Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Evenin' Dakka.

So, recently I've been having the urge to shower my SM army with a variety of HS units, namely the Vindicator, the Whirlwind and the Thunderfire Cannon. So, I've been looking around, seeing what people think and how people use them, and I've been coming across a lot of hate against the TFC. The Vindicator and the Whirlwind are both good tanks, and with my play-style they would fit in pretty well (I like to combine a firing line with deepstrike and hard-as-nails assault).. I digress.

Anyway, looking at the Artillery rules and it looks like the TFC is pretty.. weak? I mean, its gun sounds amazing, but it just can't take a hit, even a glancing makes its gone. I can't really comment personally (I've never used one) so what is your opinion? How have you used it before, did it work?

Thanks,
Grayspear

< Sidenote for all the trolls out there: Your 'Change army' comments are unhelpful and tiring, keep them to yourselves >

TFCs are so much fail, it's not funny. Your opponent brings a single heavy weapon stronger than a heavy bolter, and that thing is getting shut down turn 1.

I mean, really, you need to glance a piece of AV10 OR kill a single space marine. Most armies should have no problem accomplishing this feat turn 1.

In the end, it's HOW many points for a weapon that will get to shoot ONCE, and only if you win the roll for first turn?

Well thats a pain, was kinda looking forward to using it, but I was having a quick fumble with the averages and it doesn't look promising.
Seems a lot more worth it to trade-up for an AV 13 Vindicator.

Since the TFC is Artillery, does it benefit from cover?; the tech-marine bolsters some cover and just sits behind it pelting shots.

I have recently used the TFC in some 1250 Points matches in the local FLGS league.

So far it did ok against average players simply because they do not know how fragile it is and they tend to ignore it until it does some damage, returning it point cost. In matches where people know how powerful it might be and you get to be the 2nd, the gun rarely fires more than once, imo. Armour Value 10 is simply too little because of the Artillery rules.

That said, it has some nice advantages. It is only 25 points over a techmarine with a Servo - Harness. More often than not, the piece will die first and the marine will be still around to kick some ass. The cover boost comes in handy too, and since its a 2 model unit, you can hide your dude behind a wall and still shoot from the gun, getting a cover save. The earthshkaer ammunition also comes in handy vs Bikes or vehicles and can save your ass from a charge.

All that said, you are better off taking a vindicator or a predator.

EDIT: Answering the question above, yes it does benefit from cover.

Remember that bolster defences bolsters only RUINS, however.

Absolute Nay. Too fragile, too expensive. It's shooty, but even devastators would put out more reliable firepower for the price, and that's saying something.

If artillery wasn't auto-destroyed by an AV10 glance, it would be a lot better. If it protected the techmarine in some manner, it would be better. But it's not the case.

Avoid, all the other HS options will serve you better in all but a very select few situations.

A TFC in fortified ruins can grab itself a 2+ cover save. They aren't bad if you have a niche to fill and for a lot of SM armies you aren't maxed on heavy slots anyway. I plan to run 3 of them in my SM scouts army.

Yeah, the hating seems to be pretty accurate, just had a conversation with another SM player and he doesn't find them worth the points. In my experience, Dev squads always make their points worth; it could just be me but I like them (shame I only have 1). Ah well, guess its a vindicator next on my to-buy list..

Its a shame really, TFC sounded like it was quite the violent weapon, shame its made of paper...

The Thunderfire Cannon services a niche purpose against Horde armies due to its ability to disrupt their movement potential.

If you pack the right threats it could be left alone, but don't count on it.

My ork boyz fear the TFC. That ignore cover shot is like shooting grotzookas at myself.

It's pretty weak but guys at my local club put it in 3+ cover and relatively far away from everything.

I suppose its still like a water balloon.

Im not a SM player, but the TF cannon makes me sad because I like the concept a lot. It could be a very handy unit to bring to the table for massed blasts.

everything depends on who you're facing, what else is in your army, and other variable things. if you have several high-priority targets(such as tanks or heavy-hitting squads like terminators) then your opponent will be hard-pressed to make a decision. take advantage of the 60" range, as most weapons in general besides imperial guard artillery can't fire that distance. if you're facing tyrannids or orks, then by all means take it, because they lack ranged firepower and you will devastate their hordes. Don't take it with the expectation for it to survive, but one thing that I would suggest is for you to take a rather defensive approach if you are taking the thunderfire cannon and several other heavy support choices. one suggestion is to take plenty of tactical marine squads with lascannons to back it up and shoot up any vehicles or heavy weapons teams aiming at the cannon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
in my experience, sometimes a unit doesn't have to make up it's points in order to bring about a win where other units have failed. in one instance, I used librarian tigurius and charged a guardsman player's conscript/executioner/lascannon army head-on.
he technically didn't earn his points back, but he killed 20 conscripts and the guard player(who was acting impulsively)
spent 2 rounds of his entire army's shooting phase firing at the librarian, giving enough time for my terminators, dreadnought, assault marines, tactical marines, vindicator, and land raider to charge and/or shoot him. that's just one of many reasons why I believe that a single, threatening model can bring about success even without an even trade in points.

if you're facing tyrannids or orks, then by all means take it, because they lack ranged firepower and you will devastate their hordes.

Hi. Tyranid player here. I do not need to engage in a cross-board slugging match. Should I desire it I can spore in a 10 pack of devgaunts and give it 30 S4 shots. I could simply smack it with a tyrannofex, or use one of the 10 million outflanking units. Or perhaps a unit of ymgarl tied to that piece of area terrain suspiciously close to the ruin you bolstered.

You are right though, its probably the best anti-horde unit in a given list...which attracts a lot of attention to a unit that is an easy KP. Not a particularly good combination.

I think that the hate on the TFC is misplaced. The reason is simple... the TFC is a metagame unit. As a metagame unit, if your opponent does not fear it, then it is not all that useful. However, if your opponent will be harmed by even being slowed by difficult terrain rounds, then the TFC is suddenly worth much much more.

Examine your metagame. Darkeldar greatly fear the TFC, Daemons greatly fear the TFC, tyranids might fear it, but tyranids are overall very weak, and the TFC is not useless against vehicles. I mean, it pens the side of a chimera very well with its 4 s6 blasts. I know my deathwing dont like seeing the TFC, because being forced to roll difficult terrain for everything slows my footslogging termies down to a crawl.

As to those saying the TFC is fragile, I dont know. If you assume it has a 3+ cover, then 1/3rd of your shots are gone right there. Now, since the TFC is in the backfield, only your long range anti tank can have range, and in a proper TFC list the enemies long range anti tank will have a lot of pressure on it to kill all the TFC, the rhinos/razors, the dreads, ect.

As for dropping a unit right next to it, like the 10 devil gants mentioned, last I checked 10 devil gants + pod cost more than 1 TFC. Plus, 30 shots = 15 hits, 5 on the tech marine, 2.5 wounds, round to 3 to give you an advantage, and he only dies 43% of the time. The cannon itself, with a 3+ cover, takes 10 hits and expects to die about 43% of the time. So, you have a 43% chance of killing both, and a 32% chance that you will do nothing to either, and a 25% chance that the techmarine alone is still alive.

On the flipside, the techmarine with his flamer alone might kill all the devilgants, but in any event flamer + pistol + charge, the devil gants are not on the winning side of that conflict.

Hope that helps dispel the myth that the TFC is a substandard choice... Instead the TFC is like the Land Raider, amazing in the right metagame, and potentially poor in the wrong metagame, but never garbage thanks to the unique abilities it brings to the table.

Food for thought, first place at the Colonial GT ran three thunder fire cannons, so... Yeah. I like them.

rjderouin, I hope you like them because you considered their pros and cons for your list, and not just because someone won some games with them somewhere.

So, you have a 43% chance of killing both, and a 32% chance that you will do nothing to either, and a 25% chance that the techmarine alone is still alive.

Keep in mind, that I don't HAVE to kill both to take the TFC out of the fight, I merely have to kill either one. The gunner goes away, the gun goes away. The gun goes away, the techmarine can be dealt with later if the gaunts don't manage to kill him later as well.

Should I not, keep in mind that while your one crewman is firing the gun, he won't be firing his personal weapons. He also cannot launch an assault while the gun is alive. So what's your choice? Even assuming you make that one in three that means the devilgaunts (Which are NOT optimal for the task, this was a choice made off the top of my head.) don't accomplish their mission, what are you going to do?

Fire personal weapons? TFC isn't firing at my hard hitters this turn.
Redirect the TFC to the devilgaunts? TFC Isn't firing at my hard hitters this turn.

In either case, that's another 6+D6 that my trygons and tyrants are moving in. another 12+d6 my fast stuff is moving in. And your TFC is doing nothing of value to them. If I have other deep strikers, those four blast markers didn't get directed at them, and they are going to get a lot more chance to do their assault thing next turn.

Bring in another unit to deal with the devilgaunts and keep firing the TFC to put terrain tests in front of my trygons, rip open genestealers, etc? Well, then I suppose I will have to content myself with whatever unit you are trying to shoot from out of the cover of the spore pod not being fired at my main army. Bonus points if this requires multiple units. Double bonus points if they wind up within 6 inches or in assault with the pod.

Well, having it on the LR Achilles increases it's survivability by about 1000%.
Just a few words of caution though, that model is out of IA 10, so it's considered bad form to just plop it down on the table without warning your opponent about it.
And it's expensive points-wise.
As well as dollar-wise.
But I will say that the model looks cool as hell.

I have never tried the TFC but I think for them to be effective you might need two or three. Only if they had barrage everyone would be using them :(

See, now we are getting somewhere

I originally wanted two or three as a backbone, springle some Combat Tactic 10man squads around it with a few heavy weapons and use that as a static firing line. I don't think that the TFC is expensive, its cheaper than most of the HS Choices. I'm still torn between the survivability and the outright face-punchery that the gun could pull off; I play quite a few swarm armies so it seems quite useful, although it would be wasted against Daemons, they just DS in and all of a sudden that huge range is useless.

I think I'm going to get one, see how it fairs in a few games and then decide from there, having played against tyranids / daemons / orks multiple times, their incessent need for cover gets on my nerves.

Grayspear wrote:See, now we are getting somewhere

I originally wanted two or three as a backbone, springle some Combat Tactic 10man squads around it with a few heavy weapons and use that as a static firing line. I don't think that the TFC is expensive, its cheaper than most of the HS Choices. I'm still torn between the survivability and the outright face-punchery that the gun could pull off; I play quite a few swarm armies so it seems quite useful, although it would be wasted against Daemons, they just DS in and all of a sudden that huge range is useless.

I think I'm going to get one, see how it fairs in a few games and then decide from there, having played against tyranids / daemons / orks multiple times, their incessent need for cover gets on my nerves.

Might wanna proxy it before you go ahead with buying it. Be warned about the model though- It's heavy as hell. I've heard about it breaking people's feet when they drop it.

As noted, it's a unit which brings a lot to the party against specific opponents. Even against MEQs, though, putting out four S6 blast tempates tends to force a LOT of armor saves. It's also nice to counter SM scouts with camo cloaks going to ground on an objective; or really any unit GtG on an objective. Grots and Pathfinders hate it too. 100pts is really not a lot for what you get.

If you use the range to set it way back, and fortify a Ruin for it to sit in, you are looking at 3+ cover. Since it's Artillary, if the techmarine is in area terrain, the whole unit gets the cover save, regardless of true LOS. The techmarine also has a 2+ armor save, so he can bounce a missile launcher shot or similar if one hits him.

You want to resist the urge to gunline/castle up around it, though. Especially with expensive tac squads. The TFC gets more survivable and effective when you have other elements moving aggressively, to force your opponent to deal with closer threats, and allow you to pounce on units moving into range to attack the TFC with more than 1-2 long range heavy weapon shots. Moving aggressively and tank-shocking also helps increase the TFC's damage output. Bunched enemies suffer the most.

Mannahnin wrote:putting out four S6 blast tempates tends to force a LOT of armor saves.

This is also part of the misunderstanding of the TFC. It fires small blasts. The radius of a small blast template is 1.5". The maximum you can spread out is 2".

Against any opponent who wants your TFC to hit 1 model per shot will make it so you only hit one model per shot. A weapon that costs what it does for getting 4 hits for the 0-1 turn it fires, well...

I mean, it's potentially great if you're good at rolling for first turn against opponents who line up their soldiers in close order drill. Against smart opponents, the amount of damage it does is seriously underwhelming.

the TFC is outstanding at low point games as it is a cheap counter to horde armies that SMs are vulnerable too at 1k and below.


3 TFCs is really cheap for the damage output.



the main problem is that the TFC takes up a HS slot by itself. if they were a 3 for 1 slot they would be frakkin awsome.

at high point games, the competition for Heavy slots is too stiff for the cheapo TFC to have a chance.

I've made a thread on improving artillery. It's in proposed rules, called An Artillery Fix? if you're interested.

The greatest strength of the TFC is drawing fire. Every time your opponent shoots his long range guns at your 2++/3++ cover TFC, its one shot that isn't stunning or wrecking your transports. The TFC is a larger assumed threat, and more immediate, which lets you position your razorbacks/LR and get out your termies. If the TFC survives, it dishes out a lot of damage for its cost.

The biggest tip in here is to play it defensively. Deploy it to maximise its cover save, and use it to potentially threaten every unit on the table. Your opponent will say "If I don't kill it, it gets to shoot me" and will have to weigh up how much shooting he has against its cover save, and the rest of your army.

Ailaros wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:putting out four S6 blast tempates tends to force a LOT of armor saves.

This is also part of the misunderstanding of the TFC. It fires small blasts. The radius of a small blast template is 1.5". The maximum you can spread out is 2".

Against any opponent who wants your TFC to hit 1 model per shot will make it so you only hit one model per shot. A weapon that costs what it does for getting 4 hits for the 0-1 turn it fires, well...

No misunderstanding at all.

Opponents don't have a choice about bunching up when they pile out of an exploded transport.
Opponents don't have a choice about bunching up when they disembark a unit from a wrecked transport with only one hatch.
Opponents don't have a choice about bunching up when they're bunched up from an assault, win, and then roll a 1 for Consolidate distance.
Opponents don't have a choice about bunching up when they Deep Strike, Run and happen to roll that 1. Or 2 or 3 with a large unit.
Opponents don't have a choice about bunching up when you tank shock them.

Opponents often choose to bunch up when they need to squeeze a unit into a narrow space between terrain features.
Opponents often choose to bunch up when they're trying to squeeze a unit into/behind a small piece of terrain for cover saves.
Opponents often choose to bunch up when they disembark a unit from a Wrecked transport with multiple hatches but want to be on one side for cover saves or other reasons.
Opponents often choose to bunch up when they Deep Strike and want to shoot.

My experience is that it can often get more than 1 turn of fire, as well. But that depends on the matchup, deployment, and other threats employed. Perhaps your opponents just didn't know how to use it right. Most units in this game can be killed in a single turn if an opponent dedicates enough resources to that task. That's usually less of a problem with something that only costs 100pts.

TFC? Yay! All the way!

The thunderfire, with good placement, will either slaughter, or make your opponents waste their heavy weapons on it in the first turn.

It's good, but don't base your strategy around it.

I've used a TFC a couple of times. Best used in pairs or threes. Nice synergy with scout snipers, which also gives an assault meat shield. Remember the Techmarine cannot assult if the gun is present, so if it gets threatened by assault units, all it can do is try to blast them away and wait to be assaulted, or move. Both the techmarine gunner and the gun itself needs to have line of sight to the target. Only one of the models, either gun or techmarine need be in cover to grant cover to the unit. This can help with placement of the gun.

If you can deploy it and keep it over 48" inches away from the enemy in 2 turns or more, it is worth it, and if you have other nastier things in your list for the enemy to prioritize.
There are some nice in your face SM lists where the TFC are used for good effect. But involves Ironclads and/or other nasties to grab the attention of the opposing player in his field, never giving the opponent time to fire at the TFC. A single bolter shot can kill it!

TFC; Sometimes Yay, most of the time Nay.

TFC is a great choice for only 100 points, on paper it looks really bad, but in practice they will shooting at other more pressing targets like your land raider full of th/ss terminators and the TFC can do a lot of damage to long fangs/hordes. Don't forget that the tech marine can also bolster the defences giving other units better cover saves.

While the TFC has plenty of negatives (and what unit doesn't?), it can be made to work very well. Like others have said, you need to create target priority problems. Take this list:

Jump pack Chaplain

Minimum Tac squad in Razor
Minimum Tac squad in Razor

10 man Assault marine unit
10 man Assault marine unit

TFC
TFC
TFC

Say what you will about assault marines, but when he has 20 jump infantry (with a chappie) bearing down on him, and your are pounding 12 small blast templates on him from 60" away, he is going to be hard pressed to decide what to shoot at. OK so maybe you don't like assault marines. Try this list out:

Terminator Librarian

7 assault terminators+LRC

Sniper Scouts
Sniper Scouts
Maybe some tacticals

MM/HF Land Speeder
MM/HF Land Speeder

TFC
TFC

Again, in this list you have a land raider barreling down the field, and two land speeders streaking up the flanks, and your still throwing out 8 small blast templates each turn at 60", not to mention possible missile launchers in your scouts. What do you shoot at?