How to fix cannons

[Lord Inquisitor]

• I don't think that a change in the number of wounds inflicted is absolutely necessary. I don't like static modifiers and I think D3 is too little.
• Really should only hit either the rider or the mount, randomised as for shooting. This along with mounts counting for the character's % have killed the ridden monster.
• I feel cannons should have a BS requirement. I do not like the current system. Being able to fire a cannon through tiny openings that would give a hefty modfier if it were a handgun is just silly.
• Cannons should have strict rules pertaining to terrain, not just walls. Absurd that they can bounce through a wood or a river and keep going.

Something like:

Nominate target and roll to hit. A miss is a miss and the shot is wasted. (Or you could scatter it, I guess). On a hit, the target model is hit and then it bounces an artillery dice number of inches forward.

It would be a little less effective but critically firing through troops would be penalised and hitting skirmishers and the like would be difficult as it should be.

There's far too much in the game already that can blast units regardless of cover (magic missiles, etc) and GW learned that less with organ guns and hellblasters, they're too good if they hit automatically, particularly against units in cover, and really makes to hit modifiers a waste of time.

The fix to cannons was a re-write of the rules. Unfortunately, the price hike makes it harder to fix later. They needed to be fixed in 8th and unfortunately not only did they fix the issues with cannons they made them worse! And when we get to 9th all the cannons will be so expensive that making such a fix will make them all overcosted. So it goes around and around!

[Eyrenthaal]

I played against the empire today. The total casualties due to cannon fire amounted to;

2 wolf riders
2 squigs
2 squig handlers

Nothing My hoards couldnt handle.. It overshot a pump wagon, didnt reach a wolf chariot..

Sure, it can be nasty. But à LOT of the time it manages to do - nothing. Some days it even manages to Give the enemy 120 vp by blowing itself up..

I play the empire as well and on those days i like My cannons. But most of the time it isnt à game winner. And if it is its probably because it killed à Big nasty beast on the other side. Which probably would Have been à game winner if i didnt kill it first. Kill or get eaten..

Some armies Have Big nasty monsters, some Have cannons and WoC Have both.

And how do You snipe characters? Look out Sir! Did come in handy today being on the receiving end. Sure, sometimes even characters get hit...

Regards

[Skopey]

Should keep the D6 i think. Cannons are pretty devastating in real life. D6 wounds per hit seems fair to me. D3+2 Wounds is a bit much imo. I mean at least with d6 you might just role 1 wound and in reality people have survived cannon ball hits like Uxbirge at waterloo or st irenicus(i think thats his name, or something similar) Its not unheard of for a human to be hit by a cannonball and live and yeah i know this isnt real life but still it makes more sense to me than a 3 wound character pretty much auto dying when hit by one.

[King_Pash]

I'm surprised no one has suggested it do far but what about an initiative test for the monster/character to "dodge" the cannon ball? That way, slow things like giants and Star Dragons get a face full of lead 2/3 of the time and tiny characters don't get sniped out of units.

[Phazael]

I played against the empire today. The total casualties due to cannon fire amounted to;

2 wolf riders
2 squigs
2 squig handlers

Nothing My hoards couldnt handle.. It overshot a pump wagon, didnt reach a wolf chariot..

Sure, it can be nasty. But à LOT of the time it manages to do - nothing. Some days it even manages to Give the enemy 120 vp by blowing itself up..

I play the empire as well and on those days i like My cannons. But most of the time it isnt à game winner. And if it is its probably because it killed à Big nasty beast on the other side. Which probably would Have been à game winner if i didnt kill it first. Kill or get eaten..

Some armies Have Big nasty monsters, some Have cannons and WoC Have both.

And how do You snipe characters? Look out Sir! Did come in handy today being on the receiving end. Sure, sometimes even characters get hit...

Regards

You also happened to be playing an army that did not care about cannons. Many armies either feature monsterous infantry or have monsters as key elements to them. I think the perfect medium point is that a cannon be able to reliably two shot any monster without a ward save, but never one shot it. Being able to get a two for one deal on ridden monsters has essentially made those units extinct in competitive play, which is a shame.

As for sniping characters, remember most armies with access to cannons or stone throwers tend to bring at least two of them, affording two shots a turn at the offending character that will require a LOS. That gives pretty good odds at nailing the guy by turn three. And, of course, you are pounding the unit around him while this is going on. While many wizards might pack a ward save, BSBs usually do not and the loss of one can cripple many armies, so its kind of a big deal that two cannons (or stone throwers) are likely to grease an unwarded character before either one dies to a missfire.

I agree with Inqisitor in that the place to fix them was in the core rules and that GW missed the boat. I personally would have done something along the lines of "roll a BS to hit roll, if that fails double the initial scatter die result, then roll bounce" solution to make BS matter, make the mount be hit and the rider only get pegged if the mount dies, and change the wounds to D3+1 (more consistant, but no one shotting unwouned monsters). The price on cannons could then have remained unchanged across the board. I am fine with them goign through cover, but you should lose the multiple wounds rule when hitting a building's contents (poor ogres).

[Jind_Singh]

- If a cannon ball has to go through woods or other terrian it should lose D6 strength as the cannon ball loses some of its momentum bashing through trees!
- If a cannon ball fires at a lone character, 25mm base or less, it also has to roll for scatter D3 inches

[Spiney Norman]

- If a cannon ball has to go through woods or other terrian it should lose D6 strength as the cannon ball loses some of its momentum bashing through trees!
- If a cannon ball fires at a lone character, 25mm base or less, it also has to roll for scatter D3 inches

Why would a cannon ball scatter when fired at a lone character but not against a monster, come to think of it why would a cannonball scatter at all, something that heavy travelling that fast will require an immense application of force to shift its trajectory so "wind" isnt really a sensible answer. All you really do with this one is effectively give lone characters immunity to cannons, which is unnecessary because that is not the problem in hand.

Fixing cannons is actually quite easy, just make them randomise between rider and mount when they hit a ridden monster rather than automatically hitting both. This is a house rule we have adopted and it works fine.

The reducing strength when the shot goes through terrain is a good idea, but will rarely if ever make a difference on the game IMHO. Perhaps it could be reduced on a scale, -1 str for every inch of terrain/unit it goes through.

[Stonewyrm]

Why would a cannon ball scatter when fired at a lone character but not against a monster, come to think of it why would a cannonball scatter at all, something that heavy travelling that fast will require an immense application of force to shift its trajectory so "wind" isnt really a sensible answer.

Scatter isn't meant to represent a shift in trajectory, it's meant to represent bad aiming.

I think d3+1 Wounds and doesn't hit both mount and rider is ok.
d6 Wounds, scatter d3 and doesn't hit both mount and rider is ok.
Points for killing Monster is a given. (Comp where I am has it anyway)

[Sh4d0w]

I'm surprised no one has suggested it do far but what about an initiative test for the monster/character to "dodge" the cannon ball? That way, slow things like giants and Star Dragons get a face full of lead 2/3 of the time and tiny characters don't get sniped out of units.

So for most monsters thats like giving them a 5+ ward, giants have I3 giving them a 4+ward and does tzeentch for giants give you +1 to ward?? If so there is another 3+ thing in chaos. 3/4 of the big greater daemons have I5+ so they all get 2+ ward iniative tests then they're own ward save making them practically invulnerable to cannons. All regen monsters pretty much get another type of save to add to the one they have, going back to monsterhammer

[decker_cky]

Scatter D6"-Crew's BS. If you fire over terrain, it scatters D6" with no modifier. Causes much less scatter (still a good monster hunter) but less reliably able to hit characters. Also makes for interesting things like engineers providing assistance being more useful, and spells like miasma working against cannons to a small degree.

edit: If there was an initiative test to dodge cannonballs, Shaggoths and all ridden monsters would rock.

[Gaargod]

Scatter D3 inches from intended position.
So that its less likely to snipe characters in units but still capable of not missing the target unit altogether.

M************ this!

It's a cannon. Do you know how accurate rifled cannons were, even as late as the Napoleonic wars? Even if they knew exactly the range etc (i.e. siege environments, where they fired at the same point for ages), they were still only hitting within about 3m of the target. The idea of a cannon being fired cold (and yes, I do mean cold - the first few shots always underfired, as the barrel was colder. So you had to compensate) and hitting a man sized target moving at speed 1/4 of a mile away is ludicrous.


Seriously. Cannons are extremely killy - they should scatter, as it's totally unrealistic they don't. This would still although them to hit blocks and wipe away ranks, but there would be a much bigger chance of missing stuff. They might need to be lowered in price or whatever, but they're just too laser-guided as it is.

[eron12]

I'm surprised no one has suggested it do far but what about an initiative test for the monster/character to "dodge" the cannon ball? That way, slow things like giants and Star Dragons get a face full of lead 2/3 of the time and tiny characters don't get sniped out of units.

So after the character in the unit gets his 2+ LoS to dodge the cannon ball you want him to take another test to dodge it? Maybe we can add a third test after that in case the first two fail.

[Montegue]

Do away with the miserable "a cannonball hits both rider and monster" rule and everything is fine and dandy.

This. And I play dwarfs, so it would only nerf me. But it's absolutely silly that I can put a canonball through a dragon and it's rider in the same go.

[Demoulius]

Another week another "nerf cannons" thread...

Considering the things can blow themselves up, hit nothing due to the scatter dice not getting the desired distance, failing to wound that 2+ (yea, has happened far to often for me...) and getting shut down by magic/banners

I fail to see what the bloody problem is. It can kill monsters. Its what its designed to do. I fail to see why it needs to be "fixed" People take monsters and other people take cannons to get rid of said monsters... Might as well remove the "take x characteristic test or die" spells while your at it...

[Lord Solar Plexus]

In order to fix cannons obvious weakness it would be nice if they could get the small or large template in addition. This would perhaps go some way to make them a tad more accurate.

I still don't know how we could fix the problem that they hardly ever kill stuff.

[Dreadlordpaul]

Another week another "nerf cannons" thread...

Considering the things can blow themselves up, hit nothing due to the scatter dice not getting the desired distance, failing to wound that 2+ (yea, has happened far to often for me...) and getting shut down by magic/banners

I fail to see what the bloody problem is. It can kill monsters. Its what its designed to do. I fail to see why it needs to be "fixed" People take monsters and other people take cannons to get rid of said monsters... Might as well remove the "take x characteristic test or die" spells while your at it...

And its because people like you that i wont field my chaos lord on a chaos dragon as you can one shot him turn 1 of the game meaning my general is either dead or out on his own til my turn.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

That's entirely your choice and your problem, Dreadlordpaul. I could and would lose my Steam Tank to an Ini test on turn 1, too. Didn't stop me from taking it. In fact I could lose all kinds of stuff on turn 1...

Considering that my cannon have not once killed a monster in some 80 games you might understand why I find threads like these rather silly.

[Asensur]

There are 2 things that can help to avoid a cannon on your monster:

1. LoS: cannons need to target a point on the ground and they must be able to see it. Try to put you monster at the other side of scenery and units

2. Engaged and friendly units: cannons can't hit friendly or engaged units (even accidently). This includes any point on the ground that has any of those units at 20" or less at the direction of the shoot from that point. Try to put your monster between the cannon and your own engaged units.

Also, remember that monster have quite an amount of wounds, and they can survive the first shot of a cannon. Also remember that they stop cannonballs if they survive and that can save your elite units.

Try to get ward saves on your monsters. Savage Shamans can give Tattoos to a Giant (it's only a 6+ ward, but it can stop one lucky shot), Neru protection's spell can give a 5+ ward to a construct (also recovering 1 wound previously lost btw).

Of course, remember that a warmachine shooting your monster is a warmachine that is not shooting your units.

[Sexiest_hero]

If your dragon gets killed turn one I'd blame your Army build set up or terrain. I've only fought Empire and Dwarfs andd have yet to lose a flying doombull Jabberslyth or ghorgon. Chaos has plenty of chaff flying heros, and Giant monsters to catch cannons and kill crew, the one turn it takes your dragon to start molesting troops.

Once you build your list to deal with Cannons and 6th spells, the game is yours to lose

[Dreadlordpaul]

If your dragon gets killed turn one I'd blame your Army build set up or terrain. I've only fought Empire and Dwarfs andd have yet to lose a flying doombull Jabberslyth or ghorgon. Chaos has plenty of chaff flying heros, and Giant monsters to catch cannons and kill crew, the one turn it takes your dragon to start molesting troops.

Once you build your list to deal with Cannons and 6th spells, the game is yours to lose

I know 4 dwarf players in my area who would take the max number of cannons at 3k+ to kill my dragon and any other monsters i bring. Plus i dont have a great deal of spare points as at 3k+ i would have 3 war shrines and 2 hell cannons. Special section has the same problem as at 3k alongside my usual knights unit i will either have some rot knights or chosen, i will take the minimum core split between warriors and marauders plus the bsb and wizard or 2 i need