buggies that are fast and cheap enough to be expendable distraction. We've got 5 pts rokkits everywhere.

To be honest, i see no use to lootas now. We've allready got tons of cheap s8 everywhere. And i see gunz as either great AA or Lobba anti-infantry. I doubt that smashas will be super-useful either but who knows.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
IG artillery
Noise marines
Anything with a gakload of shots that dont ignore cover but who cares with that many shots
Tau
outflanking bikermarines
Flamers

theres a lot of crap that can kill lootas very fast.

Don't say one gun if you mean dozens of guns then.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
IG artillery
Noise marines
Anything with a gakload of shots that dont ignore cover but who cares with that many shots
Tau
outflanking bikermarines
Flamers

theres a lot of crap that can kill lootas very fast.

Don't say one gun if you mean dozens of guns then.

He was saying that 1 gun causes them to run off the table, you asked which (or someone did) and he listed some guns that do. he wasn't saying all these guns were used in conjunction to remove his lootas from the table. As otherwise he'd be a very happy warboss. what warboss wouldn't be happy seeing multiple units wasting fire to remove some lootas? while the rest of the army crushed face

I've had the same experience, deathwing termies T1 on my backfield. serpent shield etc.. obviously its not all the time, but pretty gak when your 210 pts of lootas make for the hills after 2-3 deaths.
But all in all i like lootas, they bring a great many shots and the advantage i find is that its this volume that is their main strength. sure tankbustas have some S8 gak. but a squad is only gona put out 10 shots, (9 for easy maths), 3 hits at BS2. whereas 9 lootas would either be 9 shots or 18 or 27. at 27 shots whatever it was is most likely smoked. yeh rolling a 1 and getting 9 shots is lame, but such is when you play orks Take multiple lootas for a better chance at average results.

I think im gona be fielding lootas and mek guns (loobas). So far seen loobas in 2 battle reports wrecking the place and recieving almost nothing in return due to being so far backfield and out of LOS.
5 str 5 blasts, first shot, using ammo runt to re-roll. that means that in effect due to barrage that all 5 shots were re-rolled. second turn the next gun fires first, re-rolls.... you get the picture. Its just an extremely cheap, extremely efficient unit

Solar Shock wrote:

He was saying that 1 gun causes them to run off the table, you asked which (or someone did) and he listed some guns that do.

No, he said one gun. One gun fires, and Lootas disappear.

Then he failed to list that one gun. What he meant was dozens of guns fire at the Lootas at once, then they disappear. This is normal behavior when fired upon by that many weapons simultaneously.

i can tell youre one of "those guys" if youre taking my wording that literally. By one gun im talking about 1 damn unit obviously not a literal single gun since even a flamer doesnt kill that many on its own.

What guns is everyone running? Kannons? Lobbas? KMKs?

Kannons and Lobbas are still the cheap general use choice.

Zzap gunz are also quite cheap and got a slight buff (now 50% less likely to overheat).

KMKs do seem to be the most popular choice of the more points-expensive choices, or Traktor Kannon if you'll be facing fliers or skimmers.

Money is the other issue - Kannons and Zzap gunz are 'free' if you have the leftover weapons from battlewagon kits and some spare wheels to make a gun carriage, whereas the flash new mek gunz kit is horribly expensive (although also a great kit).

Lobbas all the way. I like having my mek gunz clear out numbers so my bikers and orks on wheelz (trukks/wagons) can bypass the garbage easier and kill the important things unhindered. Previous dex ive had a single unit of 3 lobbas clear out 4 marines in a 10man unit, and fortunate enough to clear them in the right side so my bikers could sneak by to get the vehicle behind them. Clutch kills. Ive also had them snipe out lascannons upgrades, or wreck tiny bugs (gaunts) before they could clog up my bikers.

Now theyre basically the same cost but for 2 free guns. Im in love lol. Though i need to re-kitbash unfortunately since the damn things got a bit bigger, and my kitbashes are same size as the metal craps (which is pretty small).

Not going to lie i seriously, seriously want to run 15 Bubblechukkas just to scare the everliving gak out of my opponent. Odds are it wont do THAT much damage unless i get lucky, but 15 pi plates is just too comical to not take once in awhile.

 Clang wrote:
Kannons and Lobbas are still the cheap general use choice.

Zzap gunz are also quite cheap and got a slight buff (now 50% less likely to overheat).

KMKs do seem to be the most popular choice of the more points-expensive choices, or Traktor Kannon if you'll be facing fliers or skimmers.

Money is the other issue - Kannons and Zzap gunz are 'free' if you have the leftover weapons from battlewagon kits and some spare wheels to make a gun carriage, whereas the flash new mek gunz kit is horribly expensive (although also a great kit).

But can be easily scratch built by someone of even my minimal skills. Using leftover battlewagon/trukk bits I've been able to make an extra 2 guns from a single Mek Guns kit.

Myself I plan to be running Traktor kannons, KMK and for my third heavy slot I'm tossing up between Lootas & Lobbas.

Vineheart01 wrote:i can tell youre one of "those guys".

Ah im afraid he's one of "these guys"..."them guys" not one of "those guys" God Vineheart01! get your stuff right already!

Vineheart01 wrote:Lobbas all the way. I like having my mek gunz clear out numbers so my bikers and orks on wheelz (trukks/wagons) can bypass the garbage easier and kill the important things unhindered. Previous dex ive had a single unit of 3 lobbas clear out 4 marines in a 10man unit, and fortunate enough to clear them in the right side so my bikers could sneak by to get the vehicle behind them. Clutch kills. Ive also had them snipe out lascannons upgrades, or wreck tiny bugs (gaunts) before they could clog up my bikers.

Now theyre basically the same cost but for 2 free guns. Im in love lol. Though i need to re-kitbash unfortunately since the damn things got a bit bigger, and my kitbashes are same size as the metal craps (which is pretty small).

Not going to lie i seriously, seriously want to run 15 Bubblechukkas just to scare the everliving gak out of my opponent. Odds are it wont do THAT much damage unless i get lucky, but 15 pi plates is just too comical to not take once in awhile.

Couldn't agree more Lobbas, lobbas, lobbas! building some myself out of some kits i got kicking about
I do love the idea of the zzapp gun, but sadly it seems completely redundant compared to the other mek guns. KMK is a static str 8 and AP1, yeh you could roll a 10,11,12 on the zzapp but meh average is lower than 8 even the smasha gun averages higher as +4 is better than an average dice roll.

Lobba for LOS shenanigans and clearing infantry of all variety
KMK for heavy duty work
kannons for best overall? dunno never really ran them

Bubble chukkas, shokk attack guns and a whole load of looted wagons? drop de'm plates till dey cry