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Now we all remember when the nex IG dex came out people were afraid of the heavy support choices, especially the ordnance batteries.
I haven't seen a guard list even fielding a single artillery tank for a while. Well, imo artillery tanks are meh anyways but people always used to field a basilisk at least.
I wonder whether you got the same impression.
What became of Griffolossus and the like?

It's probably less to do with powerful rules, more to do with lack of models.

The Basilisk is the only Artillery with a model outside of FW. The Colossus doesn't even have a FW model!

This is the same reason why people don't often field Hydras or Manticores...

My lists are thick with manticores and hydras...

From the ordnance battery entry the only thing I ever find myself taking is the medusa, and I haven't been running it nearly as much as i used to.

The griffon and the colossus are both excellent units. They are currently a victim of the current metagame and standard mission set up.

You just don't see a lot of infantry out in the open in need of blasting. Most armies seem to prefer to go with a low count of infantry and a relatively high count of vehicles. The return of tyranids should make the case for the griffon a little bit, and once ork players tire of their new distractions in nob bikers and battlewagons and go back to the ground game the griffon will have more targets.

As for the basilisk, it is a victim of its own lack of focus. Moderately decent at killing transports and medium tanks, moderately decent at killing marines in cover, moderately decent at killing hordes... Guard players tend to fill slots with specialists, and their collection of various specialist units makes for a balanced army.

One of these days I'm going to try a super flexible guard list, similar to a space marine list where every unit is multi-purpose, and see if it can have any degree of success.

Shep wrote:My lists are thick with manticores and hydras...

So are mine

Guess you got point once more... thinking about it there's also always a LR variant doing the same as the ordnance batteries from a tougher shell including options for hull and sponsons for little more points...

Unavailability of models is only part of it.

There are no models for Jetbike Warlocks yet you see them around.

Like Shep said till you crack open a transport there aren't infantry to shoot in the current mech environment

Collosus has a huge problem that it can not fire direct and has a 24 inch minimum range.

Its not an ordinance battery but the Manticore is really awesome. D3 Strength 10 AP4 large templates. Enough said. Decent at poping Land Raiders and good against hordes. If you run out of ammo your usually doing pretty good and don't care that you ran out of ammo. Games can end on turn 5 and 1 of them can be dawn of war night fighting.

Hmm,
Basilisk seem to be my choise of ordnance batteries in the IG list.

But then, my IG army, is a pure inf, taking a tank or two, i will do that when a tournaments is up and i want to win it.

I tend to a use of LC and AC.

I'm currently playing a pair of Executioners in my IG list and I really wish that I had Manticores, Hydras and Medusas intead. I can get a lot more guns for the points and with so many more tanks on the table at that point the difference in survivability is more or less negligable. You can bet that as soon as I'm able to get them built, I'll be playing Hydras, Medusas and Manticores instead of the Russes.

Honestly I think the artillery choices are a more cost efficient HS option for IG as opposed to the Russes. The Executioners are POWERFUL too... but I'm still sure I'll get better milage out of 4-6 Artillery hulls instead of 2 Execs.

I like my Leman russ battle tanks too much, but I do agree if I can shave it down to one slot with 1-2 tanks (Executioner & LRBT perhaps) and then field the rest with some Hydra's (if I'm lacking in autocannons) or griffon's (if im lacking in templates/other blasty weps) and either a pair of medusa's or a manticore. Or a pair of medusa's and a manticore, with no Hydra's.. hmm

Does anyone find putting pieplates in squadrons to be overkill? I only have a 1700 pt army, with a LRBT, LRD, and Bassy filling out the 3 HS. I'm pretty happy with that, but am thinking of adding another Russ. I find the Bassy useful, especially for tight deployments, however by turn 3 i'm often looking for a direct fire target as many armies come right at me. Then I wish it was a tank.

Colossus, use a FW Bombard and mount it on a Chimera chassis.

murdog wrote:Does anyone find putting pieplates in squadrons to be overkill? I only have a 1700 pt army, with a LRBT, LRD, and Bassy filling out the 3 HS. I'm pretty happy with that, but am thinking of adding another Russ. I find the Bassy useful, especially for tight deployments, however by turn 3 i'm often looking for a direct fire target as many armies come right at me. Then I wish it was a tank.

Big fan of the bassy not really on paper though

str 9 ap3? its greatest use, imo, is indirect fire on marines. You land a hit on some marines, killing on 2's is great. Land it on some plague marines they will feel that pain!

But thats the thing: firing it indirect. I could have a Leman shooting its cannon at those same marines, 72" str 8 ap3... im still killing on 2's, even the fearsome plague marines will die to a good leman shell. The downside is cover saves, which the bassy can negate. Killing on 2's is a world of difference to wounding on 2's with 4+ saves. Statisically you will kill half those wounds, but the dice gods seem to favour MEQS diving for cover from tank shells in the game i play

so- although i didn't really get into it, yes i feel the same, squadrons can be overkill in a force up to 2000 points. I would go with 2 Lemans on either side of my line, to try negate cover as much as possible, maybe with the demolisher rolling down the middle. Some Hellhounds would make an excellent distraction from the LRD, and might occupy enough of your opponents thoughts enough he might forget about the Lemans, leaving something tasty with no cover in the lemans sights

Then again i don't play guard, just against them so take this with a grain of salt and a big fat YMMV

I pretty much always field a basilisk, it is a solid performer and almost always makes its points back.

Sure it is tempting to get a russ for 25 points more, packing much better armour and more guns, but at the end of the day the russ is a different tool for a different job. As Jihallah has pointed out, the indirect fire makes the basilisk much better at cracking tough meq units that have found some cover. I often find myself indirect firing on stuff that I could direct fire on, simply to take away their cover save.

Of course IF lets you lay the boom on stuff you cant see as well, from enemy indirect fire units like mortar squads to those pesky jump-pack units that can often hug cover all the way across the table and would otherwise be hard to get a handle on.

Finally the strength of 9 makes a huge difference when it comes to tank-hunting. The baslilisk is undoubtably at its best blowing away heavy infantry, but every now and then it has to fill an anti-tank role. That strength point over the battlecannon means that it can actually get a pen hit on the front of a russ or on a LR, and makes it that much easier to wreck everything else.

Basically what makes the basilisk great is its versatility. Between its high strenth, good ap, ability to negate cover saves and aim at anything on the table no matter where it is, it can target and destroy pretty much anything on the board besides terminator squads, MCs and the heaviest tanks - and it can still hurt those. How many other units can do that?

Do you find you are using it direct by the end of the battle?

Basilisks for the win! My gaming community has a variety of armies built a variety of ways and we have an unwritten rule of not telling your opponent which army you are playing while writing your list. To this end the basilisk is the jack of all trades but master of none. Sure there are better choices to take if I knew who I was fighting but given our usual fog of war a squadron of 3 basilisks can deal with almost anything in the game relatively well.

And my favorite tank is the old school Griffon that I have done one of my best conversions on. I modeled a group of cadians loading a new mortar round into it. If I have the heavy support slot available I take it, and it rarely lets me down especially with the accurate bombardment rule.

As for Hydras I have 3 of the FW models (I loved the hydra long before the new codex) And doing the mathammer they arnt that impressive but in actual play, they always perform well, especially against MEQ armies. in 5th ed where a tumbleweed gives your opponent a 4+ cover, AP really isnt all that effective, so the sheer torrent a squad of 3 can put out always drops more marines than any ordinance weapon. And besides they piss the hell out of my friend who plays Dark Eldar. I'm sorry what kind of save did you say your Raider got?

murdog wrote:Do you find you are using it direct by the end of the battle?

Yeah that will happen alot with the Bassy. It really depends on the battle, but 90% of the time after 5 turns, the enemy will have something of priority within its minimum range.

One of the harsh things about most of the Arty tanks is that they are 12/10/10 open topped chimeras, which are damn easy to take down. Camo nets can help here, and iirc you can get closed crew compartments on some artillery, not 100% on the Bassy since i don't play guard. I can definately say having to send a strike force to take down that bassy way off in the corner, miles away from a objective, is one of the most annoying things to do. You can't help but look at those troops and go "could be doing something else... ", which is why i try to have a squad that can pick it off easily from range (AC's/ML's/LC's)

murdog wrote:Do you find you are using it direct by the end of the battle?

I usually play against orks and chaos and thus find myself firing directly very quickly!