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.

With the last codex, it wasn't even a consideration, but how about in this one? Comparatively, I think its offensively much stronger than the alternatives, especially although our heavy skimmers are now harder to kill, they don't offer as strong an offensive solution for ROI.

The Fire Prism has been getting a lot of applause, but the linking mode seems not very effective from a ROI perspective, and the singular shot although at BS4 is a glorified lascannon. Difficult to destroy, but we don't expect to get many hits per game, considering perhaps half the time is spent stunned.

VP denial is very plasuible.. as I did much of play in the previous edition using kitted Falcons and other unit for combined VP denial. But with this edition, I think it may be more effective for tournament play to try to play for the decisive massacre in a quicker fashion, so in that case, I want the points to be employed using the larger effectiveness, regarding a point-per-influence perspective. In that case, I want to allocate points to that which is able to affect the battlefield in the greatest magnitude, in a fully offensive plays. Still working on my rush build which would focus on Singing Spears second turn flanking assault, with footslogging harlies and support from vibrocannons, or, if proven otherwise, prisms.

Vibrocannon is ridiculously cheap, and I think the effectiveness point-wise can outplay the Fire Prism, in fact, if we consider that it could shoot every turn, especially with a blitz army that will tie up the enemy's mobile forces that would normally be used to overcome whatever LOS boundary to hide the cannon in.

Anyone have thoughts? Surely there would be a lot of opposition to this, I hope I can hear it...

Can anyone do some mathshammering at this?

Of course, this is all assuming that models that VC doesn't have LOS to can be removed as casualties. If that is erratta'd out, and the VC needs LOS to destroy tanks, snipe models in combats, can't attack ICs, etc. then it's pretty clear the survivability and also ROI is very low.

The 36' range and LOS requirement make them difficult to protect, and heavy bolters will make short work of the unit. The autoglance is useful against tanks, but most armored vehicles with armor >12 can easily outrange the vibrocannons. I would suspect scatterlaser war walkers would be equally effective and much more mobile then Vibrocannons.

It doesn't require LoS. That part of the rule is pretty clear, seems intentional and I don't see it being changed.

I use a battery of 3. They routinely survive whole games because they require a special effort to get to when out of LoS. They can eat a volley or two of HB fire if necessary, but usually don' t have to. I could also reasonably use a battery of 2, but I I'm still assembling models to use that extra 50 points.

The short range is an issue, but their major strength is not versus infantry, but rather versus vehicles. Because of the auto-glance, you can virtually guarantee that any vehicle the line touches is at least not going to be shooting next turn. Against whirlwinds, vindicators, and other anti-Eldar template vehicles that is great.

I find Vibro cannons in city fight to be a neat harrassment unit as far as being out of LOS is concerned.

I dont have three yet, but one does a nice job of really annoying my opponent.

Top Tier? Nope.

It can also hit your own units, so that keeps it from being truly good, as this isnt a very maneuverable unit. But it is nice to gaurd a open flank so that you can concentrate with your fragile forces even more at one locale.

I was giving some thought to this myself. As is, I'm taking three Falcons and some combination of three Fire Dragon and Harlequin squads.

I was thinking that the price difference between a Falcon and a cheap VE Serpent would be enough to buy a Vibro-cannon. Neither one is getting to shoot, and the Dragons live through most glancing hits. I lose some durability, but I gain a great deal of firepower. Those three Vibrocannons are worth 1.5 glances per turn on vehicles (assuming they don't line up all nice and pretty) or 5.25 S4 Pinning hits on infantry units (again assuming no lines). The Cannons are ridiculously durable - they're 2-man 50 point squads that no one wants to waste time shooting. Nothing in a Marine list that costs less than 80 points can touch them, and they're well behind the rest of your fast assault army.

The question is really whether or not you can afford the loss of the Heavy Support choices. Vibrocannons are unquestionably rather useful in their own right, but can you afford to give up a slot for a Falcon or Wraithlord?

Posted By Gotchaye on 11/23/2006 8:46 PM
I was giving some thought to this myself. As is, I'm taking three Falcons and some combination of three Fire Dragon and Harlequin squads.

I was thinking that the price difference between a Falcon and a cheap VE Serpent would be enough to buy a Vibro-cannon. Neither one is getting to shoot, and the Dragons live through most glancing hits. I lose some durability, but I gain a great deal of firepower. Those three Vibrocannons are worth 1.5 glances per turn on vehicles (assuming they don't line up all nice and pretty) or 5.25 S4 Pinning hits on infantry units (again assuming no lines). The Cannons are ridiculously durable - they're 2-man 50 point squads that no one wants to waste time shooting. Nothing in a Marine list that costs less than 80 points can touch them, and they're well behind the rest of your fast assault army.

The question is really whether or not you can afford the loss of the Heavy Support choices. Vibrocannons are unquestionably rather useful in their own right, but can you afford to give up a slot for a Falcon or Wraithlord?

Depends on the situation.

Nowadays we have to qualify our tactical statements to include eventualities such as Cities of Death. (I hate that name, I wish they would have just kept "cityfight". )

Myself personally, I dont use falcons in COD. Warwalkers are my main two HS choices. The third is usually taken up with either my wraithlord or single Vibrocannon. Not much else in the HS part of the eldar codex seems suitable to me for COD.

(though falcons arent bad in COD, they just arent as good as they are without nearly the whole board consisting of area terrain)

~Hellfury~ Champion of Cities of Death and promoter of Urban warfare.

You don't really need 3 vibrocannons. 2 is adequate to get a 75% hit rate, and they glance vehicles regardless of strength. Even if you shoot at infantry, most of the infantry that's going to be hurt by a no AP weapon is T3 anyway, so str5 will wound them on 2s. A 100 point unit that does what 2 vibrocannons do is even more annoying and a good value.

But only if you have the heavy slot available anyway.

I think that their use is going to depend on the ruling with LOS. As can be seen by the proposed faq that dakka is putting together, it seems as if you dont but there is no definitive answer yet.

If it comes out that they can avoid LOS, then yes, they should be a staple.

If no, you might see them here and there but it wont be a staple.

I don't know why there's even any question over vibrocannons needing LoS. We had the same discussion about fury of the ancients when the SM codex came out. After weeks of arguing and combing the rules it finally processed out that, because the line of sight rules always require a declared target unit to have line of sight to, shooting that doesn't have a declared target unit can't be subject to the line of sight rules.

Posted By Flavius Infernus on 11/24/2006 1:13 PM
I don't know why there's even any question over vibrocannons needing LoS. We had the same discussion about fury of the ancients when the SM codex came out. After weeks of arguing and combing the rules it finally processed out that, because the line of sight rules always require a declared target unit to have line of sight to, shooting that doesn't have a declared target unit can't be subject to the line of sight rules.

Because the Vibrocannon still follows the casualty removal rules for a shooting weapon and that section does indeed require that casualties must be drawn from within range and LOS of the weapon (and no mention of a "target unit" here).

The simple fact is, GW has made a point to emphasize that line of sight is required to cause damage to enemy units via shooting, enacting a rule to prevent damage on models out of line of sight in two different parts of the shooting process (in the LOS section and the remove casualties section).

If they really want weapons to ignore LOS, then they need to put that into the description of the weapon. Regardless of the outcome of the question it is definitely not clear. Any question that involves "weeks of arguing" to come to a conclusion should indeed be included in a FAQ.

Oh yeah. My memory had conveniently edited the casualty removal rules out of consideration. Thanks, Yak.

Okay, so vibrocannons are still on the shelf until clarification then. Dang--and I just bitz ordered the part for #3.

They can still glance vehicles out of LOS though can't they?

OK, I have been giving this stupid thing far more attention with my mind than ought to be with a healthy aspect.

This could indeed be a good thing to have in a COD list and could easily beat out a falcon for a slot.

Imagine this scenario based on the legitimacy of the vibrocannon not requiring LOS to work its magic.

3 support platforms mounted on 60mm bases. Each platform has two crew on 25 mm bases. Now in order for this to keep coherency, you could spread this unit out to potentially slightly more than 29" across. Or more if you include a warlock with conceal....



This sounds dumb but bear with me. Now since you only need to use one vibrocannon for purposes of drawing a line in any direction, you have a good chance of spreading the area of effect for this unit quite significantly. I know that coherency could be broken easily with being shot, but behind cover...you might have a good chance for using this to good effect.

Now for the cheese.

Warning! Achtung!  Dont try this at home kids, your opponent is likely to knock your teeth out.

Where does it say the line drawn from one of the  support platform has to be a "straight" line......?

I dont actually understand? why not draw a straight line?

Do you mean a case where 1 of the cannons has los but is not in range so it spots for the one closes which then "shoots" so to speak?

Ok, the snakey line is just for pedantic sake. I dont think it is playable, but if it were, this is why you would want to snake it.

To snake around avoiding your own units, while hitting as many of your opponents units as possible. Again, I really really doubt this was the designers intention.
But by RAW....?



ummm sorta. Only one cannon in the squad will shoot. Ever. According to the rules. The role of the multiple cannons is to add strength to the one that does shoot, which may be anyone that you want. With the LOS ambiguity, it is not clear if you can shoot from behind terrain. Bbut even if LOS is required, this tactic for spreading the unit gives it more visibility. so having to move this squad, ever, is not needed.

A very sneaky!

I think it would actually be too good if you could actually do that though

agreed.

I like the idea but you may find it difficult to find 30+" inches of cover to hide them.

Where is the LOS requirement in casualty removal? They only talk about "line of fire", whatever that means.

You have to infer it. Since "line of fire" is never defined, it has no meaning. Thus people take it to mean LOS.

In the rules, the Vibrocannon is "fired" and you draw a "line", so IMO they would seem to be explicitly fulfilling the requirement even without LOS. This is why I hate RAW, the language is not even nearly robust enough to support it.

Well, the 'snakey' line is hinky to say the least, but that kind of setup does do one nice thing for you.  It allows you, with a single squad, to get a much better chance at enfilade shots on your opponent.  Seems like a nasty setup...

 

 

Well, it's still a bit tricky since the vibro cannon rules regarding vehicles uses the word "target", which it really shouldn't since vibro cannons don't target an enemy unit. However, they did use the word which opens up the basic rule in the line of sight rules on page 21 of the rulebook:

". . .and any models in the target unit that can't be seen by the attackers can't be hit or chosen as casualties. . ."

I would still say that by the RAW it's pretty iffy to assume that vibro cannons can do any kind of damage out of LOS.

The diagram is showing regular, targeting weapons in a specific situation. It would be considearably cleaner to define "line of fire" as something like "fulfilling the targeting restrictions of the weapon used" instead of a straight LoF=LoS conversion. But there is no RAW validity to any any of these, since they require assumption on what LoF means.

In the end, I'll never believe the GW designers put much thought at all into what their words mean, instead they just figured everyone would magically "get it". As such, I'll play it whatever way the opponent wants to. No biggie.

BTW, is there an argument for having Vibros require LoS but not FotA?

Meh, by RAW indirect ord can not cause any casuilties either.

 

 

Yep, the GW online SM FAQ clarified that FotA does not require LOS (boy, is that a whole lot of acronyms!).

 

If they do not require LOS then I would definatley use them.(Hope GW reads this thred for thier FAQ) Having three sets of two would make for some cheap heavy support and putting them on the flanks would really set up some great crossfire.

Not requiring LOS is really the only way these can even have a chance for contending with any other HS slot. As it stands, these are the last in line to be taken, just as in 3rd ed, but only worse. Especially since the D-cannon got smooched.

Otherwise, GW has yet another high priced model sitting on the shelves not being sold.

I would say d-cannons got nerfed from tempting, to not worth taking.
Str 10 was a lot better against most armies. Statured Princes and marine character let out a great sigh of relief when the new dcannons rolled out.

 

Only weapons with a G in their profile can be shot indirectly. So Vibrocannons do need LOS.

When you read the rules on ordnance barrages they give a sample profile of a barrage weapon. There is a G in the profile for "Guess".

Under no other weapon descriptions does it address line of sight, meaning that all weapons other then those with a G, which can be shot indirectly ( If th rules so indicate is a feature) can be used as such.

They also have to be fired in a straight line. The rules for bolters also do not say they are fired in a straight line, and you don't see people claiming they can fire around vehicles...