How to fix cannons

[Lord Inquisitor]

She does indeed. Apparently her unlucky streak has continued in games against other people too.

I went to a small local tournament at the weekend and since there were a bunch of empire armies there (I played game 1 Empire, game 2 Empire and guess what, game 3 Empire), I thought I'd report how many cannons were fielded. Game 1, 3 great cannon + steam tank. Game 2, 2 great cannon (plus 2 hellblasters w/ engineers and 2 hellstroms). Game 3, 3 great cannon + steam tank. There was a dwarf player there (whom I didn't play), who had 3 cannon and 3 grudge throwers.

I had some interesting reports about the validity of using hills and walls as cover from cannons in practice as all the tables were absolutely covered in reasonably high hills and loads of walls.

[Texhnolyze]

She does indeed. Apparently her unlucky streak has continued in games against other people too.

I went to a small local tournament at the weekend and since there were a bunch of empire armies there (I played game 1 Empire, game 2 Empire and guess what, game 3 Empire), I thought I'd report how many cannons were fielded. Game 1, 3 great cannon + steam tank. Game 2, 2 great cannon (plus 2 hellblasters w/ engineers and 2 hellstroms). Game 3, 3 great cannon + steam tank. There was a dwarf player there (whom I didn't play), who had 3 cannon and 3 grudge throwers.

I had some interesting reports about the validity of using hills and walls as cover from cannons in practice as all the tables were absolutely covered in reasonably high hills and loads of walls.

Oo! Do tell more!

[Lord Inquisitor]

Ha, sorry, was posting and got called away halfway through.

• With opponents 1 and 2 we played by the book, requiring LOS to a point on the ground. Game 3 we decided before the game it was too much hassle and instead played by a more abstracted system of "nominate a target and declare a number of inches back".
• If you nominate to a point on the ground, it can make placing cannons behind troops more problematic. However, if you place your cannon on the flanks, this isn't really an issue.
• Having to nominate a point on the ground really doesn't make hills any kind of protection against cannons. Unless the hill is really close to the cannon and the target is really far away you can just bounce the cannonball on the tip of the hill and that usually is plenty good enough. Indeed, on at least one occasion my opponent was able to bounce a cannonball off the top of a hill and hit my Ironblaster that was entirely invisible behind the hill.
• Walls were a little better but really did very little. All three tables had a really good amount of walls in at least two rows across the battlefield so I was able to take up positions certainly at deployment with most of my army behind walls. I think in all three games only one wall section was destroyed. Certainly in the third game both my scraplaunchers were one-shotted by cannons despite being adjacent to walls. Screening with MI worked a little better (on one occasion in the first game an ogre caught a cannonball that might have killed the scraplauncher behind it) but it really did have the additional effect that my opponent couldn't fail to hit and at least once I lost several ogres and a scraplauncher.
• Buildings and large impassable effects were good but you still can't get a chariot-sized model placed in such a way that it is invisible if the opponent puts cannons at either end of their deployment zones. Mobile cannons such as steam tanks and ironblasters make this all but impossible. The best you can do is damage limitation (I was able to get my Ironblaster to survive one whole shooting phase in all three games but it died turn 2 each game).
• Nominating a target for the cannon and simply declaring the underestimate is quicker and far more intuitive than trying to see the point on the ground.

[GrandmasterWang]

D6 wounds needs to stay. A cannon should be able to one shot a monster or char.... Its a cannon and has happenned numerous times in the fluff.

As for aiming. My proposal which ill test with house rules. Nominate point as usual. Roll to hit with unmodified bs. If hit, resolve as.normal. If miss, scatter d6. Same deal with.misfires as currently. Hits monsters, hits riders in addition on a 4+. A nerf.but not severe

[Sh4d0w]

D6 wounds needs to stay. A cannon should be able to one shot a monster or char.... Its a cannon and has happenned numerous times in the fluff.

As for aiming. My proposal which ill test with house rules. Nominate point as usual. Roll to hit with unmodified bs. If hit, resolve as.normal. If miss, scatter d6. Same deal with.misfires as currently. Hits monsters, hits riders in addition on a 4+. A nerf.but not severe

agree with first point about d6 wounds

[Maoriboy007]

Cannons should be a 200 point rare choice for all armies. See if the worm turns then. Somehow I predict that armies who do have cannons won't like that idea very much , suspect much?

[Cambion Daystar]

Cannons should be a 200 point rare choice for all armies. See if the worm turns then. Somehow I predict that armies who do have cannons won't like that idea very much , suspect much?

Yes, and mounted monsters should only be a 1000 point choice for ALL armies. See if the worm turns then. Somehow I predict that armies who do have mounted monsters won't like that idea very much , suspect much?

[cptcosmic]

Cannons should be a 200 point rare choice for all armies. See if the worm turns then. Somehow I predict that armies who do have cannons won't like that idea very much , suspect much?

you could take cannons as mercenaries in 6th as rare choice.

[sulla]

you could take cannons as mercenaries in 6th as rare choice.

Yes, but only the weaker, small cannon.And it hit less often. I bet if you could take the current version with armies plenty would take up the option.

As to maoriboy's pricing, I think 150 would be the tipping point for cannons. If you had to pay 150 per cannon, 300 for a pair becomes quite an investment considering there may or may not be a good target for the pair.

Even at 120pts each they are still pretty good value because as well as monsters, there is still a lot of multi wound units, chariots, war machines and even just rank and file are sometimes worth shooting at.

Personally, I would have preferred if they had somehow incorporated ballistic skill into all war machine for in 8th but they didn't so I just shrug and grumble. Cannons are very good vs my monsters, chariots etc, but so are stone throwers and great weapon hordes. Cannons make those high value targets worse, but they would still be bad even without cannons in the game. My complaints against cannons are more 'the principle of the thing' in how it operates rather than the actual damage they do. I simply have trouble believing an ogre bouncing along on a rhinox should shoot as accurately as an empire crew with an engineer calculating the trajectory, and I think neither should be able to hit a single man in a unit or a flying creature as reliably as they do.

[Montegue]

In my last tournament -

Game 1, Against Ogres. All of my artillery was forced to deploy centrally, while my drunken dwarfs were forced to deploy on the right. Unprotected, they were decimated by double misfires and my opponents insane streak of rolls with his own Ironblasters. Still managed a draw, despite his Stonehorn staying on the table.

Game 2, against Demons. My lazer precisions kill-a-monster-in-one-hit-basically-all-the-time Cannons failed to kill the Great Unclean One. It got into my GW horde, helped the bloodletters smash it (because my unerring totally broken artillery for some reason didn't manage to shatter that 'letter horde in the turn it took them to get into charge range), and eventually finally fell to a Pyrrhic direct hit from the Grudge Thrower. The game was a massacre, I was wiped from the board.

Game 2, against Skaven. Artillery completely carried the day, as all my infantry were held in reserve due to scenario (with the exception of my Quarrelers, who were the only CC unit to see combat). It took tons of shots to bring down the Screaming Bell and the Hellpit Abomination. I managed a massacre despite the Storm banner holding itself up for two or three turns.


In the end, my lazer precision cannons only had a moderate impact on my overall tournament performance. And when that happens, Dwarf armies die. If you cannot shatter the multitude of fundamentally superior enemy units with your artillery, you lose. If you cannot kill the big monster before it gets into base contact with your army, you will lose.

It's not something you can turn around in the magic phase - we don't get one of those. It's not something you can make up for in close combat - our very best units are not that great. Even hammerers get slaughtered by most other elite units in the game.

So, if you cripple the Dwarf's best tool against the sort of models that *will* ensure victory in close combat (yes, despite Great Weapons - T6 is a 5+ wound for a Great Weapon Horde, and Thunderstop turns combat res against us), you basically cripple the Dwarf's ability to compete.

Lord Inquisitor -

If you get right down to it, the True LOS rules and calling a point on the ground are a balancing factor for cannons. These rules pretty much ensure that Dwarfs and Empire cannot put their cannons behind their own lines and still fire them. You have to use a lazer pointer or get right down to the cannon's eye level, but once you do you'll see that you need to tuck your cannons between units. This makes them vulnerable. For example, in the Demon game I played, a group of flying demons got into base contact with a cannon, preventing if from taking another shot at the GUO. It's not hard for most armies to get a turn two charge on a Cannon, even when it's up against the back wall. And the second you stick something in front of it to screen it, you cut off a huge portion of what it's capable of firing at.

If you stick the cannons way out on the flanks, they just slaughter you with swift moving chaff (kitties, harpies, whatever). Once a cannon is in combat, it's useless. On the off chance that it actually fends off an attacker, it's missed two or three whole turns of effective shooting.

[Snake1311]

Lord Inquisitor -

If you get right down to it, the True LOS rules and calling a point on the ground are a balancing factor for cannons. These rules pretty much ensure that Dwarfs and Empire cannot put their cannons behind their own lines and still fire them. You have to use a lazer pointer or get right down to the cannon's eye level, but once you do you'll see that you need to tuck your cannons between units. This makes them vulnerable. For example, in the Demon game I played, a group of flying demons got into base contact with a cannon, preventing if from taking another shot at the GUO. It's not hard for most armies to get a turn two charge on a Cannon, even when it's up against the back wall. And the second you stick something in front of it to screen it, you cut off a huge portion of what it's capable of firing at.

If you stick the cannons way out on the flanks, they just slaughter you with swift moving chaff (kitties, harpies, whatever). Once a cannon is in combat, it's useless. On the off chance that it actually fends off an attacker, it's missed two or three whole turns of effective shooting.

Thats not actually true, you can use true LoS (which no one does for cannons btw - its a pain in the butt; generally its declare a target and underestimate - but you have to plan for true LoS in case of extra anal opponents) and still deploy behind your units. Movement comes before shooting, so all you have to do is waddle your unit so the gap between models aligns with whatever point on the ground you are shooting at. If its a shallow unit (e.g. shooters in 2 ranks which shouldn't be moving) you can draw LoS between the models easy peasy. Get a laser pointer (a proper one, not the GW target thing - the circle is like 3" in diameter at 48") and give it a try.

Obviously, on occasion that will affect your facing (when there is a threat up close in a flank AND a target far off for the cannon to shoot at blocked by your unit), but that doesn't come in all that much.

On a fun note, if opponents are being a-holes and making you aim at the ground, bring on the power of RAW and start plotting down your cannon targets on top of impassible terrain and buildings (overshooting into units behind - only the bounce stops) and on trees. Always fun .


I agree on your general points about cannons by the way, they are a necessity in the armies which have them. Dwarfs in particular aren't massively bothered by cannons getting stupid nerfs though, since everyone would just switch to triple GT instead - not great being shoehorned even further, but still functional as an army.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Good gracious. Not every word starting with "a" is an a-rgument and I'm frankly surprised at the necessity of having to teach some people such basic concepts, even after all these years. You'd have thought they weren't particularly hard to understand.

[Memnos]

Snake? Why is people insisting that you use true line of sight to the spot you're firing at 'anal'? Isn't that the way he rule is supposed to work?

Don't get me wrong, I have never had an excessive amount of trouble with cannons. I'm just surprised that someone would term an opponent 'anal' for the dastardly crime of insisting that you stick to the rules.

[Snake1311]

Because the rule in question is a) clearly not written well as RAW, b) isn't widely used, and c) people invariably only bring it up when it favors them.

Mostly because of point c. And I'm never rude to such people or anything. I just quietly smile to myself and then proceed to use RAW in ways I'd nomrally consider unsporty, such as aiming optimal shots at things I can't draw LoS to and bouncing cannonballs though buildings.

Which also makes me an a-hole.

I guess the summary is I can be a bigger a-hole than my opponent if I choose to be, so play nice to start with or suffer the consequences

[N810]

Yea that prety much sums up this thread.....

[The bearded one]

I just quietly smile to myself and then proceed to use RAW in ways I'd nomrally consider unsporty, such as aiming optimal shots at things I can't draw LoS to and bouncing cannonballs though buildings.

That's not anal, merely illegal. Cannonballs that hit a building or other impassable terrain during the bounce, stop immediately. Stupidly enough (probably an oversight), you can "bump" past a piece of impassable terrain by using the first artillery dice, but not with the bounce.

[Snake1311]

That's not anal, merely illegal. Cannonballs that hit a building or other impassable terrain during the bounce, stop immediately. Stupidly enough (probably an oversight), you can "bump" past a piece of impassable terrain by using the first artillery dice, but not with the bounce.

They do stop at impassible terrain, are you 1000000% sure about buildings? Because a lot fo comp packs I've seen specifically that cannonballs cannot bounce through them, and I remember reading something stupid in the rulebook :P

But thats not even the point. The point is, if you pick the building/terrain as the initial point, you will almost always overshoot it anyway.

And you can hit things behind hills by aiming on the ground in front of the hill, which is also highly amusing. Reminds me of minigolf.

[The bearded one]

They do stop at impassible terrain, are you 1000000% sure about buildings? Because a lot fo comp packs I've seen specifically that cannonballs cannot bounce through them, and I remember reading something stupid in the rulebook :P

But thats not even the point. The point is, if you pick the building/terrain as the initial point, you will almost always overshoot it anyway.

And you can hit things behind hills by aiming on the ground in front of the hill, which is also highly amusing. Reminds me of minigolf.

Page 126 BRB, 'buildings and movement' paragraph;
"For the most part, buildings act as impassabe terrain.."

If anything I don't think you can bounce all the way through a building, but basically hit it and then it stops. The cannonrules note that "if the cannonball bounces into impassable terrain that would, in reality, stand in the way of the shot, such as a sheer cliff, it stops immediately"

Picking the piece of impassable terrain as initial target in order to 'bump' past it using the initial artillery dice to hit something hidden behind it, is indeed quite anal though, so I'm glad even the thought of being able to do so never occured to me.

[Asensur]

When the cannonball bounces into a building, it does 1D6 hits to the unit inside, but the cannonball doesn't go any further.

Remember that buildings are still impassable terrain (you can't move through a building )

[Montegue]

I use true LOS on my cannons every time I play. I think it helps balance them, and it makes me think twice about how and where I deploy them. Granted, I also do the "ten inches from the back of X model's base" but only when I know that point is certainly in my cannon's true line of sight.