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All,
Have been wondering recently about the best way to position and utilize the different weapon teams. It seems, even with heavy armour, that they are extremely fragile because they're only a single model that can be singled out by shooting and charges...

What's the best way to position/move the weapon teams?
Granted, the Doom Flayer can sit out front because it wants to be in close combat and has a decent armour save.
The Poisoned Wind Mortar can move and shoot, so can hide around the corner of its parent unit, then step out and lob into the approaching/engaged enemy.

But the Warpfire Thrower and Ratling Gun are move OR shoot.
This makes them far less flexible, but still extremely deadly making them an attractive option.

Have you found the move or shoot teams too much of a liability or inflexible compared to the PWM that you're excluding them?

Easiest way to use a ratling gun is to not use it.. no joke since its awful

Warp fire thrower is best (and really should only) used with slaves. Get the slaves in combat while positioning the fire thrower nearby.. following turn shoot into combat and hit the entire enemy unit

I've found the best way to use Weapon Teams is to leave them home. They're so easy to pick out, and even with bad odds they're likely to die because of 1W and T3.

Ratling Guns, as stated, suck. Rolling to hit with them is awful, and they Misfire/get few hits all the time.

Fire Throwers are unlikely to live. Now if you want to invest in absorbing a minor spell or round of archer fire, go for it. You have to think ahead with them, which some people cannot do, and be very careful of Fast Cav or small units who will charge them.

Mortars simply don't do enough damage. They wound worse dice than a Stone Thrower for the trade of allowing no saves, but Skaven have things that kill heavy armor better. Move and Fire helps but just not enough damage for the investment.

Never tried Flayers but they don't look very impressive, easy to kill for not an insane amount of damage, and they have to wait for combat. I'd rather invest in one of the many combat units we have with staying power.


Personally, after having used them all, I'd say the Fire Thrower was the best, but still not near good enough for me to keep using. Any opponent that fears it will kill it, guaranteed, and if you protect it that delays it shooting for at least a turn, during which time you have to hope your unit doesn't break, the enemy doesn't move, etc.

I've heard consistent good things about the WFT and the newer PWM, along with the occasional nod towards the Flayer...

I wasn't specifically looking for "don't use this" "not worth it" remarks.
I'd like some serious discussion of the best ways to use them and try to protect them.



I've thought of screening the WFT with giant rats (since they're fast enough to scurry out of the way) walking alongside Slaves.

The formation would look something like this;

[Slaves] [RATS]
[Slaves] [RATS]
[Slaves] [] [Clans]
...............[Clans]
...............[Clans]

The empty box is the fire thrower.
The WFT stays protected inside the cubby between the slaves/rats/clanrats. If a caster got LoS, they're on a large target or flying behind you. In which case you'll have a warp lightning cannon or other answer to drop them. They're more expensive in general than the WFT anyways.

So the maneuver would operate in the following way;
> Slaves charge (or get charged) straight forward, this positions the WFT to fire directly into that combat for at least 1 turn.
> Rats charge anything that may threaten the slave flank-- since you want as many rounds as possible to fire into combat.
> The Clanrats along the side provide countercharge and block LOS to the WFT to prevent fast cav flanking.


Thoughts?



For the mortar, I feel that while it is inaccurate, the PWM is able to move and fire, allowing it to step out from behind a unit just enough to lob the blast into a block of heavy infantry.

Formation:

[Slaves]
[Slaves]
[Slaves]
........[]...[Clans]
.............[Clans]
.............[Clans]

Again, empty box is the mortar.
The Slaves charge or get charged, the Clannies sort of shimmy to the side to create just barely enough gap for the mortar to slip off to the side to barely get direct LoS (don't want to increase our scatter if we can help it) and drop the blast. Pending extraordinary luck, or not getting ripped off by Clan Skryre, a fairly good chunk will be gassed from the block the slaves are engaged with.




Another of my thoughts would be to run horded Slaves with a mortar or two running along behind them. The goal is to achieve multi-charges on cavalry and heavy infantry.
Looks like this:

.......[SlavesHorde]
.......[SlavesHorde]
.......[SlavesHorde]
.......[]..............[]
[Clans]..............[Clans]

The Slaves would hopefully leverage a multicharge on as many things as they can. Ideally this huge block will run right up the middle, escorted by the countercharge clanrats and the two mortars. An alternative would be to run Globadiers with the attached mortar instead of clanrats. This gives a number more globes to toss as well.

If the mortars scatter, there's an increased chance they will shift into the other enemy unit(s). While there's still a chance of them landing on the slaves or in open ground, hopefully the massive block can absorb the casualties.
Luckily slaves don't panic, so all there is to worry about is overrun bringing the enemy units into the mortars. That is why the mortars will step off to the side when they want to fire.



Thoughts?

WFTs are INCREDIBLY difficult to use. The combination of being short distance and random distance is not easy to contend with. The bonus of the mortar is that it's probably the easiest one to actually get hits with. Being able to move into position and shoot is huge.

One tactic I've used with some sucess is to use a WFT or two in my backfield to shoot at flankers and warmachine hunters.

Yes, Ratling guns suck now that they have to roll to hit. That's why I converted two (out of four) of mine into Doomflayers (using a sorta 'weed whacker' design... ).

I haven't used the mortars yet, I'll have to see how they do.

I was thinking something similar to In Theory. If your rat unit is next to slave regiment, you might as well hide the warpfire thrower behind the slaves to shield LOS.

As soon as the slave unit is in combat, fire into their back. Because theyare in combat, each hit has a 50% chance of being randomized onto the enemy.

Or am I mistaken?

bucheonman wrote:As soon as the slave unit is in combat, fire into their back. Because theyare in combat, each hit has a 50% chance of being randomized onto the enemy.

Or am I mistaken?

This was actually FAQ'd - shots no longer randomize when shooting enemies engaged with slaves, you just aim for the enemy now. Yes, that means you can't charge a hydra with some slaves, hit 20 slaves with a WFT and then bounce the hits onto the hydra

The Crippler wrote:WFTs are INCREDIBLY difficult to use. The combination of being short distance and random distance is not easy to contend with. The bonus of the mortar is that it's probably the easiest one to actually get hits with. Being able to move into position and shoot is huge.

Agreed on WFT, and the reason I stopped using mine long ago. I would often find myself with 1 shot every 2 games (it died the other half of the time), and half the time it would miss or explode. Big pay out, impossible to prepare for IMO.

On the ratling gun, I actually run three of them and am always happy to have them. 18" set range is great compared to the WFT or the mortar (which scatters), and while rolling to hit sucks even worse in 8th (due to cover modifiers everywhere), I just deal with it. Ratters chew threw elves and I can generally maneuver my three crew to have overlapping fields of fire, bringing a lot of potential pain onto one nasty unit. Yes, the dice generally do their thing and only a few models die, but on the other hand I've had 6 shots = 6 hits = 5 dead chaos warriors, so whatever. I also like to have some kind of control over misfires, with the ability to push my luck if I need moar power (vs any of the other teams).

As to keeping them alive, if the enemy wants their points, and actually has some shooting, I figure they can have them. I keep them within 3" of their parent block for the 5/4+ save but I think what keeps them alive most often is that I very very rarely fight small arms or magic missiles, and with big clanrat buses and the hellpit roaming around there are more pressing targets to do a lot of damage to. Really, the most dangerous thing my teams face are themselves from misfires, and then harpies, eagles and other fast flying light units like them. In which case what I do is have the teams hug the opposite side of their parent block, to give the flyers no space to land, as well as target them with ratters first!

- Salvage

That last passage of Salvage's is my biggest suggestion: multiple targets is always a good thing. Especially with the Skaven.

8th actually made me sad, the "minimum unit size" nearly doubled, which means less targets...

But an A-bomb will certainly take the heat off your teams.

The 4+ Ward from the parent unit is extremely nice. Aside from any hard-and-fast diagram (which are usually moot, what with TLOS and all), I have this to say:

-Mortars: they can move and fire, and they can fire indirectly. Nothing too hard about using these guys.

-Ratling guns and 'Throwers: being the first to charge in with your rats is seldom worth it; you need the +1 CR later, when your scarier units hit home, so I usually march up a little, and take a shot or two at a unit as it comes in. They don't get a whole lot of chances, but they aren't horrifically expensive either. The 'Thrower is simply devastating. True, it's got a 1-6 chance of (essentially) blowing up, but that's not horrible.

-Doomflayer: these are tough. With the Step-Up rule, this little guy usually falls over dead the turn after it charges anything but the lowliest of units (and even then, it'll die the next round).

Final note: If you're not worried about points, try dropping a plain Engineer into the "unit" that is a weapon team. 50% of any missiles go to him, which grants your team, essentially, another 4+ save for two shots or more. It's a bit goofy, but it's not too much of a stretch.