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I have been fumbling around with my Nurgle Guard playing games in the current league at Game Empire in Pasadena. So far my record is 10 Wins 2 Losses so I think I have a fairly decent grasp of the codex but I was wondering why more people don't field Colossus guns? I ran two of them two days ago in a game for our league against an Ork player and the Str 6 AP 3 no cover save large templates killed 27 Orks on turn 1. They almost singlehandedly won me the game. So am I missing something here? Why don't more people take them?

because the bassalisk has better strength, longer range, can fire indirectly or directly, and . . . . i think thats it. Is the collossus the one that ignores cover? Bassalisks firing indirectly ignore (most) cover since the direction of the blast radiates from its center.

Yes, it is the one that ignores cover. I thought maybe it was the 24in minimum range.

biggest reason is it has 24" Radius blind spot and on a table that's 48-52" that means you'll get 1or2 turns shooting before its too close.

They have a 24" minimum range that they can't bypass, they're one of the more expensive pieces, not particularly good against tanks. If you're fighting anything other than a Space Marine army that tries to hang back in cover and shoot it out with the Guard you're usually better off with a bunch of Griffons or some Basilisks. In the case of this Ork army imagine having twice as many S6 large blasts coming in with the ability to reroll scatter. Yes they can get cover saves but you should be getting far more hits in to compensate.

Raxmei wrote:They have a 24" minimum range that they can't bypass, they're one of the more expensive pieces, not particularly good against tanks. If you're fighting anything other than a Space Marine army that tries to hang back in cover and shoot it out with the Guard you're usually better off with a bunch of Griffons or some Basilisks. In the case of this Ork army imagine having twice as many S6 large blasts coming in with the ability to reroll scatter. Yes they can get cover saves but you should be getting far more hits in to compensate.

I thought maybe it was something along those lines. I will try out the Griffons next and see how I like those.

Griffons can't fire directly, and that's a real pain in the ass. I have run them in a couple of games, they play nicely, but when your enemy comes in line of sight, you're done. Just keep them behind something.

Personally I like the Basilisk more then any of the other three. I think because the basilisk is more 'basic' , with the others being more 'specialised' at taking down certain units.

Good job on taking down that many orks fisrt turn in ONE shot, though.

Also if your opponent is under terrain (first floot of a building), or is in a vehicle, the collossus either wont be able to do anything, or is handicapped.

But I can see how playing against foot slogging orks would be a dream game for the collossus. Especially if they didn't have any range options (lootas), or harrassement units (Buzzkoptas, Kommandos).

Scrazza wrote:Griffons can't fire directly, and that's a real pain in the ass. I have run them in a couple of games, they play nicely, but when your enemy comes in line of sight, you're done. Just keep them behind something.

Not sure what you mean by this... Firing indirectly doesn't mean you can't fire if you have LOS.

See page 58. Ordnance Barrage weapoms choose how they want to fire, directly or 'as an ordnance barrage'. The difference is whether they pin and if they get to subtract their BS from the shot.

(and I know Griffon/Col only can choose 'as an ordnance barrage'.)

OverwatchCNC wrote:I have been fumbling around with my Nurgle Guard playing games in the current league at Game Empire in Pasadena. So far my record is 10 Wins 2 Losses so I think I have a fairly decent grasp of the codex but I was wondering why more people don't field Colossus guns? I ran two of them two days ago in a game for our league against an Ork player and the Str 6 AP 3 no cover save large templates killed 27 Orks on turn 1. They almost singlehandedly won me the game. So am I missing something here? Why don't more people take them?

Um yes they are outstanding against horde armies. Not so great at all against vehicles. Manticores are considered better against all comers. If you for some reason know you are going to be playing 90 orks or tyranids then yeah a colossus is a nice choice.

pretre wrote:

Scrazza wrote:Griffons can't fire directly, and that's a real pain in the ass. I have run them in a couple of games, they play nicely, but when your enemy comes in line of sight, you're done. Just keep them behind something.

Not sure what you mean by this... Firing indirectly doesn't mean you can't fire if you have LOS.

See page 58. Ordnance Barrage weapoms choose how they want to fire, directly or 'as an ordnance barrage'. The difference is whether they pin and if they get to subtract their BS from the shot.

(and I know Griffon/Col only can choose 'as an ordnance barrage'.)

You missed a difference: Direct fire ignores minimum range, indirect fire does not. This gives the basilisk the option of sidestepping a rather glaring weakness once the enemy gets too close.

So question I have is if someone gets within the Basilisks minimum 36" range does it lose the ability of barrage? Such as I place it behind a wood terrain to get cover and my opponent is 24" away from me but in the open, does my opponent get cover saves from me shooting through the woods? Or do they take the shot w/o cover?

OverwatchCNC wrote: I ran two of them ... killed 27 Orks on turn 1.

Then either you were very lucky, your opponent was very foolish, or both. If your opponent spaces his troops properly, large blast weapons do much less damage than this.

In general, the colossus isn't bad, but it's not a super-stellar obvious choice. With only a single large blast, it's not at the top tier of competitiveness with regard to handling hordes, and with its low strength, it can't handle vehicles either.

They're GREAT in certain circumstances, like players bunching up against artillery fire, concealed wraithguard, marine foot horde, etc., but outside of its set of roles, there's not much doing, and you can do those roles with other units, so they're not necessary.

Irdiumstern wrote:You missed a difference: Direct fire ignores minimum range, indirect fire does not. This gives the basilisk the option of sidestepping a rather glaring weakness once the enemy gets too close.

Sorry, was mostly combatting the hiding so I could fire part of his statement.


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Daemon Eater wrote:So question I have is if someone gets within the Basilisks minimum 36" range does it lose the ability of barrage? Such as I place it behind a wood terrain to get cover and my opponent is 24" away from me but in the open, does my opponent get cover saves from me shooting through the woods? Or do they take the shot w/o cover?

Yes, you can't fire indirectly in min range with Ord Barrage.

Ok now this is the next question because me and my friends are confused about the wording in the RB. If the basilik uses line of site for its shot even if its in between 36"-240" it loses its barrage rule?

Daemon Eater wrote:So question I have is if someone gets within the Basilisks minimum 36" range does it lose the ability of barrage? Such as I place it behind a wood terrain to get cover and my opponent is 24" away from me but in the open, does my opponent get cover saves from me shooting through the woods? Or do they take the shot w/o cover?

A Basilisk can choose to fire directly or as a barrage, declare which at the time you fire before measuring range. If you attempt to fire a barrage at a target that turns out to be closer than the weapon's minimum range the shot automatically misses. In the case of the Basilisk trying to shoot at something 24" away you'll want to fire directly, in which case you resolve the shot as if the vehicle were armed with a S9 battle cannon. Just ignore all of the barrage rules, it's a regular ordnance weapon. Griffons and Collossi must fire as barrage. A Collossus attempting to shoot at a target closer than 24" or a Griffon attempting to shoot at something closer than 12" automatically misses. This is obviously a bigger problem for the Collossus than for the Griffon but it is an issue for both.

The other principal advantage to being able to choose to fire directly is firing after moving. It comes up sometimes.


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Daemon Eater wrote:Ok now this is the next question because me and my friends are confused about the wording in the RB. If the basilik uses line of site for its shot even if its in between 36"-240" it loses its barrage rule?

You can fire barrages at targets within line of sight and when you do you subtract BS from scatter just like any other blast weapon. You only lose the BS subtraction when you take advantage of the barrage ability to fire at targets outside of LOS. Barrage has the special added ability to shoot outside of LOS; this does not remove the normal ability to fire within LOS.

Ailaros wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote: I ran two of them ... killed 27 Orks on turn 1.

Then either you were very lucky, your opponent was very foolish, or both. If your opponent spaces his troops properly, large blast weapons do much less damage than this.

In general, the colossus isn't bad, but it's not a super-stellar obvious choice. With only a single large blast, it's not at the top tier of competitiveness with regard to handling hordes, and with its low strength, it can't handle vehicles either.

They're GREAT in certain circumstances, like players bunching up against artillery fire, concealed wraithguard, marine foot horde, etc., but outside of its set of roles, there's not much doing, and you can do those roles with other units, so they're not necessary.

You tend to rack up big numbers of kills like this when you can explode a battlewagon, then drop a Colossus or Whirlwind Castellan round into the crater full of survivors.

best use for colossus is to blow up those annoying Long Fangs hiding in cover with MLs.
Their min. range is really annoying though.

Minimum range could be a significant problem now that assault armies are very common.

I always thought Manticores were the number 1 ork killing choice?

Does no one else ever use area terrain? I rarely see it ever mentioned.

On that note, the colossus is the only thing other than a deathstrike and a eradicator that can ignore area terrain. Also, the whole "assault armies will get under your minimum range" thing is a bit of a misnomer. How often does the entire enemy army gather into one 24" bubble? Sure, they get units under your range but there will be some assault units heading to other things, that happen to lie outside your bubble.

The Basilisk is the worse of the new artillery pieces. The only reason people use them is because they have the model left over from 4th. Colossus is a massive MEQ killer. It wounds on 2+ no cover saves. If you really hate marines this is the way to go, put them in the edges on a map corner. It's a massive FU to Space Wolves Long Fangs - it's so refreshing to stick it to OP long fangs and space wolves.

The reason you don't see it as much is its a 55 pound expensive resin kit from Forge World. The model looks amazing though, trust me.
I need to assemble the 2 I bought, but my IG army is currently on the backburner right now.

DorianGray wrote:The reason you don't see it as much is its a 55 pound expensive resin kit from Forge World.

I thought it was the fact that manticore did a better job ... sure marines get a save but that doesn't help Vs D3 large blasts ... not to mention pinning with -1Ld (also St10 means it does well vs AV as well)

DorianGray wrote:The Basilisk is the worse of the new artillery pieces. The only reason people use them is because they have the model left over from 4th.

That is SO untrue.

Yes, both the basilisk and the colossus shoot a single large blast that wound MEq on 2's while the colossus ignores cover. However, while the basilisk doesn't always ignore cover (it does sometimes though), it's also S9 ordnance against vehicles, often hitting side armor and ignoring cover. The colossus can't do anything remotely similar to that.

The medusa is a little better against tanks and the colossus is a little better against infantry, but both of them are more expensive than the basilisk and can threaten half the number of targets.

I'm not big into versatility with guard, but that's usually because when a unit can handle a bunch of different things, they invariably handle a bunch of different things POORLY. Not so with the basilisk.

DorianGray wrote:The reason you don't see it as much is its a 55 pound expensive resin kit from Forge World. The model looks amazing though, trust me.

Are you talking about these:



That is not a colossus, it is a bombard. It has 36-240" range and a 7"blast. However, it can only fire every other turn. Also it can ID marines, which is nice, although it doesn't ignore terrain. The full rules can be found on page 31 of the IA1 update:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/i/IA1update28AUG.pdf

The colossus uses the chimera hull, whilst the bombard uses a leman russ hull. I will agree that it makes a good stand in for a colossus but they are not the same thing. Currently there is no model in production for the colossus

Oh,

Wow, I bought the models because I thought "bombard" meant the colossus BOMBARD since that was the full name in the codex.

Ah well when I get them together I'll be using them as colossus. You have to admit that model looks 100x better than the out-dated ugly Basilisk.

And that is the point...lack of a model makes sure the colossus are underused...many players are not fond of converting stuff...

Int he same vein, we do not see many IG player use rough riders because the current Attilan ones are butt ugly..now if you have slim WW1 or 2 type motorcycle riders with mini bazookas instead of lances, then I guarantee you IG players will use RR more...


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Ailaros wrote:

DorianGray wrote:The Basilisk is the worse of the new artillery pieces. The only reason people use them is because they have the model left over from 4th.

That is SO untrue.

Yes, both the basilisk and the colossus shoot a single large blast that wound MEq on 2's while the colossus ignores cover. However, while the basilisk doesn't always ignore cover (it does sometimes though), it's also S9 ordnance against vehicles, often hitting side armor and ignoring cover. The colossus can't do anything remotely similar to that.

The medusa is a little better against tanks and the colossus is a little better against infantry, but both of them are more expensive than the basilisk and can threaten half the number of targets.

I'm not big into versatility with guard, but that's usually because when a unit can handle a bunch of different things, they invariably handle a bunch of different things POORLY. Not so with the basilisk.

I agree..the basilisk is a staple of many of my lists....The bassie, the manticore, hydras, and the russ form the core choices where my HS revolves around.....

The Colossus is an extremely powerful unit, but has no official model at all-- not even FW-- and is somewhat situational. Also, when you get right down to it a Manticore is generally much more all-comers and takes the same slot.

Fetterkey wrote:The Colossus is an extremely powerful unit, but has no official model at all-- not even FW-- and is somewhat situational. Also, when you get right down to it a Manticore is generally much more all-comers and takes the same slot.

This. no model and the manticore's versatility would be my opinion.

is there an easy way to convert the bombard to a chimera hull? the weapon itself is the exact same as the Collossus in the IG codex.

they look awesome and all anyone plays here is MEQs, so i really want one.