Artillery and blast weapons

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**Winters red**

If a blast weapon hits an artillery weapon and crew and scores hits but the hole in the template isn't over the gun will the weapon strength be halved as per vehicle rules. Assuming a hit on the gun has been achieved after rolling to randomise between gun and crew that is.

Thanks in advance

**Gwar!**

Hits against Artillery are different.

All the Blast marker does is determine how many models (gun or crew) are hit. Once you know that, roll to see WHAT gets hit.

Any Gun Models are hit at Full Strength, because you do not use the Rules for Blasts against Vehicles on Artillery, you use the rules for Hits against Artillery.

**Kaaihn**

Blast lands, with template hole on nothing, but covering one crewman and one gun.

Artillery rules, you roll for two hits. 1-4 it hits the gun, 5,6 it hits the crewman.

The blast itself having a hole over nothing, why would it not be a half strength hit against AV 10 if you roll 1-4?

I don't have my book in front of me right now to check, but I don't recall anything in the artillery section saying to disregard pieces of the blast rules.

**Gwar!**

Kaaihn wrote:Blast lands, with template hole on nothing, but covering one crewman and one gun.

Artillery rules, you roll for two hits. 1-4 it hits the gun, 5,6 it hits the crewman.

The blast itself having a hole over nothing, why would it not be a half strength hit against AV 10 if you roll 1-4?

I don't have my book in front of me right now to check, but I don't recall anything in the artillery section saying to disregard pieces of the blast rules.

Because you do not follow the Rules for hitting vehicles. You instead just count as hitting the Gun with the Blast Weapon.

**Kaaihn**

Where does it say that? I just can't remember reading that exception anywhere, I'll look it up so I know for myself next time it comes up when I get home to where a book is. What page is it?

**Gwar!**

The same page that lists how you determine what gets hit. The fact you are using a different way to see what is hit, makes it kind of clear you do not use the Rules for vehicles (because you are not shooting a Vehicle unit)

**Kaaihn**

That doesn't sound right. A frag missile lands. Any infantry models hit suffer a str 4 AP 6 hit per model touched. Any vehicles hit suffer a str 2 AP 6 against the armor facing touched.

From memory, artillery rules add an extra layer after blast instructions are done to make a final determination which models in the unit are truly hit. I don't recall how that would change how blast functions.

**Gwar!**

Kaaihn wrote:That doesn't sound right. A frag missile lands. Any infantry models hit suffer a str 4 AP 6 hit per model touched. Any vehicles hit suffer a str 2 AP 6 against the armor facing touched.

From memory, artillery rules add an extra layer after blast instructions are done to make a final determination which models in the unit are truly hit. I don't recall how that would change how blast functions.

It doesn't. However, the rules for Blasts only causing Half Strength hits on vehicles if the hole is not over them, only applies to vehicles. Artillery units are not vehicles, even though the Gun Models follow some of the rules for them. As such, you follow the rules for artillery, which state that you randomise the hits. It doesn't say "Randomise the hits then work out the strength as per the blast weapons against vehicles rules for any Blast weapons that hit a Gun", it just says to randomise the hits. Remember the Blast marker against a Non vehicle unit is just a Marker to see how many get hit, nothing else.

**Kaaihn**

I'm pretty sure under artillery in the book it specifically tells you to treat the gun models as vehicles.

**Lordhat**

Yeah Gwar, I'd say you're grasping at straws here. Artillery is just a fancy name for a Unit of Infantry and a Vehicle.

BGB Pgg. 55 wrote:

Artillery consists of a number of crewman models and the guns models themselves. These Units are quite complex as they include some vehicle models and some infantry models. The gun models are treated as vehicles with an Armour Rating of 10 (see vehicles section).

Unlike other vehicles (see next section) the gun models cannot fire if they moved at all in that turn's Movement phase.

It seems clear to me that not only are artillery gun models counted as vehicles, but also, any way in which they differ from normal vehicles are explicitly stated in the artillery rules.

The law of 'break no rule' means that not only do you determine randomly what models in an artillery unit are hit (after determining what the number of hits are using the blast marker), but also, any hits against the gun model are at half strength if the hole is not over the 'hull' of the gun (and yes I realize that people will argue about what constitutes the hull of a gun).

**coredump**

Seems pretty clear. It even refers you to the vehicle section.

**Mars.Techpriest**

I think the question is now: Once hits have been rolled and determined the hit strikes the gun and not the crew, do you roll str+d6 or 1/2str+d6 for armor pen?

Does a gun have a hull? If not, it always takes blasts at 1/2str.

**Lordhat**

If it's a vehicle, then yes, according to the vehicle rules it has a hull.

**Mars.Techpriest**

And guns isn't considered part of the Hull. I guess that leaves the wheels and the crossbeam under the weapon as hull.

**Lordhat**

Actually only gun barrels are ignored, so the mounting is included in the hull. A look at the Thunderfire Cannon, Ork Lobba, and the Ork Kannon will demonstrate that this can be a significant portion of the model. Seeing as how most of the time the hole won't be over the 'hull' anyway, trying to claim that blasts would never get full strength against artillery guns is TFG thinking of the worst kind; The scatter and half strength go a long way to mitigate the artillery's biggest weakness in the first place, don't try to stretch it out into 'easter egg' proportions.

EDIT: Clarity and spelling.