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Which would be the best set up for 90 points worth of Mek Guns, five Kannons or 3 of the upgraded guns? I was considering the Kustom Mega Kannon but it's only a small blast which makes me sad..

Personally, 3 Smash Gunz would be my recommendation. The low AP and minimum strength 5 makes it a solid piece. It DOES suck when you target a vehicle and roll a 1 (for S5) but in my experiences, they give Orks the anti-vehicle shooting that's needed to open transports so the boyz can charge.

 Unholyllama wrote:
Personally, 3 Smash Gunz would be my recommendation. The low AP and minimum strength 5 makes it a solid piece. It DOES suck when you target a vehicle and roll a 1 (for S5) but in my experiences, they give Orks the anti-vehicle shooting that's needed to open transports so the boyz can charge.

Ooh ok, would it be worth splitting them over three units (got all my Heavy Supports slots free surprisingly due to running Blitz Brigade)? Kinda just want them to hold back field objectives

Frozocrone wrote:

 Unholyllama wrote:
Personally, 3 Smash Gunz would be my recommendation. The low AP and minimum strength 5 makes it a solid piece. It DOES suck when you target a vehicle and roll a 1 (for S5) but in my experiences, they give Orks the anti-vehicle shooting that's needed to open transports so the boyz can charge.

Ooh ok, would it be worth splitting them over three units (got all my Heavy Supports slots free surprisingly due to running Blitz Brigade)? Kinda just want them to hold back field objectives

Probably not. While artillery makes the crew T7, you're looking at only 3 models per gun. If you split them up and your opponent gets lucky and kills just 1, then you have a leadership test with the Grot leadership of 5. Running them as 1 unit will give you a couple of deaths before taking tests.

So keep them as one unit, gotcha.

What's the best way to deploy them? Gretchin or Gunz in front?

You can add more gretchin for 3 points each.

1000% depends on what your list needs.

If you need more AP2 for TEQ and the added chance to detonate vehicles KMK is solid, Smasha gun is in this same tier here with more capacity to detonate armor and hit high toughness targets but I'd call it inferior mearly by offering too many oppurtunities to roll poor versus a vehicle or MC. At least you know the KMK will always be the same Str/AP.

If you have no weight of fire and also no skyfire then the Tractor kannon is pure gold.

If you have no model sniping capacities then Lobbas are your #1 need.

These are typically the two/three things that ork lists need that you can obtain with Mek Gunz.

9/10 of the time i field lobbas. Reason being my army usually sports a lot of heavy hitters, they dont want to be tied down with troops and cannonfodder so the lobbas clear them out pretty quick.

Even marines fall fairly fast to lobba carpetbombs. Ive rendered a full dev squad useless before they even shot by causing ~12 wounds turn 1 lol (wiped all but 1 of the lascannons)

Smashas have a serious disadvantage of being s5-10. and you never know how strong it's gona be when you target something. And 36' is not really great. While KMK also have 36' they're ap2 blasts with reroll to scatter - makes the opponent waste decent ammount of fire on them if he has crysis suits or termies deepstrikers and soaking up fire with mek gunz is always good.

Usually people take lobbas, kmk and trakktors+kannons (3 trakktors and 2 kannonz or 4 trakktors and 1 kannon) but it all depends on what your list needs. Personally, i alwayz take lobbas. Apart from being one of the most point-efficient anti-infantry in the whole game, they're also the only thing in our army that can shut down wiverns behind blos turn 1.

 koooaei wrote:
Smashas have a serious disadvantage of being s5-10. and you never know how strong it's gona be when you target something. And 36' is not really great. While KMK also have 36' they're ap2 blasts with reroll to scatter - makes the opponent waste decent ammount of fire on them if he has crysis suits or termies deepstrikers and soaking up fire with mek gunz is always good.

You do roll the strength of each smasha separately though, and it's AP1, which makes it twice as likely to take out vehicles than a KMK. The smasha is way better than the KMK when you're looking for a way to deal with AV10-13, the KMK is more versatile but weaker against vehicles and has gets hot, making additional crewmen mandatory, rather than an option.

Smashas are actually pretty well designed by GW, they are on the same power-level as KMKs and traktor kannons. If you need dedicated anti-vehicle shooting, smashas are the best choice. Don't let the similarities to the terrible zzap gun fool you.

I like the Kustom Mega Kannons. I feel like orks, in this edition, have plenty to take out vehicles, even high armour vehicles, but we lack answers against elite melee units and I feel like a battery of plasma cannons is a good answer to that, and at S8 they can glance a landraider and instakill multi wound marines. Let your power klaws and twin linked rokkits deal with vehicles. Almost all of our fast attack choices are amazing against vehicles. Warbikes w/power klaw, deff koptas, wartrakk/warbuggies, blitza bommers, stormboyz w/power klaw.

 Jidmah wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Smashas have a serious disadvantage of being s5-10. and you never know how strong it's gona be when you target something. And 36' is not really great. While KMK also have 36' they're ap2 blasts with reroll to scatter - makes the opponent waste decent ammount of fire on them if he has crysis suits or termies deepstrikers and soaking up fire with mek gunz is always good.

You do roll the strength of each smasha separately though, and it's AP1, which makes it twice as likely to take out vehicles than a KMK. The smasha is way better than the KMK when you're looking for a way to deal with AV10-13, the KMK is more versatile but weaker against vehicles and has gets hot, making additional crewmen mandatory, rather than an option.

Smashas are actually pretty well designed by GW, they are on the same power-level as KMKs and traktor kannons. If you need dedicated anti-vehicle shooting, smashas are the best choice. Don't let the similarities to the terrible zzap gun fool you.

Iirc overheats are allocated vs gunz and not the crew, so 2 wounds 3+ helps. It's the zzap gun that specifically states that overheats kill the crew.

You are remembering wrong

Get's Hot! kills however is firing the weapon. In the case of artillery, a crew member is firing a weapon that is mounted on one of the artillery pieces.

Yep, you're correct. Well, at least you can reroll overheeat with an ammo runt.

Frozocrone wrote:
So keep them as one unit, gotcha.

What's the best way to deploy them? Gretchin or Gunz in front?

Depends what you're facing. Not much experience with mek guns but I would say :
If your behind cover(like adl) , put some grots in front to take the hits first. On the other hand, if you face ignore cover shooting, then gunz in front so you get the 3+ at least

XC18 wrote:

Frozocrone wrote:
So keep them as one unit, gotcha.

What's the best way to deploy them? Gretchin or Gunz in front?

Depends what you're facing. Not much experience with mek guns but I would say :
If your behind cover(like adl) , put some grots in front to take the hits first. On the other hand, if you face ignore cover shooting, then gunz in front so you get the 3+ at least

If you're talking about the gretchin crew (as opposed to a separate meat-shield unit of gretchin), it makes no difference whether they're in front or behind the gun, does it? (As the whole unit counts-as the same toughness?) And crew don't get any cover from the gun itself as it's part of the same unit? A bit counter-intuitive, as you'd expect cowardly grots to hide behind their gun...

 Clang wrote:

XC18 wrote:

Frozocrone wrote:
So keep them as one unit, gotcha.

What's the best way to deploy them? Gretchin or Gunz in front?

Depends what you're facing. Not much experience with mek guns but I would say :
If your behind cover(like adl) , put some grots in front to take the hits first. On the other hand, if you face ignore cover shooting, then gunz in front so you get the 3+ at least

If you're talking about the gretchin crew (as opposed to a separate meat-shield unit of gretchin), it makes no difference whether they're in front or behind the gun, does it? (As the whole unit counts-as the same toughness?) And crew don't get any cover from the gun itself as it's part of the same unit? A bit counter-intuitive, as you'd expect cowardly grots to hide behind their gun...

You still have to allocate wounds to the closest model though. If the Grots are all behind the gun, then the gun will be closest model and wounds will have to be allocated to it first. You need at least 1 non-gun model alive in the unit to fire the gun, so 1 grot should be behind the gun and the other grots standing between it and the enemy. That way you get the full use of the 'ablative wounds' from the grots.

Ah yes, I was talking about the crew.

My point was that if for example a wave serpent shoots the unit, you would get maybe 2-3 wounds ignoring cover and that will force the ld test.
In that specific case, one gun on the front of the crew is maybe better cause at least you get 3+ armor/2 wounds, so better chance to avoid the ld test.

Just be careful with over-using grot gunners as shield. Cause if you loose 25%, you have to roll on ld5. For example, if you have just 2-4 gunners, don't put them in front. When you have 5+, put one in front. Remember that guns don't count for ld checks anyhow (read artillery rules), so it's better to just loose 1 gun than a whole battery due to low ld.

 GoonBandito wrote:

 Clang wrote:

XC18 wrote:

Frozocrone wrote:
So keep them as one unit, gotcha.

What's the best way to deploy them? Gretchin or Gunz in front?

Depends what you're facing. Not much experience with mek guns but I would say :
If your behind cover(like adl) , put some grots in front to take the hits first. On the other hand, if you face ignore cover shooting, then gunz in front so you get the 3+ at least

If you're talking about the gretchin crew (as opposed to a separate meat-shield unit of gretchin), it makes no difference whether they're in front or behind the gun, does it? (As the whole unit counts-as the same toughness?) And crew don't get any cover from the gun itself as it's part of the same unit? A bit counter-intuitive, as you'd expect cowardly grots to hide behind their gun...

You still have to allocate wounds to the closest model though. If the Grots are all behind the gun, then the gun will be closest model and wounds will have to be allocated to it first. You need at least 1 non-gun model alive in the unit to fire the gun, so 1 grot should be behind the gun and the other grots standing between it and the enemy. That way you get the full use of the 'ablative wounds' from the grots.

True. Not very fluffy, though


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
Just be careful with over-using grot gunners as shield. Cause if you loose 25%, you have to roll on ld5. For example, if you have just 2-4 gunners, don't put them in front. When you have 5+, put one in front. Remember that guns don't count for ld checks anyhow (read artillery rules), so it's better to just loose 1 gun than a whole battery due to low ld.

But if the grot meat-shield dies, you then can't move another crew member in front of the gun, without the unit counting as having moved?

For the OP - I strongly recommend magnetizing the gun. There's a great Youtube video of how to do it. I've done this with 3 Mek Guns. It's a little complicated, but this video helps a lot. They turned out great for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXU2P5byC5g

So far I've used my Mek Guns twice, once as Tracktor Kannons against Tyranids running 4 fliers, and once as Kustom Mega Kannons against Tau.

The Tyranid battle worked out great for the one turn that I got to use them. After that, they spent the rest of the game firing Snap Shots because of Tyranid psychic powers, so they didn't accomplish much. Then they got assaulted by Gaunts on turn 4.

The Tau battle they killed a Broadside and some Crisis suits, and my opponent stayed out of range of them with just about everything else for most of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Clang wrote:

But if the grot meat-shield dies, you then can't move another crew member in front of the gun, without the unit counting as having moved?

That's not how I understand it. As long as the grot FIRING the gun doesn't move, the gun can still be fired. Any grot who isn't firing should be able to move about normally. Am I wrong?

Murrdox wrote:

 Clang wrote:

But if the grot meat-shield dies, you then can't move another crew member in front of the gun, without the unit counting as having moved?

That's not how I understand it. As long as the grot FIRING the gun doesn't move, the gun can still be fired. Any grot who isn't firing should be able to move about normally. Am I wrong?

I thought that if one model in the unit moves, then the whole unit counts as moving?

no. Its on a model by model basis as of sixth

Hmm, I completely missed that change

Well in that case, yes, have a conga line of grot 'volunteers' to stand one at a line in front of each Big Gun, ideally visible to the enemy but still in cover. Seems an excellent use for additional crew.