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I cant for the life of me figure out how multi meltas on ground troops is of good use. Long fangs, devastators and even sisters can have them. But if you move you have to snap shot them. and their range is short enough that if you place them defensively that everything will either outrange and kill them....or simply avoid them.
Can anyone please help me with a good strategy that works with placing a mm on a foot mobile.

For most foot units, there isn't a spectacularly good reason for them.

That said, there are sometimes reasons to take them. For Sisters, they're the only alternative to a Heavy Bolter, so if you want something to hurt MC's or Tanks, that's your option. If you're running Vulkan in an SM army, the Snapshot isn't so bad and running stationary they're very deadly if something gets in range.

They're OK on a defensively oriented unit that's there to hold an objective or defend a flank, and can make a mess of something like a deep striking dreadnought.

For heavy weapons units, they're usually pointless, some people used them with Logan in the old SW book since he could make them Relentless and stuck 'em in a drop pod, but aside from that you'll only see them maybe in Sisters heavy weapons units, because, again, they don't have another option for dealing with tanks.

Mostly they're a relic from *much* older editions where the number of models on the table were far fewer, ranges weren't quite so open as terrain was intended to be very heavy, and when the Multi-Melta had a Blast effect and most heavy weapons inflicted multiple wounds, and thus a Multi-Melta or Lascannon could one-shot basically anything.

MM's are great, even on foot units. You've just got to think of them as super special weapons instead of as another heavy weapon, is all.

Heavy weapons exist to lay down some firepower turn 1, while special weapons, with their shorter range and higher damage output, are defensive weapons. A plasma gun won't reach out and touch someone, but it might make your opponent think twice about approaching somewhere that your dudes are already parked.

Multimeltas are the same. Really, you can think of them as being basically another meltagun in the squad - S8 Ap1 melta, with a +6" maximum range at full BS. Like regular meltaguns, if you're trying to storm them up the table and hope they get to shoot something, you'll be sorely disappointed. Like regular meltaguns, the prove a strong deterrent from anything getting close by.

They're sort of an odd man out in the heavy weapons world, just like the sniper rifle isn't really a special weapon, but there you have it.

Also, they make more than usual sense in SM lists, on account of the fact that you can deliver them in land raiders and via drop pods, allowing you to set up a defensive position in your opponent's deployment zone much more easily.

I put them on all my Salamander tac squads. 'Twin-linked snap shots' should be a Campbell's soup flavor, because they're Mmm-mmm good. And with Heavy weapons only snap firing if they actually MOVE now, they're even more useful.

tanker19 wrote:
But if you move you have to snap shot them. ..

But on the other hand, if you move you can still snap shot them...


I like them on Drop Pod troops, where the short range isn't going to be as much of an issue.

Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Oh, the glory days of Logan Bombs featuring 5 split firing relentless multi-meltas from a drop pod.

Now that was "Mmm-mmm, good!"

 BoomWolf wrote:
Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Oh I forgot about Ultras chapter tactics, those are pretty solid MM uses.

tanker19 wrote:
I cant for the life of me figure out how multi meltas on ground troops is of good use. Long fangs, devastators and even sisters can have them. But if you move you have to snap shot them. and their range is short enough that if you place them defensively that everything will either outrange and kill them....or simply avoid them.
Can anyone please help me with a good strategy that works with placing a mm on a foot mobile.

Two words: Area denial.

MM on ground troops is all about making just about any vehicle (and can knock wounds off of MC's) from getting in a 24" bubble. Even past 12", S8 AP1 is still a good threat. It has been nice just even having the possibility to shoot them if you move, since you couldn't before.

The idea of defensively placing MM is all about the area denial as I said above and redundancy. Deploy such that multiple squads with MM can threaten a large area or a narrow choke-point. You mention the MM getting shot by forces that out range them and I see this as a great thing! First off, there's no guarantee that they'll kill the MM. With good positioning, you can essentially bubble-wrap your MM with bodies. Secondly, as a SoB player, I'd rather the enemy shoot at my BSS with MM rather than the Dominions I'm shoving down their throat or my back field Exorcists.

If the enemy simply chooses to avoid them, then they've done their job of denying that area to the enemy, whether it be an objective or whatever reason I didn't want the enemy to go there.

They also double as decent Drop Podding Dreadnought defense. Imperial Knights can also be given pause by MM.

Edit: Forgot to add that, at least for SoB, they are cheap as well!

 insaniak wrote:

tanker19 wrote:
But if you move you have to snap shot them. ..

But on the other hand, if you move you can still snap shot them...


I like them on Drop Pod troops, where the short range isn't going to be as much of an issue.

And even without the ultramarine or salamander's special rule, 4 drop pod devs with MM's still puts down 4/6ths of a hit. Even at their worst, they still have the same odds of killing something as a marine with a meltagun, which isn't that bad. Especially because drop pod guarantees them to be in melta range (even against good drop pod defense, given that the melta range of the MM is twice as long).

Actually, there is no good tactics to run multimeltas on troops.
The cons outweigh the pros by far. You already named them.

Also, anyone who can 'forward deploy' them - any unit with scout or infiltrate can get into a nice firing position to sweep the centre of the board.

Ultimately, they're a bit like grav-guns for foot troops; best used against someone you know is coming to you - either to stop them or to persuade them not to.

There is no good use for them, even just Meltaguns have no good use, because everyone knows that when a Meltagun fires it always rolls a one lol

No weapons have any good use. Let's live in peace and plant flowers.

 IXLoiero95XI wrote:
There is no good use for them, even just Meltaguns have no good use, because everyone knows that when a Meltagun fires it always rolls a one lol

I don't have that problem with meltaweapons.

My Grey Hunter plasmagunner, on the other hand, fries himself far, far more often than he hits anything.

 IXLoiero95XI wrote:
There is no good use for them, even just Meltaguns have no good use, because everyone knows that when a Meltagun fires it always rolls a one lol

This is the socalled melta syndrome.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Ultra's relentless for Devs doesn't work if they leave a transport the turn the CT is activated

 Vector Strike wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Ultra's relentless for Devs doesn't work if they leave a transport the turn the CT is activated

Seems like rule lawhering.

 Vector Strike wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Ultra's relentless for Devs doesn't work if they leave a transport the turn the CT is activated

Page ref Please. As I highly doubt thats the case.

 phatonic wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Also, some armies can pull tricks with them.

Ultras for example can have devs relentless for a turn, so if you just need to time your unloading of the different squads (or, if you got just one, use it when it deploys)

Also, if you got some sort of "threat magnifier" like a bastion they cover a serious area with "tanks in here are dead" zones.

Ultra's relentless for Devs doesn't work if they leave a transport the turn the CT is activated

Page ref Please. As I highly doubt thats the case.

Page 77, last line of the Dev doctrine. But Ultras can use the Tac doctrine to TL tac sqauds, or the Dev doctrine to re-roll the snap fires. So you have two ways to mitigate the moving heavy.

Rules-wise I only really see them as a defensive unit that is outclassed by other heavy weapons.

Pretty cool looking model though - which is why I have two of them. I can see them being used in Kill Team missions where you have specialist abilities and in games where you're not trying to be the most streamlined and aggressive.

They are powerful area denial, since you can simply choose to not move your tac squad, and get a full BS melta shot in a 24" circle, which covers a fair bit of the table.

You're often camping objectives with tac squads anyhow.

Salamanders make them mastercrafted, which makes them pretty good even when you're snap-firing them.

Ultramarines can use devastator doctrine to move once per game (very powerful for a 24" weapon).

Imperial Fists make them ultra deadly to tanks even outside of their 12" melta range with Devastator doctrine.

Ravenguard can scout their Devastators, putting them 6" closer to the enemy, mitigating the short range of the MM.

But most importantly: they're cheap. It's one of the better 10pts you can spend.