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Keegan - I agree wih you about them (LC & AC) being useless against hordes, that's where my (multiple) LRBT with h-bolters comes in handy. Spamming weapons for redundancy only helps against the target that those weapons are good against initially. I found m Mortors to be perfect for exactly what you stated, harassing a unit that you don't want to shoot your blob/tank/artillery at. Mortors fill this role perfectly since they have great range, can fire without LoS, and at times perform adequately enough for their points investment, which is minimal. I look forward to dropping some mortor shells on some scarabs the next time I play the local necron player. I wish I had the models to field a ton of
Mortors, griffons and a couple master of ordinances, That would be a lot of death raining down.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:I found m Mortors to be perfect for exactly what you stated, harassing a unit that you don't want to shoot your blob/tank/artillery at. Mortors fill this role perfectly

They may fit the role well, but this isn't a role worth filling. Why harass an opponent's stuff when you can kill in outright with other stuff? In a codex that comes with heavy tanks and artillery, masses of weapons batteries and hordes of infantry and vehicles, why bother wasting points on something that isn't that effective compared to other things you could have brought?

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:It's about having the right tool in the toolbox. How many of you only keep hammers in their toolboxes? How many just keep screwdrivers? Ever try to hang a nail with a screwdrver? See my point.

Firstly, I'd like to make my point again. What you're talking about is a well-balanced tool set that has a set of metric alan wrenches for free, to which you're adding a set of imperial alan wrenches. Firstly, you're not really using alan wrenches all that often, and the metric set will make do for most of the times you need an alan wrench.

Furthermore, if mortars are said alan wrenches, you could instead, in the same slots in that toolbox, take a rotary tool (lascannon) or vice wrench, either of which would be more useful in a wider variety of circumstances. I'd rather take a backup power drill than a 2" c-clamp, even if I didn't have one of the latter. Power drills (in this case, lascannons), are always useful, and I'll rue the day the one I was relying on crapped out and I needed a backup. Meanwhile, if I didn't have the 2" clamp, I could always just use a bigger clamp, or a vice, or some other way of holding things in place that I already have.

I find in my local meta that players are very adapt at moving units up the table out of LoS. Sometimes I wish I had my trio of mortars to place some templates on top of them. This would either make sure that they have no place to hide, anywhere on the table. And at only 60 pts a team, I figure its not too bad of a points sink in 2k point games.

Ailaros wrote:

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:I found m Mortors to be perfect for exactly what you stated, harassing a unit that you don't want to shoot your blob/tank/artillery at. Mortors fill this role perfectly

They may fit the role well, but this isn't a role worth filling. Why harass an opponent's stuff when you can kill in outright with other stuff? In a codex that comes with heavy tanks and artillery, masses of weapons batteries and hordes of infantry and vehicles, why bother wasting points on something that isn't that effective compared to other things you could have brought?

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:It's about having the right tool in the toolbox. How many of you only keep hammers in their toolboxes? How many just keep screwdrivers? Ever try to hang a nail with a screwdrver? See my point.

Firstly, I'd like to make my point again. What you're talking about is a well-balanced tool set that has a set of metric alan wrenches for free, to which you're adding a set of imperial alan wrenches. Firstly, you're not really using alan wrenches all that often, and the metric set will make do for most of the times you need an alan wrench.

Furthermore, if mortars are said alan wrenches, you could instead, in the same slots in that toolbox, take a rotary tool (lascannon) or vice wrench, either of which would be more useful in a wider variety of circumstances. I'd rather take a backup power drill than a 2" c-clamp, even if I didn't have one of the latter. Power drills (in this case, lascannons), are always useful, and I'll rue the day the one I was relying on crapped out and I needed a backup. Meanwhile, if I didn't have the 2" clamp, I could always just use a bigger clamp, or a vice, or some other way of holding things in place that I already have.

I still find them worth there points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

alarmingrick wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Kind of a waste of a slot, though. For only 15 more points, you could take a lascannon (or for 5 more, an autocannon), which would allow you to be more than just annoying with that PCS, while still not being too big of a target.

Still, in my opinion the harrassing effect is something that seems to be of good use, and in a non-artillery army, the long ranged barrage is a useful tool to have at hand.

If it wasn't a lasgun with a small blast marker, I'd agree.

Ever dropped a three mortar barrage on an open mob of ork boyz?

congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars (and apparently have opponents who play orks an have no idea what displacement means).

For the rest of us...

Ailaros wrote:congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars (and apparently have opponents who play orks an have no idea what displacement means).

For the rest of us...

Luck has nothing to do with it. Its all about the stratgey and how the mortars play into it. I think lascannons teams are a waste of points and a vendetta is a much better choice for five extra points, but thats just me. I pack my soldiers cheap, and I find the mortars may not be amazing by anymeans, BUT they are perfect for holding objectives and still being able to be played without losing anything from it, no other IG unit can do both those things at once. Still, its all about the play style and what you want to use them for.

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars (and apparently have opponents who play orks an have no idea what displacement means).

For the rest of us...

Luck has nothing to do with it. Its all about the stratgey and how the mortars play into it. I think lascannons teams are a waste of points and a vendetta is a much better choice for five extra points, but thats just me. I pack my soldiers cheap, and I find the mortars may not be amazing by anymeans, BUT they are perfect for holding objectives and still being able to be played without losing anything from it, no other IG unit can do both those things at once. Still, its all about the play style and what you want to use them for.

How many mortars do you use?

Ailaros wrote:Furthermore, if mortars are said alan wrenches, you could instead, in the same slots in that toolbox, take a rotary tool (lascannon) or vice wrench, either of which would be more useful in a wider variety of circumstances. I'd rather take a backup power drill than a 2" c-clamp, even if I didn't have one of the latter. Power drills (in this case, lascannons), are always useful, and I'll rue the day the one I was relying on crapped out and I needed a backup. Meanwhile, if I didn't have the 2" clamp, I could always just use a bigger clamp, or a vice, or some other way of holding things in place that I already have.

That's why I take plenty of batteries for my Power Drill?

Tool analogies aside, Las Cannons are good for a couple of different things, but it cannot do what I would need a Mortar to do and vice versa. They do things the other cannot, which is why the compliment each other so well; Las Cannons for the armor and the Mortar for the men that fall out. Extreme redundancy of one or two weapons does not have the same success as taking a variety of weapons that can effectively address different things.

Congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars (and apparently have opponents who play orks an have no idea what displacement means).
For the rest of us...

I really have no problems with barrages and blasts...

If they ain't spreadin', they must be

blasts and pie plates aren't useless because the opponent can spread out, but they are not as effective as new players think they are at first and whilst their damage can be mitigated to a degree, some blast/pie plates still hurt. I might spread my plague marines out and only cop 3 hits from a battlecannon, but they still wound on a 2+ even though I'm tougher than normal marines, ignore my armor AND my FNP. That's like getting hit by 3 lascannons! It's when the models are forced to bunch up that pie plates and blasts really get their devastating. A friend of mine piled his orks out of his battlewagon when it got wrecked, trying to avoid flame templates, blasts from typhoons on both flanks and a vindi's pie plate and was in a world of hurt- no matter where he deployed, he was going to give up a bunch of flamer hits, a beautiful vindicator shot or a volley of frag missiles- not to mention his KFF was going to get JotWW'ed when he emerged, removing that lovely cover save for me. He chose to avoid the flamer (wise) and the vindi (unwise 1 shot vs 8? the 8 are smaller individually, but 8 blasts is bigger than one pie plate). 8 frag missiles and 12 HB shots will lay a world of hurt on bunched up orks. How often is this going to happen? 1 in 100 games maybe. Do my frag missiles/battle cannons still perform the other 99 games? hells yes!

General_Marshall wrote:Ever dropped a three mortar barrage on an open mob of ork boyz?

No but as mentioned I did drop 8 frag's on an open mob of boyz. The question is, how often does this situation arrive? It should not be common. Put yourself in the orks shoes- would you let me get multiple templates/blasts hit your boyz out of cover? or are you going to try to avoid that and use cover to reduce your casualties by 50%?

Are you going to run in a big block so those blasts hit many orks, or spread out so you can A) assault more units and B) reduce the amount of casualties from blasts and pie plates?

So if your ork players aren't doing the above, then they need to learn and think about these things when playing. Or they're going to eat triple mortar barrages until the dice gods swing in their favour and you roll nothing but misses

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars

Luck has nothing to do with it.

Prove it.

Jihallah wrote:blasts and pie plates aren't useless because the opponent can spread out, but they are not as effective as new players think they are at first and whilst their damage can be mitigated to a degree

This, basically. They're not completely worthless in their own right (just relatively worthless in a codex full of much better stuff), but it's really, really easy to overestimate blast weapons. The new player notices that it's possible to get 9 hits under a small blast templates and then daydreams about mortars getting 27 hits per shot and annihilating their opponents. In reality, you're never going to see anywhere near that. It's the same problem that people have when looking at things like basilisks or manticores. They're good units, but it's way too easy to look at the best possible case scenario and delude yourself into thinking that they're going to be better than they eventually wind up being.

Jihallah wrote:Blasts and pie plates aren't useless because the opponent can spread out, but they are not as effective as new players think they are at first and whilst their damage can be mitigated to a degree, some blast/pie plates still hurt... The question is, how often does this situation arrive? It should not be common.

This. After players get used to the norm of what to expect from their barrages, they either keep them or drop them. Those that do find blast/flamer templates still fill a certain role within their army roster, and adjust.

Ailaros wrote: They're not completely worthless in their own right (just relatively worthless in a codex full of much better stuff)...

YMMV.

I don't play guard and I don't think I have ever lost a model to mortars. I just don't think I've encountered them. That said:

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person to look across the table and examine whether or not my opponent is packing blast templates. Before the game starts I make one of two decisions.

(A) No templates. I can cluster together in order to move quicker around obstacles and through terrain. At least until I get within threat range of a flamer.

(B) Templates. I start off spread out and I have to move everywhere spread out. Most opponents just use kraks instead, but I get hammered with frags should I bunch up anywhere.

It is the same against a lot of horde armies. I've seen boys take three turns (before running) to pass through a tight spot just because the player didn't want to give away 7 hits per frag missile. Blasts change play styles just by existing. Mortars are cheap, slightly ineffective blasts. Make your opponent spread and punish them if they don't.

KplKeegan wrote:I find Mortars the better alternative to the Heavy Bolter, since it took a nerf in damage with the universal +4 Cover Save. Having two or three in the backfield can help throw wounds on squads you don't want to waste the high strength, low AP weapons against.

One cannot argue one over the other when they are meant for different targets. It's about having the right tool in the toolbox. How many of you only keep hammers in their toolboxes? How many just keep screwdrivers? Ever try to hang a nail with a screwdrver? That being said its not just about having the right tools In the right quantity I would say its also about having those weapons on the right platforms. What works for me might not work for you in your local scene but if you understand what roles your army is deficient in then you can add in exactly what you need.

This would be correct if we weren't talking about Guard, to a degree. Alot of players believe that the redundancy they show in their armies (as in Spamming Las Cannons and Auto Cannons) somehow overcomes the weapon's overall weaknesses (Hordes). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I do not follow it because it doesn't work for me.

But the redundancy really depends on the local scene and the skill of the players you face.

Well, on the subject of lascannon spam, a lot of the lists I've been seeing that are spamming them, have ways of dealing with anti horde as well. For example, one of Ailaros's lists had something like 20 lascannons, almost a hundred guardsmen, and 6 LRBT's. He knew lascannons won't do jack to hordes, so he takes other things to mitigate that. Of course, one could supposedly do the same for mortars, but that would lead to a wierd army. running like 12 to 15 mortars, several vendettas, and maybe melta stormies and melta/demo vets in the vendettas to help kill armor? It just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe in support of a leafblower style list, with a token platoon taken to help spam mortar squads, but I doubt it'd be a wise use of points.

I just honestly wonder why you would bother bringing them though. For the guys that are bringing like 12 to 15 of these things, are your heavy support slots full or something? Because for the points you're investing, you could be doing a whole lot more damage with things like manticores or basilisks. For example, I can either get 3 HWS's of mortars, or a manticore with 20pts of upgrades. I'm either getting 9 AP6, S4 small blasts, or a 1-3 barrage of AP 4, S 10 large blasts. The mortars only really scare horde armies, while that manticore will scare almost anything. It can kill hordes, vehicles, heavy infantry, whatever, and for 20pts cheaper! Yeah, you can't split fire with the manticore, and the manticore is begging to die the moment it gets targeted, but at least I can safely say it'll do some damage first.

I know mortars could have a roll for some armies, but you'd more than likely have to build a list around them, rather than being able to add them in at will, like lascannons and autocannons. They're a very niche use compared to more "swiss army knife" type wargear and I think that's what hurting them the most. And when I'm building a list, I like to have options that are flexible and can handle as many tasks as possible. Spending points for a weapon that has a very limited target range just seems like a bad idea to me. However, if you guys are getting them to work, all the power to you. I just know that if I tried something like that in my "transporthammer" meta, I would get tabled by turn 3.

The only time i ever consider bringing them is when I have a PCS with 5pts left to spend in my list. That way I can hide it on an objective and it not be completely useless. In any other situation, I don't even look at them to be honest. Sorry guys. And I'm not trying to bash anyone, so I'm sorry if I come across that way, I'm just trying to explain why I would never bring them. If you guys are pulling wins with em, major props, you've got some serious stones

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:congratulations, you're really lucky with mortars

Luck has nothing to do with it.

Prove it.

Jihallah wrote:blasts and pie plates aren't useless because the opponent can spread out, but they are not as effective as new players think they are at first and whilst their damage can be mitigated to a degree

This, basically. They're not completely worthless in their own right (just relatively worthless in a codex full of much better stuff), but it's really, really easy to overestimate blast weapons. The new player notices that it's possible to get 9 hits under a small blast templates and then daydreams about mortars getting 27 hits per shot and annihilating their opponents. In reality, you're never going to see anywhere near that. It's the same problem that people have when looking at things like basilisks or manticores. They're good units, but it's way too easy to look at the best possible case scenario and delude yourself into thinking that they're going to be better than they eventually wind up being.

Prove it? People don't run units (like ork boyz) out the open it there is a bunch of mortars waiting for them, so I don't really care if they don't hit much. For an extra 45 points you get a unit that has three shots (one or two will hit) and is very easy to kill in the land of force weapons and str 6 weapons. So for lascannons to work you need to be lucky. Vendettas are twin linked, and if you out flank with them you can get some good shots in, something weapons teams lack, for only 5 points. One AT weapon could take it out, but generally people have more anti-infantry weapons at hand.

Moustaffa - This is the only case I utilize them, one in each PCS for 5 points. They can sit on an objective, they can still issue orders if need be, and for 2 pretty fragile squads with a low threat level, they can last a long time.

Alairos, I always love to read what you have to say about guard, you have been very influential on the creation of my guard army, however arguing that 2 mortars in a 2k army is a waste is small potatoes(5 pts each). Yes I could give that PCS a lascannon, or an AC, but with bs 3 the lascannon will miss half the time and I am unlikely to issue BiD to a squad with one bs3 LC (when I have HWTs with LC and AC and Blobs with LC and AC). I used to fit my PCS out with 3 flamers and they would sit there 80% of the games with no one to flame(My army is not chimera heavy). Now with one mortar team and one flamer in each PCS, they may not be optimized but they can at least fire every round and just in case I need a flamer or two in front of my line, they are there waiting. A lot of people advocate for Marbo, however I find him an erratic use of what is essentially a slightly better battle cannon shot (demo charge ap 2 instead of BC ap 3). For the 65 points I feel that in my army list I would get more mileage out of 2 MoO, one for each of my CCS. Maybe later today I will post my list up on the army list section and you can give me some constructive criticism of how I could improve the ability of my army.

~Lion~

Extreme redundancy of one or two weapons does not have the same success as taking a variety of weapons that can effectively address different things.

I can not say it better. Very true.

@topic

Mortars are a situational weapon. If I have an army with no blast weapons, I allow the opponent to deploy his infantry in every shape he wants them to. One single HWS with mortars forces a decision from the opponent for ALL (!) his infantry units in the radius of 48" around the mortars:

1. space his models, this leads to a lack of force concentration and flexibility.
2. ignore the mortars, this leads to a considerable damage output from them.

In addition as a little bonus, mortars can attack spots where your whole direct weaponry will not reach to: enemies out of LOS. And they can pin units if you have a lucky day.

I like such a kind of weapon. Since I don't use platoon infantry, I won't take one but it is not a weapon to ignore.

General_Marshall wrote: People don't run units (like ork boyz) out the open it there is a bunch of mortars waiting for them

They do with KFFs. Heck, they do without KFFs. If an ork player is going to hide in the bushes with a couple of 30x slugga mobs because you brought a couple of mortar HWSs, there's something seriously wrong with that ork player.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:...however arguing that 2 mortars in a 2k army is a waste is small potatoes(5 pts each).

Well, right, when you get into the nitty gritty ends of a list with points to spare, you can come across situations where it's better to take mediocre upgrades than none at all. I'm not actually arguing that a fantastic list that comes to 1995 points shouldn't take a mortar to get to 2000, what I'm saying is that building your list around mortars is going to take a lot more contortion in the rest of the list than people think, and that likewise mortars in general aren't as effective as some might think.

If you've got 10 points left and nowhere to throw in a meltagun, then sure, take a couple of mortars (or sniper rifles, or whatever), but if you've got 120 points to spare, there are better places to put it than in a couple of mortar HWSs a big majority of the time.

I'm not say that mortars will stop a unit of orks, but they certainly can help rain fire down on open objectives, WITHOUT losing any of there fire power. Name any other IG troop choice and I can prove that it has a flaw to holding further back objectives, larger then a mortar's.

The problem with mortars is that it's just like lasgun fire, doing the same thing, just at longer range. It's not useless, it's just somewhat redundant with blob guard, since you'll already take plenty of lasgun shots.

General_Marshall wrote:Name any other IG troop choice and I can prove that it has a flaw to holding further back objectives, larger then a mortar's.

HWSs are terrible at holding objectives, no matter what guns they come with. Holding objectives is much better done with blobs, vets with sentries or a chimera, conscripts with SiTNW, etc. etc.

Because HWSs are so fragile, and put out so much firepower cheaply, they are much more judged like HS slots - by how much firepower they put out - than like troops (which score), as it's so difficult to keep them on an objective given how fragile they are.

If you're judging them disproportionately by how much killing power they have...

Panzeh wrote:The problem with mortars is that it's just like lasgun fire, doing the same thing, just at longer range.

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:Name any other IG troop choice and I can prove that it has a flaw to holding further back objectives, larger then a mortar's.

HWSs are terrible at holding objectives, no matter what guns they come with. Holding objectives is much better done with blobs, vets with sentries or a chimera, conscripts with SiTNW, etc. etc.

Because HWSs are so fragile, and put out so much firepower cheaply, they are much more judged like HS slots - by how much firepower they put out - than like troops (which score), as it's so difficult to keep them on an objective given how fragile they are.

If you're judging them disproportionately by how much killing power they have...

Panzeh wrote:The problem with mortars is that it's just like lasgun fire, doing the same thing, just at longer range.

If the objectives on on the frontline or in nomans land then yes, I could agree more, but putting even ten guardsmen by the back of the table is in my opinion a waste, mortars fight the same way no mater how hidden they are and let's face it, 48" does get you in range of atleast some of the enemies most of the time.

General_Marshall wrote:

Prove it? People don't run units (like ork boyz) out the open it there is a bunch of mortars waiting for them, so I don't really care if they don't hit much.

General_Marshall wrote:
I still find them worth there points.

Ever dropped a three mortar barrage on an open mob of ork boyz?

Oh dear

General_Marshall wrote:
I'm not say that mortars will stop a unit of orks, but they certainly can help rain fire down on open objectives, WITHOUT losing any of there fire power. Name any other IG troop choice and I can prove that it has a flaw to holding further back objectives, larger then a mortar's.

Well. I thoroughly disagree. I used to by into this, but then I did some quick geometry.
Objectives must be placed beyond 12" from another objective of table edge. Therefore the closest your mortars can be to the table edge whilst continuing to cap is 9". They are 1/4 of the way back from your furthest deployment point. So I pose a question- How far back is your mortar squad really sitting? Yes, I am aware you can string them out to the table edge. One of your models is still going to be just over 9" forward from your edge though if you want to be capping.

See I could name the ol' inf platoon as an objective holder, because they are more flexible than a mortar team. I can still cap that objective, whilst laying down equal to or greater firepower, I can stretch to cap another objective, I am more durable, and I have the option of leaving behind a HWS on the objective and moving to a forward position, or the option of holding my ground and providing a wall of meat the enemy needs to chew through. You say "this unit could be doing something else!", but in the platoon vs mortar HWS argument here I find that an advantage, not a disadvantage. You know what my mortars will do- sit still lob shells camp objective. What's my blob going to do? a 30 blob can stretch from one short edge to the other, it can potentially cap multiple objectives.

General_Marshall wrote:If the objectives on on the frontline or in nomans land then yes, I could agree more, but putting even ten guardsmen by the back of the table is in my opinion a waste, mortars fight the same way no mater how hidden they are and let's face it, 48" does get you in range of at least some of the enemies most of the time.

And you could do the same thing, except give them a weapon that might make a difference
except they will simply be sneezed on by anything S6+ and turn into a fine red mist.
The problem is that 6 guardmen wounds are not hard to take off. 3 guardsmen wounds at S6+.

"b-b-but I can hide them out of LoS" is usually the first thing to be mentioned, but that follows the magical internet world of LoS, where we think the opponent is incapable of moving, especially to places that do put our friendly units in LoS of the enemy!
And putting 10 guardsmen at the back on an objective is not a waste if your expecting them to meatshield. a 10 man guard meat fence (its not quite a wall, is it?) that dies gloriously has a value based on where it dies. A tarpit/meat wall is as effective as its location- A kan wall army doesn't work properly unless things are deployed correctly, for example.

Jihallah wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:

Prove it? People don't run units (like ork boyz) out the open it there is a bunch of mortars waiting for them, so I don't really care if they don't hit much.

General_Marshall wrote:
I still find them worth there points.

Ever dropped a three mortar barrage on an open mob of ork boyz?

Oh dear

General_Marshall wrote:
I'm not say that mortars will stop a unit of orks, but they certainly can help rain fire down on open objectives, WITHOUT losing any of there fire power. Name any other IG troop choice and I can prove that it has a flaw to holding further back objectives, larger then a mortar's.

Well. I thoroughly disagree. I used to by into this, but then I did some quick geometry.
Objectives must be placed beyond 12" from another objective of table edge. Therefore the closest your mortars can be to the table edge whilst continuing to cap is 9". They are 1/4 of the way back from your furthest deployment point. So I pose a question- How far back is your mortar squad really sitting? Yes, I am aware you can string them out to the table edge. One of your models is still going to be just over 9" forward from your edge though if you want to be capping.

See I could name the ol' inf platoon as an objective holder, because they are more flexible than a mortar team. I can still cap that objective, whilst laying down equal to or greater firepower, I can stretch to cap another objective, I am more durable, and I have the option of leaving behind a HWS on the objective and moving to a forward position, or the option of holding my ground and providing a wall of meat the enemy needs to chew through. You say "this unit could be doing something else!", but in the platoon vs mortar HWS argument here I find that an advantage, not a disadvantage. You know what my mortars will do- sit still lob shells camp objective. What's my blob going to do? a 30 blob can stretch from one short edge to the other, it can potentially cap multiple objectives.

General_Marshall wrote:If the objectives on on the frontline or in nomans land then yes, I could agree more, but putting even ten guardsmen by the back of the table is in my opinion a waste, mortars fight the same way no mater how hidden they are and let's face it, 48" does get you in range of at least some of the enemies most of the time.

And you could do the same thing, except give them a weapon that might make a difference
except they will simply be sneezed on by anything S6+ and turn into a fine red mist.
The problem is that 6 guardmen wounds are not hard to take off. 3 guardsmen wounds at S6+.

"b-b-but I can hide them out of LoS" is usually the first thing to be mentioned, but that follows the magical internet world of LoS, where we think the opponent is incapable of moving, especially to places that do put our friendly units in LoS of the enemy!
And putting 10 guardsmen at the back on an objective is not a waste if your expecting them to meatshield. a 10 man guard meat fence (its not quite a wall, is it?) that dies gloriously has a value based on where it dies. A tarpit/meat wall is as effective as its location- A kan wall army doesn't work properly unless things are deployed correctly, for example.

Aye, those are all good points, BUT I know what I'm doing, and I'm telling IG players not just to overlook the mortars. Anyways, they don't work for everyone, but I use abnormal tactics. They work most of the time, and people credit my generalship when they do, but when I fail I look like a complete idiot. Anyways, if anyone disagrees feel free, mortars don't work for everyone, but don't say they are worthless. Not trying to sound arrogant (but I'll admit I can be sometimes), but I'm one of the best regular IG players at my FLGC, but this came from two years of playing and listening to advice. One tip was using a unit of mortars, I find it works well for me, but as I can tell most other IG players see differantly. Just trying to add my (odd to say the least) two cents to the mix. I couldn't care less if people think its rubbish, its won me quite a few games,

I'm not an IG player but my most common opponent for a v. long time was guard, guard, guard and some more guard. I'm more coming from the other side of the table, what hurts in guard armies, what are frustrating to deal with, tactics and strat's that are easy to deal with (thus bad for the guard player) and tactics/strat's that are harder to deal with (thus good for the player), but also 2v2 etc games with guard on my side so what I've found helpful/effective to play with

And I never said they were worthless, just not particularly good a cheap ranged meat fence on an objective or a unit in the very corner of the map plinking away and requiring effort to remove a minor threat in KP games does have its uses. It's not particularly useful though, so if you want to tune up your list the points can be invested well elsewhere. That said- we ain't all playin' tournaments, yeah? Not everyone here is striving to try to win 'ard boyz tournaments or whatever kind of local/national tournaments that are going, so if you want to use them go for it.
It's just that they aren't particularly good

Jihallah wrote:I'm not an IG player but my most common opponent for a v. long time was guard, guard, guard and some more guard. I'm more coming from the other side of the table, what hurts in guard armies, what are frustrating to deal with, tactics and strat's that are easy to deal with (thus bad for the guard player) and tactics/strat's that are harder to deal with (thus good for the player), but also 2v2 etc games with guard on my side so what I've found helpful/effective to play with

And I never said they were worthless, just not particularly good a cheap ranged meat fence on an objective or a unit in the very corner of the map plinking away and requiring effort to remove a minor threat in KP games does have its uses. It's not particularly useful though, so if you want to tune up your list the points can be invested well elsewhere. That said- we ain't all playin' tournaments, yeah? Not everyone here is striving to try to win 'ard boyz tournaments or whatever kind of local/national tournaments that are going, so if you want to use them go for it.
It's just that they aren't particularly good

It's good to hear the other side of the story, but that you mention it, I am entering a tournament, one of the biggest (if not the biggest) in the region of my country, and I am using a mortar unit in it. That being said I have a lot of work to do to figure out what tactics to use, and so far I've found mortars a nice tool to have in my pocket.

Treat it like your most favored loved unit, glorify it. If they spend 10 minutes trying to figure out why you are so enamored with a "mediocre" unit...

...they've spent 10 less minutes trying to figure out how to beat you

I pewrsonally don't think that they're worth the points in a HWS. But if you have a static infantry squad or PCS and the points to spare, then it's well worth it.

It's 5pts, and if it pins just one unit for one turn it's already well worth it.

General_Marshall wrote:They work most of the time, and people credit my generalship when they do

Then the people around you fail to realise that 40k is a game of dice. The killing power of any given unit has absolutely nothing to do with one's generalship, it has everything to do with the odds that the statline of a weapon gives you, and what they results of the dice are.

If you're getting really lucky with your dice while using mortars, and are playing against dumb players who can't figure out how to spread out their units, then more power to you, but don't think it's your personal awesomeness that exudes from your very being that makes them so good for you.

Mortars are too weak to handle vehicles with any degree of certainty, and have too crappy of an AP to do much more than make loud noises at units with a decent armor save. Meanwhile, they have no way of compensating for displacement or cover, either (or both) of which your opponents can use to their advantage to seriously mitigate any casualties taken.

They're a niche weapon that only resembles good in a very narrow band of situations. Thinking highly of your abilities as a field commander doesn't change the inherent limitations to this weapon.

I have a squad of three mortars which I bring every game without a second thought. My tactic involves placing them behind my gunline and targeting various annoyances which are just beyond my 24" reach.

A couple of their greatest successes have been:

-knocking out 5 Orc Kannons in one game.
-causing enough wounds on marines that they eventually have to roll a 1 or 2 on their armour save. (They are surprisingly effective against MEQ's as they wound on 4's instead of 5's.)
-Wounding a couple of nurgle daemons camping on an objective which are completely out of line of line of sight.

In contrast, I have only ever pinned an opponent once. So they are limited in their effectiveness to that regard.
And I do admit, they are a hit and miss weapon. (Pun intended.) You either get a good game with them or you don't, simple as that really.

I won't be getting rid of mine anytime soon.

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:They work most of the time, and people credit my generalship when they do

Then the people around you fail to realise that 40k is a game of dice. The killing power of any given unit has absolutely nothing to do with one's generalship, it has everything to do with the odds that the statline of a weapon gives you, and what they results of the dice are.

If you're getting really lucky with your dice while using mortars, and are playing against dumb players who can't figure out how to spread out their units, then more power to you, but don't think it's your personal awesomeness that exudes from your very being that makes them so good for you.

Mortars are too weak to handle vehicles with any degree of certainty, and have too crappy of an AP to do much more than make loud noises at units with a decent armor save. Meanwhile, they have no way of compensating for displacement or cover, either (or both) of which your opponents can use to their advantage to seriously mitigate any casualties taken.

They're a niche weapon that only resembles good in a very narrow band of situations. Thinking highly of your abilities as a field commander doesn't change the inherent limitations to this weapon.

I agree completely with you, mortars are poor weapons, but they still are a useful tool. The way I play games is I don't care what happends to my units, as long as I come out on top (in theory, I really just do play for fun). The fact the mortars just are for harrasment also plays to my aid, people don't tend to go after them, therefore they will focus on something bigger first. By placing a lot of troops at an objective, you encourage your opponent to go after is more. People are more likey to go after my four russes pounding them and not a mortar team.