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Thunderfire cannons are amazing as a support weapon. They have rounds to deal with nearly any target, aside from destroying high AV vehicles, great utility and their ability to bolster is often overlooked.

The issue with the cannons is they can die to a single hit, to fix this your list must be made around the idea that your cannons aren't going to be shot at first, using drop pods and dreads is a great way to do this.

Combo the fact that when a transport vehicle explodes that everyone inside is clumped up, as well as other movement tricks, even shooting at spaced models you can do well.

I see the images above and all you need to do is fire the cannon. If it aims in the center and scatters at all, 2-3 hits can easily occur from each shot. If there are any heavy weapons teams around that aren't part of a unit, fire some str 6 love into them. Besides if I was fighting a guard player like that, I wouldn't mind, I out range his crap.

Currently I run 3 thunderfire cannons in my lists (no vulkan!) and I still have enough anti tank wandering around with my dreads, bikes and tacticals + a razorback or two. The cannons have saved me many games, and in the recent 28 man tournament they alone clamed the lives of about half my kills each game. Pretty good for 300 points

Corrode wrote:I'm curious how it is that the three different boards you're playing on are always set up in a way that favours your style of army.

They don't. It's a mix of different terrain types spread out across the board. If it looks like I'm gaining a benefit from terrain, it's because I actually know how to use terrain.

juraigamer wrote:I see the images above and all you need to do is fire the cannon. If it aims in the center and scatters at all, 2-3 hits can easily occur from each shot. If there are any heavy weapons teams around that aren't part of a unit, fire some str 6 love into them. Besides if I was fighting a guard player like that, I wouldn't mind, I out range his

Firstly, you're going to outrange a guard player?

Secondly, actually listen to what I'm saying. Actually read your rulebook. It is very easy to make it so that a small blast template hits exactly one model per shot. In the above pictures "2-3 hits can easily occur from each shot" is a blatantly inaccurate statement.

Player skill means that I can minimize the damage you do to well below tolerable levels through displacement, use of terrain, and shooting back. If you're playing TFCs that are consistently getting turn after turn of outrageous damage, you're playing against bad players.

I'm not saying that TFCs are completely and utterly worthless and have never killed anything ever in the history of the game, but what I am saying is that there's no reason they should ever be doing insane damage that causes your opponents to quake with fear. If that's your experience, feel lucky that you're playing against people who can't figure out easy things to do to counter them.

Ailaros wrote: feel lucky that you're playing against people who can't figure out easy things to do to counter them.

I have used the TFC to devastating effect on some very good players due to tactics that I have mentioned earlier in the thread, so this assumption you make is wildly inaccurate. It also derailed what was shaping up to be a pretty reasonable post, unfortunately.

Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, you're going to outrange a guard player?

60 inch range on the cannons, toss in a few lascannon razorbacks or whatnot and should the guard be running infantry only, there's only a smattering of heavy weapons teams to deal with, the rest of the army is out of range. A few drop pod dreads can crush up some tanks in a heartbeat, and should the dreads assault any 60 man infantry blobs, well, either that's an all game assault or after the dread dies, the guard are still going to be pretty damn bunched up.

Secondly, actually listen to what I'm saying. Actually read your rulebook. It is very easy to make it so that a small blast template hits exactly one model per shot. In the above pictures "2-3 hits can easily occur from each shot" is a blatantly inaccurate statement.

I guess you missed the part where I mentioned 2 words before 2-3 hits how the shot scattering can achieve that. No worries. Next time a blast scatters and hits 2-3 of your guys, you'll remember me

TBH your images don't like actual games, the tables and the setups make it seem like you were really bored and wanted to take an image to help your point. No standard deployment, the edges are wrong and the table looks too big.

Jurai is spot on in this case, not sure what Alairos is trying to say while efectivly calling people "stupid" for not knowing how to use terrain properly or spaceing properly lol

Even a spaced unit with some good scatters can still get 2-3 hits per blast, i like the thunder cannon, its good for 100pts, but what makes it bad.... it takes up a whole slot by itself, now if it was 1-2 for a org slot it would be great

Agree they would be better if they could be taken in multiples per slot. 2 vindis and 2 tfcs would be nice to be able to take.

While in theory one can deploy so that only one model is hit by any given blast, in practice I find 2-3+ hits are more likely, even in competitive tournament play. In some cases-- most notably destroyed vehicles-- more hits are in fact inevitable, and that's when the TFC really shines.

Monster Rain wrote:I have used the TFC to devastating effect on some very good players due to tactics that I have mentioned earlier in the thread

The only tactic you mentioned was tank shocking. A tactic that requires your opponent to spend no time shooting at your tanks or TFCs for the first half of the game, and that there isn't anything that can death or glory when the tanks get there. This tactic is way easier to stop than it is to get off properly.

juraigamer wrote:I guess you missed the part where I mentioned 2 words before 2-3 hits how the shot scattering can achieve that. No worries. Next time a blast scatters and hits 2-3 of your guys, you'll remember me

Firstly, SM hit with blast templates twice as often as they scatter off the original target thanks to BS4. Secondly, once again, displacement. It is very possible to deploy things in such a way where when the marker does scatter, it just hits empty air (like conga lines, etc.)

juraigamer wrote:TBH your images don't like actual games, the tables and the setups make it seem like you were really bored and wanted to take an image to help your point. No standard deployment, the edges are wrong and the table looks too big.

They're real games.

Moreover...

Fetterkey wrote:While in theory one can deploy so that only one model is hit by any given blast, in practice...

I don't get what all of this "you're talking about theory, in practice this is impossible" stuff. It's possible in theory. It's possible in practice. I do it all the time, and have seen plenty of other people do it to me.

I don't understand what denying reality is trying to prove here. If your particular reality doesn't exhibit how the rules can be played to prevent taking damage, well, it's pretty obvious the kind of reality you're playing in.

Ailaros wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I have used the TFC to devastating effect on some very good players due to tactics that I have mentioned earlier in the thread

The only tactic you mentioned was tank shocking. A tactic that requires your opponent to spend no time shooting at your tanks or TFCs for the first half of the game, and that there isn't anything that can death or glory when the tanks get there. This tactic is way easier to stop than it is to get off properly.

juraigamer wrote:I guess you missed the part where I mentioned 2 words before 2-3 hits how the shot scattering can achieve that. No worries. Next time a blast scatters and hits 2-3 of your guys, you'll remember me

Firstly, SM hit with blast templates twice as often as they scatter off the original target thanks to BS4. Secondly, once again, displacement. It is very possible to deploy things in such a way where when the marker does scatter, it just hits empty air (like conga lines, etc.)

juraigamer wrote:TBH your images don't like actual games, the tables and the setups make it seem like you were really bored and wanted to take an image to help your point. No standard deployment, the edges are wrong and the table looks too big.

They're real games.

Moreover...

Fetterkey wrote:While in theory one can deploy so that only one model is hit by any given blast, in practice...

I don't get what all of this "you're talking about theory, in practice this is impossible" stuff. It's possible in theory. It's possible in practice. I do it all the time, and have seen plenty of other people do it to me.

I don't understand what denying reality is trying to prove here. If your particular reality doesn't exhibit how the rules can be played to prevent taking damage, well, it's pretty obvious the kind of reality you're playing in.

Dont rise to the barbs, and dont insult in return, second time you have done it now lol

I like the examples you have given, and what i think the other guy is trying to say is "that in the real game (not saying yours isnt) it is dificult to keep track of making sure everything is 2" appart"

However what I and others are saying, is that even with the 2" spaceing, it is still fairly easy to get 2-3 hits per blast with the TFC, this is just general experiance many of us have had

Ailaros wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I have used the TFC to devastating effect on some very good players due to tactics that I have mentioned earlier in the thread

The only tactic you mentioned was tank shocking.

This is inaccurate.

Ailaros wrote:A tactic that requires your opponent to spend no time shooting at your tanks or TFCs for the first half of the game, and that there isn't anything that can death or glory when the tanks get there.

Protip: Don't drive your tank through the guy with the melta gun.

Also, you realize that it won't be your entire army versus my two rhinos and a couple of TFCs, right?

Ailaros wrote:This tactic is way easier to stop than it is to get off properly.

We've been over this kind of theoryhammer posturing, haven't we? Circular argument is circular.

Ailaros wrote:
They're real games.

From the first game-

Turn 1

Meanwhile, the thunderfire hits once and then scatters three times onto more guys than it would have gotten with a hit. Armor saves stop a few.

Turn 2

His thunderfire also has another good round of shooting, causing assorted casualties.

Turn 3

The thunderfire manages an astounding 4 hits, to which I reply by passing all of my armor saves.

Turn 4

His thunderfire picks off a mortar team

Now it hardly seems the most effective thing on the table, and you didn't seem that determined to stop it, but it did ok. What is comparable for SM players? Whirlwinds probably, I think I'd rather take a TFC or 2. But as has been said, I doubt they are super-competitive.

Ailaros wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:While in theory one can deploy so that only one model is hit by any given blast, in practice...

I don't get what all of this "you're talking about theory, in practice this is impossible" stuff. It's possible in theory. It's possible in practice. I do it all the time, and have seen plenty of other people do it to me.

I don't understand what denying reality is trying to prove here. If your particular reality doesn't exhibit how the rules can be played to prevent taking damage, well, it's pretty obvious the kind of reality you're playing in.

The reality that I'm talking about is competitive tournaments. In that environment, few people have the time to move horde armies across the field, much less space out to maximum coherency while doing so, so most people mech up. Meched units-- or, more precisely, recently demeched units, are outrageously vulnerable to Thunderfire Cannons, especially if their transport has just suffered an Explodes! result.

The few large and properly spaced units that one might encounter in such an environment can usually be Tank Shocked into "screw you" formations or tend to bunch up naturally thanks to Deep Strike or assault. Further, even if none of these options are available, you can always smack them with subterranean rounds, which I've found to be extremely useful for impairing infantry movement, even better against jump packs or bikes, and at the very least quite worrisome for the opponent if used against parking lots!

Hmmm... So agreeing to disagree seems like a better option to dogged, repetitive arguments, no?

As for the evidence that TFCs are horrible because one can deploy 2" apart. In the first pic you are playing a 1k game with little to no terrain ofc it will be easy to spread out then. I would also be interested in knowing how you manage to avoid tank shocks so easily. Have you destroyed all tanks by turn two already? That said, the TFC is not without faults. Its main fault tho is its durability not the damage output.

Agreeing with MR, that hardly happens...

By turn 2 you have destroyed ALL the LR, rhinos and razorbacks that can reach you? Impressive.


I also find not driving across the meltagun guy to be an effective anti-DoG tactc as well

Fact: TFC are very, very useful in a competitive environment. Units bunch due to a whole number of reasons, unless you play on planet bowling ball, and unless you are very unlucky you get to pile a whole lot of wounds onto a unit due to S5/6 rounds. Are they effective against everybody all the time? No. But dont let Allaros's opinion make you think they are ineffective - a simple 100pts investment gets you a very decent unit that isnt usually on peoples to-hit list, can be hidden quite neatly in 3+ cover that only the TM needs to be standing in, and shots going towards the TFC arent shots going towards your scoring units inside rhinos.

As if to support nos' claim of the cannons being effective in a tourney, I've got the numbers from a 28 man tourney I played two days ago.

1750 points, I played 2 space wolf standard lists, eldar bikes and transports/vipers and a missile spam DOA BA list.

Took 3 thunderfire cannons, only 2 cannons themselves died through out the whole 4 games.

Was using a bike army, 10 scouts and 2 dropping ironclads (on first turn)

The cannons themselves managed to kill:
25 long fangs
4 wolf guard
1 rhino
16 grey hunters
7 fire dragons
1 viper
10 devastators
1 sanguinary priest
2 assault marines

As expected, the cannons did awful against the eldar, but exploding vehicles and gutting the contents with the cannons did as expected.

As luck would have it, the first place player was a henchman spam GK, second was shooting orks with lots of lootas, and third was nids with hordes and a few MCs.

Wish I fought one of them...

Great unit, awful model to put together. Although my metal one might be better than the Finecast one that's yet to come out.

DoctorZombie wrote:Great unit, awful model to put together. Although my metal one might be better than the Finecast one that's yet to come out.

I would rather assemble a dozen Finecast Thunderfires and get free replacement parts than assemble one of that metal monstrosity.

ITT: Allaros' TFG unit deployment counters Thunderfire Cannons meaning that Thunderfire Cannons are terrible units and should never be taken

And on your whole "Ladeda I always make sure my models are 2" apart, once you get into movement (Which for you would be pretty much only fall backs as it seems you play gunline guard) it's gonna be pretty hard to keep your ever so precious 2" room in between. Even more if you played on a board not full of wide open firing lanes.

LordTyphus wrote:ITT: Allaros' TFG unit deployment counters Thunderfire Cannons meaning that Thunderfire Cannons are terrible units and should never be taken.

Well, spacing your units out isn't really a "TFG" tactic. I would advocate doing it whenever practical (though it isn't always). That said, player skill goes both ways. Just as a skilled player can space his or her own units out, a skilled player can force enemy units to bunch up.