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I haven't played loads of 8th Edition but a decent amount and I have noticed that cannons seem to be seriously unbalanced. I have several armies: Empire, HE, DE, Brettonians and have seen how it performs both for and against my armies and I think it is now wrong. Dwarf artillery aside, artillery in the old world is supposed to be fairly crude and pretty hit and miss, The Empire cannons are supposed to be unreliable as are their mortars and orc stone throwers are supposed to be a bit of a joke. However it is no very easy to snipe a single model of a huge dragon without much risk of the artillery piece blowing up.

This is annoying because it has taken out something that used to be an important part of the game: range guessing. Now I think the no guessing when charging is good because there is still a degree of uncertainty to the actual distance you will travel and an inch really does make a lot of difference. However although there is a small amount of uncertainty with firing a cannon because of the artillery dice it is nowhere near as crucial since that inch is not as important because of the bounce. I think that as a result of the rule change the price of cannon etc should increase and perhaps there should be a few more magic items in army books that give a bit more protection to those big monstrous creatures.

So what do you think Dakka has it gone too far the wrong way or are things fine as they are?

I think you'll find most people like the new smoother cannon rules. Besides there are ways to deal with cannons.

Cannon fire became pretty accurate towards the end of their time. 8 cannons managed to tear a pretty big hole in the first line of the Light Brigade (Charge of) at Balaklava despite the fact it was a relatively swift moving target.

Nope, im of the opposite opinion Ed. cannons now run smoother, sure you hit more, but your limited in how many you can take (no more than 2 of any rare choice), they are still able to missfire, and or get stuck in the ground so the element of unreliability is still there. i personally run 2 warp cannons and until the opponent takes them out. (witch happens every game) they do their job, witch is to wittle down the incoming blocks of infantry so that my infantry has a chance to survive the first charge or 2nd turn of combat. that is if i dont blow them up first. as aside note. we run a house rule that you are not allowed to take more than 3 template weapons under 3k points, my cannons count as 2 and then i have one slot left for either a doom rocket, mortor, or catapult (magic not counting).
with Infantry regiments getting huge you nee something to counter balance them and the shooting phase does an ok if not spectacular job of this.
ive heard people moon over that with a gun line a whole unit of infantry can be mowed down in one turn, but ive found this inacurate as most are swinging to heavier infantry blocks with supporting fire rather than aa hard hitting gun line that wont stand up to a determined infantry swarm now.
so now that ive gone off all long winded, i'll just say cannons and the rules for all warmachines have vastly improved, but so has every thing excluding Cavalry. 8th makes things run smoother, before a game would take 3 to 5 hours, now it takes 3 to 4.

People who actually used cannon a lot in 7th could "guess" to a point where the current change really does not make a difference.

I agree with Tzeentchling9.

I barely ever used any artillery but I could usually guess to within half and inch of where I wanted it to land.

The regular users were even more accurate.

I don't like that they hit both rider and monster for ridden monsters. :(

From my experience the current cannon rules are fine. I regularly play against an Empire army which has a wide range of artillery and the cannon tends to be fairly effective but it's definitely not a game winner on it's own. I normally find that the likes of mortars and stone throwers are much more effective.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

I don't like that they hit both rider and monster for ridden monsters. :(

While I'm certainly glad to take advantage of this, I have a hard time imagining it. What exactly is it about the cannon ball that lets it ricochet off the Stegadon and through every rider in the Howdah?

Red_Zeke wrote:What exactly is it about the cannon ball that lets it ricochet off the Stegadon and through every rider in the Howdah?

It's practicing for the job it wants in the pinball machine when it grows up.

Fair enough thanks for the opinions people I'll quit moaning and find a good way to protect my Dragons, griffons and manticores.

Ed_Bodger wrote:I'll quit moaning and find a good way to protect my Dragons, griffons and manticores.

When you find one, let me know. If they come out with it, I'll definitely be getting this guy as my manticore and I'm a little worried I'll just be picking him off the table by Turn 2 of every game.

Wow that is an amazing model much better than the GW one. Oh no what have you done I promised my wife no more toy soldiers before Christmas.

I'm in the same boat about the manticore, Ed

Also agree about the absurdity of the cannonball hitting rider and mount. The bummer about this is, even though it won't always come up, it's making people take way less ridden monsters.

I know they needed toning down, but having them get shot out of the sky before doing anything is a bit too much, I think...

Ed_Bodger wrote:Fair enough thanks for the opinions people I'll quit moaning and find a good way to protect my Dragons, griffons and manticores.

People have been searching for a way to do this since 5th edition.. There really isnt one hence why virtually no one has used griffons or manticores in uh 15 years? Except as a fun piece or a cool model they painted up. GW seems to think theyre actually dangerous and doesnt give them anyway to survive

I know they needed toning down, but having them get shot out of the sky before doing anything is a bit too much, I think...

Disagree because youre applying this to every monster.. As above, medium monsters IE griffons and manticores have been abysmal for over a decade.. There is no reason to tone them down since theyre awful

However, there is a such a massive power curve between the medium monster and the large monsters (Dragons and stegadons mostly) that I suppose GW needed to tone them down.. Yet that was accomplished by steadfast absurdity and no rank breaking.. there is no reason to make cannons better since monsters are so much worse

Good point, Kirasu- I was thinking of dragons and/or stegadons, which were a little over the top in 7th edition as a hero mount, but are now are hard thing to justify taking.

Manticores and griffons have the cool factor and even an awesome model in IoB (which I initially hated, but have come around on) but for some reason, no love in the rulebook :-/. Still going to get that Raging Heroes manticore if it's produced, though!

Ed_Bodger wrote:Wow that is an amazing model much better than the GW one. Oh no what have you done I promised my wife no more toy soldiers before Christmas.

You're in luck! If they got started on it soon, it would probably be ready around Christmas time. For now just go over to their site and demand it be made, and when it is produced speak with your wallet to encourage them to keep making awesome things like it!

I think the limit in the number taken is pretty massive. And as stated, vet players, or guys who worked in construction, could plop them anywhere.

Nah the cannons are still the same in terms of accuracy, and also misfire at the most inopportune times as usual...what has really improved are mortars...with both the no guessing as well as the fact that the large blast template autohits anything it touches...

I love my mortars, more than my cannons...

No player can consistently guess the statistical best place for a cannon to land. That alone is the reason why all artillery is much more accurate. Its a bit silly imo and I think people vastly overestimated their guessing abilities compared to pure math

Now you can always place a cannon 6" from your target.. instead of 6 1/4" or 5 3/4" which means when you roll a 6 it wont over or undershoot..

Mortars benefit even more since you can always place it where it hits the most EVERY TIME

Yeah...there's still a big difference from expert guessers, and just putting it anywhere. I don't mind it so much, mostly because the meta around here has exactly ZERO empire or dwarf players...

The only thing that I still don't get, is as already stated, how the FAK does a cannon hit both the mount AND rider?

ya id like that clarified as well before i go hunting the rule books.

You could always have a house rule that hills are infinitely high (cannot see over them).
We used it at a tourney on the weekend with 60 players and there was no whining from anyone.
There were stegadons (I had one), hydras, and even... a dragon prince and dragon mage in the 1 army (which lost every game LOL)

We also maxed the number of power dice per magic phase at 12, and that was even more well appreciated.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
We also maxed the number of power dice per magic phase at 12, and that was even more well appreciated.

oooo, so stuff like lore of death and what not can't give you a whole new 12? Interesting.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:We also maxed the number of power dice per magic phase at 12, and that was even more well appreciated.

Not so sure I'd have enjoyed that particular rule... it really nerfs magic users that have dice-generating abilities built into their point cost; see also Dark Elves. Ah well, so long as it was made known in advance I guess nobody can really complain too loudly.

I do wonder if people forget that only empire and dwarfs have cannons. Everyone else has to bring down big monsters the hard way.

Must admit my group uses the 'Hills block LOS' rule. It makes them far more important. I tried making some scale 'ridges' a while ago, they are cutely refered to as embankments by the rest of the group as they are insanely out of scale compared to the rest of the terrain and very steep sided.

Challenger

In 7th ed it was amazingly easy to protect any flying monster. hide behind a forest and then point it at the middle of the board.

Now you have to hide it behind things that block LOS to it. Luckily with the sheer amount of crap on a battle field these days.. there is usually a tower, or a house, or something you can get behind.

Ed_Bodger wrote: However it is no very easy to snipe a single model of a huge dragon without much risk of the artillery piece blowing up.

The only thing that's changed is the loss of guessing the range...which anyone who's got 10 games under his belt has down pat anyway. And the damned things are still horribly unreliable. You're still adding a random number of inches to your point of aim, and the difference between 2 and 10 inches is larger than most targets are deep, so guessing wrong still has a nice chance to overshoot the target...or fall short. I can't count the number of times my cannon ballshave landed 1" in front of a gobo shaman or a flanked unit of heavy cav and failed to bounce!

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:We also maxed the number of power dice per magic phase at 12, and that was even more well appreciated.

Um... Isn't that already a rule? or am I just missing something here? hahaha

Jake Bake A Cake wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:We also maxed the number of power dice per magic phase at 12, and that was even more well appreciated.

Um... Isn't that already a rule? or am I just missing something here? hahaha

You cannot have more than 12 power dice at any one time, but over the course of the phase, you can use more if you have a method of generating dice. (Death magic, Boon of Tzeentch, Power of Darkness, Focused Rumination...)

Cannons aren't overpowered. They can't be, really, because they are very good at a couple of specific roles (killing high toughness, multiwound targets at range) and fairly rubbish at everything else. Guessing ranges haven't changed this. If anything, the change that's made gun lines so effective is more to do with mortars, they're much more effective at wiping out infantry before they reach your lines.

Although I do agree it's silly that a cannon shell hits both monster and rider. Nothing rules based or balance wise, it's just silly that a cannon always hits the rider. I'd have preferred an auto-hit on the monster and a chance of hitting the rider as well (perhaps on a 5+?)

Challenger wrote:I do wonder if people forget that only empire and dwarfs have cannons. Everyone else has to bring down big monsters the hard way.

The bigger issue for Dragons and other big, expensive models is steadfast. Nowadays you need dragons to hit the flank while a block of your own infantry denies the enemy steadfast. Which is a lot harder to set up than simply sending a dragon straight at the enemy front knowing it'll win combat and likely break the enemy... so dragons have become a lot less popular for people who consider tactics to begin and end with taking overpowered units that can just be sent straight at the enemy.