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the mek guns are probably the most expensive kit that ork players buy in relation to how much points the actual unit costs in game, but there is a reason for it......the mekguns wreck everyone's face.

cheap (points wise), great stats due to them being artillery (3up Armour on a toughness 7 gun platform! ), and a wide selection of guns to choose from make these grot aimed boom makers the bane of many of army.

while ive played with these it was in a dakka post that 1st taught me that they can easily become slow and purposeful by the simple addition of a hq with mega armor. the benefit of this special rule is that the mek guns can move and still shoot their heavy weapons in the resulting shooting phase (even blast weapons). this essentially makes these guns mobile artillery.

while not good in assaults (the ma hq helps a little with that), i have seen a squad of 4 mek guns with kustum mega kanons and a ma warboss at their helm take down a fair number of termies and dreadnought while useing their movement to stay far enough away from assaults.

i have asked my local gamers and have found out that no other army can realy do this in their armies (my brother would love to give slow and purposefull to his heavy weapons squads but has no hq that have the rule). this is a very unique ork strategy and unit (at least to my knowledge). we may gripe at changes in our new codex, but this alone can make up for it!

have any of you guys had experience with this deadly combo, and did you try other combos that made your mobile artillery even more 'urty?

It's a good combo, but it has a single glaring problem, and that problem isn't with the combo itself. Mek Guns have a long range-ish, so if you position them in a good area with LOS to lots of the board then they shouldn't need to move at all, and being T7 3+ they aren't in need of a tank. Likewise, Warbosses are a rear commodity in an Ork army where every HQ matters, and putting him in a place he might not be needed seems rather wasteful.

Your combo is good, your reasoning is sound, but isn't there somewhere more useful your Warboss could be? Leading a large mob of Orks with the lucky stick perhaps?

ive also done a ma big mek (much cheaper). in my armies my bigmek is almost alwasy my warlord (the theme of my army). i always give him da thinkin kap (for the extra warlord trait). with two beneficial warlord traits i always want my bigmek warlord to stay alive and away from the killing, so puting him on the mekguns is perfect since he gets their toughness (at least against ranged attacks). and his leadership also helps keep the mekguns together compared to their normal grot leadership.

I could see the value of doing this if your enemy deployed to avoid them, and had some LOS blocking stuff in the way, or you don't want to take lobbas....and LOS blocking terrain is a big deal with people you play with.

Also I like to use the forgeworld grot tanks as proxies for Mek gunz, sounds like good fun.

It is worth considering that your Mek is only adding to a squad of Gunz that are typically 150 to 200 points. In a small game this could be valueable but in a larger game I think you need to find a way to get more out of the HQ.

I would be thinking you need a Force Field and the Mobile Artillery could be a tough target to remove with shooting in between something like two squads of Tankbustas or other some such threat that your opponent can't ignore. In games with a second detachment the Mega Mek with KFF certainly doesn't seem bad in a list footslogging enough guns.

The Mek could be repairing nearby vehicles or even walkers while escorting his mek gunz to. And if you wanted to be silly you could have attached Mekaniak meks with rokkit launchas or KMB in the unit.

Spread out strategies can shut down concentrated Blasts like that though. The best use of such a weapon is area denial against deep strike armies.

Why would you need to spend 50 pt on a 5++ field if you can spend 3 points per t7 wound?

Sorry I meant if you wanted to put other valuable models next to the mek gunz

If you're putting a MA Mek in with KMK Mek Gunz, then consider giving him a Tellyport Blasta.
It's basically a better KMK (no Gets Hot, chance for instant death), just with a shorter range (which if you're moving them, isn't so bad). And it looks sweet!

one problem with the telyport blasta (just one problem, the gun is other wise an instant kill beast) is its range. 12 inches is not enough to keep the blast from dropping right on your own units (happened to me ounce, after all the look out sirs all that was left of the meganobz was the ma bigmek). ive been extra cautious about using it ever since.

again for the slow and purposeful mek gunz is that its mobile. the list i used it in was a dredd mob, and everything was moving with huge walkers everywhere, its difficult to keep line of sight. also the mek guns range doesn't reach the other side of the board, so the slow and purposeful helps them gut over to the other side while still laying down a barrage.

its just another nice strategy that actually feels orky. a big mek bossing around the grots firing his mek gunz all the while ordering them to keep up seems hilarious.

i have plans for mekgun conversion from killa kanz (the killa kanz would hold their guns like broadsides), and it would look awesome running along my dredmob (not the fw dredmob), ill just be sure to do enough of a conversion so that they are not easily mistaken for the killa kanz in my army.

geargutz wrote:
i have plans for mekgun conversion from killa kanz (the killa kanz would hold their guns like broadsides), and it would look awesome running along my dredmob (not the fw dredmob), ill just be sure to do enough of a conversion so that they are not easily mistaken for the killa kanz in my army.

Thats sounds awesome! Photos when you're done

ahaha

My KMK deathstar is on its way also. For me it was more that you could give the MA Mek a KFF if you wished, or just a KMB, then throw in another mek with a SAG (currently im gona potentially try attaching my SAGbike to the unit, so Turn1 he's protected but can then leave the unit when needed to drop pies elsewhere. You can then add a slotless HQ mek with a KMB also. Making this a central unit within a walker wall, or a army that gives you some bubble wrap could be fun.

I get that you can leave them backfield and they are still T7 3+, but with most ork armies being rush lists, or wanting to be closer, combined with how many drop pod lists there are i just dont think leaving them backfield is that safe and it would be pretty easy to have them wiped or simply running straight off the board.

the original idea for this wasn't because we thought it was a sound tactic, more that its an ork shooty deathstar; three words not normally seen together. IMO, I will run the guns as either;

3xKMK's - for rediculous plasma fun
1 KMK, 1 bubblechukka, then another to taste.

I think in this instance, the low BS skill combined helps remove the overkill of the unit. When those pie's scatter its probably not an issue as you'll probably hit something else.

I assume with an artillery unit, you roll for scatter for each? not simply all 3 at once? Can't remember the artillery rules

Solar Shock wrote:
I assume with an artillery unit, you roll for scatter for each? not simply all 3 at once? Can't remember the artillery rules

Scatter each blast.
Artillery don't have different rules with this, it's possibly barrage (that become multiple barrage) weapons you're thinking of.

 grendel083 wrote:

Solar Shock wrote:
I assume with an artillery unit, you roll for scatter for each? not simply all 3 at once? Can't remember the artillery rules

Scatter each blast.
Artillery don't have different rules with this, it's possibly barrage (that become multiple barrage) weapons you're thinking of.

indeed, I was thinking of loobas and how the ammo runt trick applied with the re-roll applying - Something that im still unsure of?
But in that case even better, with plenty of pie plates scatter could potentially work in the orks favour. As if your 3 KMK's were aways hitting dead on tanks you'd probably blow it to bits, but with 1 hit, 1 partial and a scatter onto another unit your likely to throw out quite alot of damage anyway. Especially if im taking say 2x KMK, 2 bubblechukkas and maybe a tracktor or smashagun Still got a chance to blow tanks to pieces, but can also aim at infantry and get significant returns from both KMK blasts and random STR/AP pies!

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
It's a good combo, but it has a single glaring problem, and that problem isn't with the combo itself. Mek Guns have a long range-ish, so if you position them in a good area with LOS to lots of the board then they shouldn't need to move at all, and being T7 3+ they aren't in need of a tank. Likewise, Warbosses are a rear commodity in an Ork army where every HQ matters, and putting him in a place he might not be needed seems rather wasteful.

Your combo is good, your reasoning is sound, but isn't there somewhere more useful your Warboss could be? Leading a large mob of Orks with the lucky stick perhaps?

I'd second this. If you deploy your guns in a decent spot in the first place, you shouldn't have to really worry about moving them that much. And it's a waste to stick both a mega-armor unit and an HQ with a cheapo squad of gunz. A mega-armor warboss, especially, belongs on the front lines, not babysitting some measly runts.

It's an interesting idea, but generally not worth it for me.

As for solar's question about ammorunts and lobbas, yes, that's a trick that's totally legal, cheap, and effective. Lobbas are barrage weapons, and multiple barrages scatter based on the first shot. So, if you have 5 lobbas with an ammo runt apiece, you can fire the one with the ammo runt first. If it misses, reroll to get closer, so all the lobbas can essentially use the first shot as a guide. And you can repeat 5 times.

Twin-linking multiple barrage weapons is pretty fantastic.

 koooaei wrote:
Why would you need to spend 50 pt on a 5++ field if you can spend 3 points per t7 wound?

You could also spend 50 points on a 4+ cover too

Bloody expensive thing but simple as feth to scratch and kit bash.

I also love this tutorial - I used to make 10 magnetized chassis with Kustom lobbas, KMK, and I'm thinking about whipping up something that could pull double duty as a traktor kannon / smasha gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dBiM6sgL4A

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I also love this tutorial - I used to make 10 magnetized chassis with Kustom lobbas, KMK, and I'm thinking about whipping up something that could pull double duty as a traktor kannon / smasha gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dBiM6sgL4A

exalted, great link