How to fix cannons

[The bearded one]

Final rankings are here, TBO.

Graci. Numbers of monsters have been editted into my post above yours.

There were 4 dragons (2 star, 1 black, 1 moon), which ended #28, #47, #91 and #53 respectively.

The stegadon monstermash (4 stegadons, 1 ancient stegadon, carnosaur) ended up #96.

[Asensur]

ETC rules? That explains Ogres as top armies.

[The Low King]

Hmm....dwarfs and empire didnt do to well.....

Does anyone want to go through that and look at the results of Dwarf/empire armies (With cannons) against the monster heavy armies?

[The bearded one]

If there's a record of who fought who in each game, sure.

[Lord Inquisitor]

If there's a record of who fought who in each game, sure.

There's a record of the final results here:
http://www.protechcomputers.org/warh...al_Results.pdf

...and the first round pairings here:
http://www.protechcomputers.org/warh...TW_R1_Draw.pdf

So at least you can work out the first round outcomes. But that's a ton of work.

What I wanted to do was a breakdown of the top 20 players, because that's typically where you'll find the most competitive players with the nastiest lists. Here are the players that placed in the top 1/5th of standings and a quick look though the names and you've got some recognisable ones to be sure.

We have:

• 10 different armies, although OK really dominate the top 10.
• 5 of them had 1 monster, 2 of them had 2. All monsters had a ward save, regen or the monster and handlers save. (2 hellpits, 2 hellcannon, 1 warshrine, 1 bloodthirster, 2 treemen)
• 5 chariots, not counting the single Ironblaster in every OK list. 3 were Doomwheels, the other 2 were Screaming Bells.
• All Skaven and OK players took Warp Lightnings and Ironblasters respectively. No other armies in the top 20 had, or could take, cannons although every army with access to stone throwers (brets and orcs and goblins and warriors of chaos) took max allowed stone throwers.
• No ridden monsters
• No monsters without a ward, regen or M&H.

No Empire or Dwarfs in the top 20, however, the top Empire player fielded 3 great cannons.

[What is it about having a first name starting with "J" and playing Lizardmen?]

[Kayosiv]

We have:

• 10 different armies, although OK really dominate the top 10.
• 5 of them had 1 monster, 2 of them had 2. All monsters had a ward save, regen or the monster and handlers save. (2 hellpits, 2 hellcannon, 1 warshrine, 1 bloodthirster, 2 treemen)
• 5 chariots, not counting the single Ironblaster in every OK list. 3 were Doomwheels, the other 2 were Screaming Bells.
• All Skaven and OK players took Warp Lightnings and Ironblasters respectively. No other armies in the top 20 had, or could take, cannons although every army with access to stone throwers (brets and orcs and goblins and warriors of chaos) took max allowed stone throwers.
• No ridden monsters
• No monsters without a ward, regen or M&H.

No Empire or Dwarfs in the top 20, however, the top Empire player fielded 3 great cannons.

...interesting to say the least.

Also, what is the matter with riders on monsters?

Ward saves and other protection magic items are accesible and cheap for every army.

I'd have to direct you to a thread I made on that very subject, here.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...ter-beneficial

[Souppilgrim]

Update on my maths. Couldn't find a problem with Lord I's math, but it was written in the most confusing manner. Bearded ones, seems a little more straight forward.

Anecdote, I have tested old artillery dice (the ones with the word misfire on them) and they roll a higher percentage of misfires than 1/6. I've been using this die for years, I have now burnt it.

PS sad about the Empire rankings, it's ETC...but still.

[Montegue]

It's hard to draw inferences from this limited data set, given how many variables there are. Was the terrain identical on every field? What were the match ups, and what was the relative skill level of the different players? How many actual wounds did those canons manage to do in the course of those games, etc.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Jummy, anecdotes!

Yes, partly, or we could call it empirical evidence - the same evidence as used by anyone on the other side of the fence. But let's not mince words: I'm not trying to convince you of my PoV, and you're not writing the rules for cannon, I'm just trying to illustrate why I feel like I feel. I don't need scientific data for the latter.

Only one dwarf list as far as I can see has taken less than the absolute max number of war machines. Most empire lists have two or three great cannon. Ogres and Skaven are limited to 0-1 for their cannons and almost all Skaven and Ogre armies have cannon.

And what does that tell us? Many players think warmachines are a) good, b) an integral part of their army, and c) taking warmachines is as much a guarantee for a good ranking as everything else. All of that applies to a GW horde or an L4 as well.

[decker_cky]

Looking back at 3rd edition warhammer (the last edition before the arillery dice appeared) cannons were Str 7 (at the 3 man level) and lost a point of Str at every range multiple of 12". They were also moe accurate though - hitting everything from the muzzle of the cannon to the end of their maximum range (48"). They also could do only 1d4 wounds. I'm not suggesting any of these options would "fix" the cannon, but what are peoples opinions of them?

That would be a nice easy way to shift the balance of cannons. S7 for basic cannons, and S8 for great cannons? Doesn't make a big difference at the moment, but GW seems to be more willing to play with unusual stats in 8th edition rulebooks, so more T6 and T7 monsters isn't out of the question.

[shelfunit.]

That would be a nice easy way to shift the balance of cannons. S7 for basic cannons, and S8 for great cannons? Doesn't make a big difference at the moment, but GW seems to be more willing to play with unusual stats in 8th edition rulebooks, so more T6 and T7 monsters isn't out of the question.

Well, in the rule book the cannon gained a point of Str for every additional crew member it had (up to str 10 and 6 crewmen). This could also fit in with engineers - adding +1 W and +1 Str. The (3 man) cannons were only 60pts back then though...

[Spiney Norman]

There's a record of the final results here:
http://www.protechcomputers.org/warh...al_Results.pdf

...and the first round pairings here:
http://www.protechcomputers.org/warh...TW_R1_Draw.pdf

So at least you can work out the first round outcomes. But that's a ton of work.

What I wanted to do was a breakdown of the top 20 players, because that's typically where you'll find the most competitive players with the nastiest lists. Here are the players that placed in the top 1/5th of standings and a quick look though the names and you've got some recognisable ones to be sure.

We have:

• 10 different armies, although OK really dominate the top 10.
• 5 of them had 1 monster, 2 of them had 2. All monsters had a ward save, regen or the monster and handlers save. (2 hellpits, 2 hellcannon, 1 warshrine, 1 bloodthirster, 2 treemen)
• 5 chariots, not counting the single Ironblaster in every OK list. 3 were Doomwheels, the other 2 were Screaming Bells.
• All Skaven and OK players took Warp Lightnings and Ironblasters respectively. No other armies in the top 20 had, or could take, cannons although every army with access to stone throwers (brets and orcs and goblins and warriors of chaos) took max allowed stone throwers.
• No ridden monsters
• No monsters without a ward, regen or M&H.

No Empire or Dwarfs in the top 20, however, the top Empire player fielded 3 great cannons.

[What is it about having a first name starting with "J" and playing Lizardmen?]

So on the one hand your saying that these tournement results show that monsters are fairly rare, your assertion is that this is down to cannons, which IMHO is pure conjecture.

However it's also worth noting that Empire and dwarfs both did really badly and didn't appear at all in your top 20, which indicates that they don't need to be made any weaker. The problem I see is that if you nerf cannons you don't only take away these two armies only way to deal with monsters. You considerably weaken them across the board which is the last thing they need.

The only real conclusion I can draw from this is that Ogres and Skaven are broken and should not have a cannon, but didn't we know this already? It would be easy enough to rejig the rules of the WLC so that it didn't function as a regular cannon but had its own crazy rules (this used to be the case before the current edition anyway iirc) so that is an option for the next skaven book (which is badly needed for a whole raft of reasons).

[jtrowell]

It sure keeps coming back to a logical fallacy by the anti-cannon crowd. Ie cannons are too good at killing monsters, yet lots of monsters get played at tournaments, but ridden monsters don't, thus cannons are to blame for no ridden monsters. Again, MONSTERS GET PLAYED AT TOURNAMENTS. LOTS OF MONSTERS. What doesn't get played are ridden monsters. Why do you assume that cannons (which are equally effective against both) are the reason ridden monsters don't get played?

First, the monsters played in tournament usually are eitheir undercosted and/or are those that have defenses against canon (regeneration, ward save, high number of wounds) or that are spammable so you can do some target saturation

Second, and it is my main point, canons are not "equally effective against both" normal monsters and ridden ones: when you fire at a ridden monster, you get 2 hits at full strength with multi-wound, one on monster and one other at the rider, each of them costing more than your canon.

If a canon shooting at a high point target like a monster cost-effective and powerful ? Yes it is, even if you don't kill hit you have a great chance of at least damaging it. Is it balanced ? Probably yes.

So is the same canon have double the effect because you're firing at a ridden monster not better ? How do you call something (twice) better than what was already a great choice ?

Some of the house rules that I would suggest:
- Have the canon always hit the monster first and only hit the rider if the monster is killed (somewhat like the usual rules for a canonball being stopped by a monster if not killed)

*or*

- the multi-wound only affect one randomised target (the other still taking a high strength hit, but doing one wound max, still better than what stone-throwers get)

None of those house rules change the power of canons againsts normal monsters, and firing at a ridden one is still better, but not twice as much.

This doesn't solve the problem of canons sniping at small characters even in units (LoS will not always works you know, and you're still hitting the unit if it does), but for now let's focus on the ridden monsters problem, I think that having a whole type of unit that is almost never used in tournaments is probably the main problem.

A much simpler reason is because good tournament players have no desire to tie up 5-600 points of their lord allowance and 25% of their entire army in a single model. In the 8th edition world of steadfast and points only given for destroying an entire unit, ridden monsters are simply junk and too much of an all your eggs in one basket approach for good players to take. Cannons have nothing to do with the lack of ridden monsters.

Yes this is alwo a problem I aggre with you on this point: ridden monsters are very expensives for what they bring, if I could field an Empire griffon alone for its base upgrade cost, or a dragon without the rider, it would be more cost effective. Such unit can however still be effective if well used (just don't blindly charge the first unit you see, try to kill support units and combo-charge with other units to kill with overpowering force and then change target), but canons, already the best counter to a monster, behing twice as effective against ridden monsters (who you already agree are usually harder to use effectively that normal monsters) is just the final nail in the coffin.

Yes, removing the "hit both rider and mount" rule, or using a houserule like the ones I suggested will not make ridden monsters overpowered, but that's not the point, the point is making a non competitive choice slightly more useful so you don't shot yourself in the foot for bringing one.

[jtrowell]

Also, what is the matter with riders on monsters?

Ward saves and other protection magic items are accesible and cheap for every army.

The ward save won't protect the mount, and a 4++ is not so cheap, by taking one you're increasing the value of the target on your head.

You just fire your canon at the monster, if the rider miss the save (still 50% change), then you just got a good bonus.

[jtrowell]

The poll say nothing about cannons being a problem or not....

The only thing the poll say is that there is nothing wrong with the number of multiple wounds the cannon does.

I agree, I didn't vote because there was not a "keep the d6 wounds, the problems with canons are elsewhere" choice.

[bad dice]

I think you are all over complaining about a option that cost around a 100 points (between te differend versions)
And has a 6% change of destroying itself every time it fires. And even if it does not blow it self up over the course of a game it usely dies to wm hunters

And i have to admid cannons are harsh to mounted monsters. But then again mounted monsters are realy powerfull playing pieces . I dont know about you but i am sure glad ppl have something to consider before takeing them cause i sure would not like to face a dragon rider ( or other monster) each and every game.

[Asensur]

Anyway, cannons are increasing their cost in the newest army books.

Ogre Kingdoms just can field 2 cannons at 2999- points, and both cost 340 together.

The Empire can field 3 cannons at 2999- points, and all three cost 360.

Those are huge investments for a warmachine made to kill monsters (look at the empire cannon description, and at the riding high pg109 of the rulebook).

The thing is żAre cannons a good investment against an opponent without monsters? I don't think so. Against troops catapults are a better investment.

8th edition cannons are costly comparing with other kind of warmachines. And so, they need to be good at something.

[Asensur]

I think you are all over complaining about a option that cost around a 100 points (between te differend versions)
And has a 16% change of destroying itself every time it fires. And even if it does not blow it self up over the course of a game it usely dies to wm hunters

And i have to admid cannons are harsh to mounted monsters. But then again mounted monsters are realy powerfull playing pieces . I dont know about you but i am sure glad ppl have something to consider before takeing them cause i sure would not like to face a dragon rider ( or other monster) each and every game.

Fix'd for you.

[Texhnolyze]

Fix'd for you.

Read the post again will you..

16% is the chanse to missfire. Then you have to roll a 1 or 2 for it to go boom

0.16*0.33 = 0.0528 => ~5.3% chanse to destroy itself.

[Cambion Daystar]

An idea i have been thinking about:
Give monsters an armour save that can't be modified below a certain value (for example never less than 5+) or a wardsave (not to high, 5+ or 6+).
Next change cannons to do D6 HITS instead of D6 wounds (reduces the all-or-nothing effect of wardsave-regeneration).
Next step, drop the ridiculous "both monster and rider" get hit. Just randomise like it used to be.

Problem solved.

Also for people having trouble with cannons at the moment. I think ironcurse icon protects both rider and monster. It is only a 1-in-6 chance, but it is better than nothing.