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Does anybody use this unit?never seen it in any army list here.... is it good? myself i think its cool
or is artilery generally bad? why?

It is one of those often lamented units that everyone rags opon.
I use two on most ocations and they rarely let me down.

If there is a building to hide them in they are a terror to everyone. They force all units on the table to spread out and even if you do spread out they can rain death opon people.
Even without a building they are fairly destructive.

They key to using them is to get the most out of the 60in range. If you can keep them out of reach of the majority of your oponents anti-tank fire you should still be able to hammer the main section of his battle line.

I use at least one, if not 2 in every game. The ability to rain different types of blasts down is very helpful. The trick is to stick them in some ruins you've used your techmarine to give a better cover save so then the cannon gets a 3+ cover save.

I also love putting the template on the edge of a vehical and then having it scatter of and hit a unit that is behind it.

Its not a true artillery piece as its not an ordenance weapon, meaning it requires LOS to fire, other than that it is a static gun emplacement similiar to other artillery weapons.

As for its surviveability, well the weapon itself is a 1W 10/10/10 vehicle with one hit meaning its destruction. The techpriest gunner is quite resistent with T4 & A 2+ save but the main point, survivability wise, is the ability to deploy the gun in cover within 2" from the egde (so it can fire freely) that has been enhanced with the techpriests Bolter the Defences special rule. Even a weak 'artillery' vehicle wont seem like a easy target with a 3+ coversave and a chance to hit a 2+ saving T4 model.

Shooty wise.. Its anti-cover ammo-type is an anti-tyranid or ork weapon, its highest strength ammo-type is a anti-everything (including vehicles & vehicle squads) and the weakest tremor shell is a utilitarian weapon that slows units which is useful for forwardly aggressive armies & armies with Biker/jump infantry. Also the chance to imobolise vehicles is fairly slim but it can still happen, providing a psychological factor.

But no, I havent used it, but im infering my past experiences with the rules of this weapon. HtH

My room mate uses one sometimes, and if it's set up right it can be very useful. Position it like these fine people above are mentioning and it'll do great. If you stick it in cover on the other side of the board, it can rain down lots of fire and the other army will need to commit some forces to moving into range to shoot at it.

Lascannons and the like tend to chew it up bad. There was one game where I managed to tag the gun with a lascannon hit and the poor techmarine spent the rest of the game jogging across the board to try to get stuck in.

But heavy weapons fire shooting at your 100 pt gun team is fire not shooting your troops, LR, termies, etc.

Since I run a Drop Pod army I choose to omit it. If it only fired as an assault weapon it might be worth taking, but as it stands the drop pod is a terrible option for it.

I used Thunderfire Cannon in a drop pod list once, it worked extremly well!

The reason which is because we played table quarters, and my enemies was two Tau armies. I drop poded the thunderifre on round one, on the other side of his table edge, being out of range from all his weapons the entire game(was a forest between his broadsides and it), and repayed in kind.

I love my cannon, and you would be surprised how much people fear a 60 inch 4 small blast weapon. Using it in cover is a must, as well as having at least a squad of 5 anythings (I leave a 5 tac with a melta) to support it from the inevitable outflank or deep strikers that tend to land near it.

That's exactly what I was thinking... The second I started reading this thread I thought: Outflanking genestealers. It would be easy as eating pie for me to get a 6 to wound on the gun, so it seems that defending it might be a very good idea.

Here's a question I had looking at it in the book the other night. Since is has a techmarine gunner, can you take a squad of servitors? That would be a cheap way to offer up some protection for it.

Very good question...

-Waits for marine player to answer-

Yeah, you can take a squad of Servitors. They cant join the Thunderfire, but you can have an extra one in your army for the Tech marine.

A good use I've seen is to have this guy be one of the things hanging around your mystic. Daemons, Terminators, Drop troops, lesser daemons...nobody likes to deep strike and then be force fed 4 templates.

So basically what you're saying is that you just deploy a squad near the cannon and have one with the techmarine to spread the wounds around.

Well the techmarine with the cannon isnt an independant character so I'm not sure how it would work. But at the very least, a servitor squad in the area could position itself as a screen to shooting or assault.

Good point with the I.D. status... But you're right, just put a servitor squad with some meltas, HB's, and some CC ones.

just hope you dont roll mindlock...

Good point... Or a tac squad!

Or maybe some CC scouts.

Put the thunderfire in a rhino! That would be totally ridiculous, but now that I think about it, that would just make it space marines.

Hey Cypher, we need to get a game in, I am back in the states after my travels.

Were you the guy I heard won the SoCal slaughter that used the thunderfire cannon?

I am gong to come to the SoCal Slaughter fantasy tourny (and probably get pwnd, I just started playing) will you be there?

In games of 1k and lower, the Thunderfire is amazing for its points; however, in 1500-2k games it is a waste. There are just so many other heavies that will do more for you in higher point games. Also, everyone has several answers for it at higher points. Not many armies have good answers for it at 1k or less.

So basically it has it's place in lower games where there aren't many heavies to choose from because it covers a lot of ground. That puts it all into perspective for me.

Even if you can take servitors they are not really worth the points. A squad of 5 with 3 heavy bolters costs 130p. Compare with 5 devastators with 3 Heavy bolters = 135p. I can imagine servitors being useful if you take a few with servoarms together with a techmarine in or near a superheavy vehicle to repair it. But it needs to be a costly vehicle to be worth the points.

OT: I like my thunderfirecannon. I usually field it in friendly games because I have scratchbuilt it, and it rarely lets me down. If nothing else it worries people and draws disproportionate amounts of fire.

130 for five of them??? Ouch.

Errrr 110 for 5 servitors with 2 HBs,
2 is the max number of HBs

so 65 points for 2 servitors with 2 HBs.
165 points nets you
1 boltgun
1 twin linked plas pistol
1 flamer
4 blast templates @ 60" range
2 heavy bolters

now you can only shoot 1 of the first 3 guns, but considering that its 165 points for all that firepower, i think its a great deal.

That does sound pretty bristly.

To Grunt_For_Christ: sorry to offend you, but can you just stop writting in this thread? look at your posts and think what did you say in 9 replies, nothink so stop spamming

to others: thanx for the answers, but do you really think that thunderfire cannon is bad in big games? you got better chance to fire at something, you can fire at long range etc...
or you can really deal with cannon quite easily with more than 1000pts? i am quite new to the game, so i dont know what different units do you bring witm more point count thanx

Given that the Thnderfire is only armor 10 and will be destroyed by even one glance (because of the artillery rules), yes, I believe that it is that bad in larger games. Your opponent will have lots of ways of dealing with it in games over 1k, and it will die horribly fast. Your points are better spent on other things in larger games.

i think the thunderfire cannon has made anti-infantry devestator squads obsolete

EasyE wrote:i think the thunderfire cannon has made anti-infantry devestator squads obsolete

Do you think that it being so vulnerable (i.e. one good shot and the entire thing is ruined) takes away from its effectiveness in smaller games? If you were to use one, would you have any redundancy in your list to keep the long range pressure on? That's what I'm wondering... Whether people have several heavy support options in smaller games, say under 1,000, or not.