Lord General Melta Guns

[Arbit]

I'm curious what people think of this wargear and how people use it. The wiki says the ability reduces weapon cooldown on infantry by 40% in a radius of 35. What would this ability be best teamed up with? Lascannons? Storm troopers? I've tried it with guardsmen but it doesn't seem that great since they seem to put out a pretty steady stream of fire already. This sort of thing can be difficult to assess in the heat of the moment though.

I've generally been avoiding the weapon because of the short range, the wonkiness of the ability, and I'd much rather rely on lascannons for AV. But maybe I'm overlooking a great weapon! Please educate me.

[ThongSong]

it's essentially the same as the karsikin weapon expertise upgrade which reduces reload time and hence increases their dps. works especially well with storms and karsks because they do massive burst dps and have a fairly noticeable reload time.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

From my own pitiful experience using the LG (In all my games as IG, I've probably played him like 2 dozen times at most), the melta should be used mainly for its ability. As you've pointed out, the range is pitiful and the LG is not typically the type of hero you want to risk brining out into the front of the battle, as the minute he has to retreat you take a serious blow to the effectiveness of having used him behind the lines with your army instead.

Just about any troop is good with the LG and this ability. I wouldn't exactly use it in conjunction with GM's unless you really needed to, as there may be more pressing engagements that require more solid burst dps and you definitely want this thing off cool down when that moment comes.

This ability REALLY shines when you've got troops like Kasr's who can really lay out the DPS. And as you stated, it also works great with lascannons. In fact, though I can't account for it, I'd almost say the melta gun on the LG would be a great AV option if and/only if it's being used to support other AV (i.e Lascannon on Anti-Armor kit Storms).

Just don't fool yourself into buying the melta in hopes of making use of it as an AV option. I've made this silly mistake too many times and it rarely pays off. You have better units for that. Otherwise, be prepared for heavy kiting and make sure you try and keep his retinue storms alive as their deaths will severely reduce his AV damage.

[ThongSong]

^ I tried to use my meltagun LG to kill a swarmlord thinking it was just as effective as the tech marine's melta gun.

The SL painted the town red with bits of my LG

[Kithrixx]

As others have stated, the ability it grants is the star of the show here as the LG himself is not one for frontline combat. It's good for AV in a pinch, but otherwise the LG is a long range buffer rather than a frontline hero like the Inquisitor or the Commisar.

[Asmon]

The weapon is great, especially since not only the LG but also his retinue also equips meltaguns. It is best used with lascannons imo, but with Stormtroopers and Kasakrins it'll do just fine.

Sniper Rifle + Meltagun abilities on a lascannon is all you need for AV, assuming you're good at switching weapons.

[Arbit]

Guys, I just tested this last night: the ability does absolutely nothing for lascannons. 5 seconds per shot with or without the ability. Checking the wiki, lascannons have zero cooldown - it's 1 sec windup, 1 sec "burst" duration, 1 sec winddown, and 2 sec reload (it reloads every shot, although you'd never know that by watching them because there is no reload animation). Great was my disappointment.

I skimmed the IG unit list and it's pretty typical to have a 1 sec cooldown and 1 sec burst duration, so a 40% reduction in cooldown translates to roughly a 20% damage increase without factoring in reload times. With reload times, it probably works out to 15% or so. Melta storms have a 1.5 sec cooldown so they would benefit most from a straight dps perspective. By how much I'm not sure atm.

The retail wiki indicates assault kit storms have zero cooldown. Is that changed in Elite? If not, that means the melta ability does nothing for them.

The range increase and damage on the sniper rifle is more appealing to me I think.

[Maestro Cretella]

The weapon is good period, both for the ability and the weapon itself. As someone who has spent most of his time playing heroes who literally have zero AV options, I really appreciate the value of being able to get a ranged AV weapon on a hero. Hero AV is always a great thing because it is cheaper than a new unit and your hero is always a part of your unit composition.

[Arbit]

I dunno, I'm reminded a lot of the pre-Elite TM melta gun. The short range (20) combined with 50% fotm means the LG spends a lot of running around and not doing much damage, plus he's vulnerable to being tied up. The new and improved Elite TM melta gun gives him 100% fotm, which offsets the short range quite a bit because he can chase his target around and is difficult to tie up in melee (unless the thing he is shooting at is doing the tying up of course), not to mention he has a reliable shield and a range increase available through the signum armor.

Also, as is the case with any AV unit, the LG takes a lot of heat. With most commanders that's fine, as trading 80% of your commander's health for 50 or 60% or whatever vehicle HP is great because commanders heal fast and vehicles don't. However, the LG taking damage often results in retinue loss. What happens is I spend 25 power on the melta, find myself spending req/power replacing retinue members because I have to be more aggressive with him, usually I have to spend more power to switch to another weapon afterward, and soon enough I've spent so much power I'm wondering why I didn't invest those resources into ogryn/melta storms/manticore+lascannon, most of which are anti-all and good long term investments.