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Not sure if this belongs here or elsewhere as it's somewhat of a vent.... but...

Okay so this is exactly why I did not want to play WHFB in the first place. There are entirely too many rules, a number of which are situational, and it seems like all people want to do is nit pick and split hairs. The rules lawyering is getting ridiculous and frankly I'm sick and tired of stopping the game every 10 minutes to reference the BRB.But - whatever... so enough rant onto todays most fun and glorious game.

Today:

I played a standard 2K Empire list with 2 cannons and 2 mortars in it against my friends' wood elves. It's one of the first times he has encountered cannons as I've only ever teamed with him, never faced off. He took GREAT issue with cannons but I'll just cover 2:

1. Firing at the flank of a skirmishing unit of Dryads. His unit was in two ranks of four. I was in the flank and so if the bounce was long enough I should have hit 4 right? but he argued (and incidentally he did not have a proper skirmish tray, just had his unit placed inside a forest) that since the true line only covered 3 (it did all 4 depending on how you angled the line) that it should only hit 3 models.

In the end I just said yea whatever you win I hit three.... but to me that felt very very petty and unspirited.

2. But the biggest thing, and what set off some animosity toward cannons from the very beginning - He actually complained about the marker I used to declare where the cannon ball would land before the die roll to land!!! I used a 1/2 inch chessex small die - as I use in my game (same size as the GW cube dice). He argued I should use the "1" side on the die and use the pip to mark the exact location where I say the ball will land. I said it really doesnt' matter since I declare the intended distance at all times anyway - say 8" from his mage - which would make it moot.

In this instance the cannon ball was 8" from his mage, and that point was 2" from a lord (both lined up). I landed 2" in, moved the marker which was half on the front of his base. That's where the argument of... now keep this in prespective... the less than 1/4 of an inch came into play. He argued it would be critical in the event I thudded and would thus thud 1/8" in front of his dude (as the pip of the die may have been just a fraction of an inch in front of his noble's base)

In the end, it bounced 2", missed his mage and splatted his noble.

So.. with scenario described... I have 2 questions!

1. Does petty stuff like that come up in your local hobby shops. this isn't even tournament play and the people I play against split every rule and try to bend them to fit their needs - Funny thing tho when it comes me and opponents magically pulling dispel dice out of their ass or firing bolt throwers insane distances with no modifiers to hit I just shrug and say yea, whatever. The local shop owner has not hosted a tourney yet but is talking about one. How is this handled in a tourney situation - I imagine it's for situations like this there is a sportsmanship score.

2. What do you use to mark your point of initial impact? A die right? I don't know anyone who uses anything but a die.

You shouldnt blame game rules if your opponent is being a dick

to answer your questions:
1.) Some people do this, I think we can find them in all countries, hopefully in not all small clubs though Its a good thing we can mostly choose who we play with our toys with.

In a tournament it always helps if there is someone with authority running the event. In this case he dosent need to argue with some brat, he can just tell how it will be played in certain situation and the game can go on.

2.) A die, some people might have tokens but I guess they would be "die-sized" also

Because of how effective cannons have become in 8ed, its no real suprise that people are prepared to argue the toss over the finite details

Personally I go about it this way when using cannons or facing them: -
A. Nomimate a model or specific point on a model or models base to specific the direction of the shot - this addresses your first point.

B. Then instead of putting down dice, which can lead to measurement debates, declare the distance from the target point, i.e. 8" away from the middle of the standard bearer, touching his base.
That last bit (touching his base) is important as again it can save debate - you declare 8" away, get 4" on the first roll of the artillery dice & 4" again on the second - does it hit the model or not ?

There are still issues to be had with this method, but it works most of the time for me & my friends. All I need now is how to figure out from stopping my WLC's from misfiring all the time

I tend to argue cannons more than most players admittedly but that's only because most players give cannons a free ride as far as how they're played. In many of my games involving cannons, I often hear "I'll place the marker X number of inches in front of X target," and then my opponent picks up the dice and is about to roll when I interrupt him. I'll ask him specifically where he's placing the marker and then I'll have him mark it, preferably with a single dice and then I'll interrupt him again before he attempts to roll again and I'll ask him if he can see the target point from the cannon. Even though in most situations the marker can be seen, there are often times in which it can't be seen and I force my opponent to chose a different target point. Keep in mind this can have drastic result changes in how a game is played.

I find that in order to speed up games, people will often skip necessary steps. When GW attempts to balance the armies, they do so by the rules in the rule book so it's my responsibility to remind my opponent of how they should be played so as not to give them an unfair advantage.

I did stop arguing the tape measurer shot line though, it's funny watching someone curve the tape measurer so that it bounces over the unit directly in front of the cannon.

So hamster wheel you just second guess your opponent all game? Being someone who just checks my cannons LOS when I am moving it I could get very annoyed very fast if someone was doing that to me.

Shooting a cannon is fairly simple and the dice marker works just fine as it is not like the ball can go backwards.

And I guess part of my gripe with the above situation is I do not split hairs. I understand how a cannon can pick out and splat a lord - and that can be a big deal - but I do not get down to nit pick quarter inch variances on enemy war machines, casting LOS and such.

If I declare the point of the cannon shot is X inches away from Y model, in the above situation 8 inches away from the mage, it is 8 inches away regardless of where the marker is.... as it becomes means of intent vs. means of playing a miniature game on a tiny table with terrain, interrupting models and the sort. I've actually never had issue before declaring a certain distance away. That way we know if the landing shot and the bounce total 8" the model is hit (say 4 on the landing shot, 4 on the bounce.)

Johnny-Crass wrote:So hamster wheel you just second guess your opponent all game? Being someone who just checks my cannons LOS when I am moving it I could get very annoyed very fast if someone was doing that to me.

Shooting a cannon is fairly simple and the dice marker works just fine as it is not like the ball can go backwards.

No, I don't have a need to second guess every move made by my opponent. If you place the marker and bend down to check TLOS then there's nothing to question. I question the players that do this:

2000 Volts wrote:If I declare the point of the cannon shot is X inches away from Y model, in the above situation 8 inches away from the mage, it is 8 inches away regardless of where the marker is.... as it becomes means of intent vs. means of playing a miniature game on a tiny table with terrain, interrupting models and the sort. I've actually never had issue before declaring a certain distance away. That way we know if the landing shot and the bounce total 8" the model is hit (say 4 on the landing shot, 4 on the bounce.)

No where did he mention checking TLOS from the point of the cannon, he just washed over that portion of the rules. It's 8 inches away, roll, it's 4 inches away, roll. It hits anything in it's path...well, how do I know if it can target the initial point...oh yeah, he's suppose to designate a target point, make sure it's within range and TLOS from the cannon....bingo. I can insist upon fair play, just as you can insist that my models aren't all toughness 8 strength 8 even after I've scribbled out the Army Builder print out roster and wrote in strength 8 and toughness 8.

What I always do in my games, as I find it the most effective, is I use the leading edge of the dice as my "true" point. On top of that, I declare a basic distance, such as "10 inches away from the very back of that monster's base" This, I have found, solves most of issues with opponents, without slowing down the game unnecessarily.

hamsterwheel wrote:

No where did he mention checking TLOS from the point of the cannon, he just washed over that portion of the rules. It's 8 inches away, roll, it's 4 inches away, roll. It hits anything in it's path...well, how do I know if it can target the initial point...oh yeah, he's suppose to designate a target point, make sure it's within range and TLOS from the cannon....bingo. I can insist upon fair play, just as you can insist that my models aren't all toughness 8 strength 8 even after I've scribbled out the Army Builder print out roster and wrote in strength 8 and toughness 8.

First off I'm mildly surprised your getting so anxious about this matter. if a point is declared between the cannon and a model and that point is said to be 8 inches away from that model - I'm having a hard time understand your concern. I understand you have TLOS issues with this but if my cannon is on the ground and I'm saying it's landing "here" there will be nothing between the cannon and that point - seeing as how I can't shoot through/over units like the mortar can. If it's on a hill the whole TLOS issue is largely moot. I'm not entirely sure what your concern is.

And saying your units are S8 and T8 is a lot different from saying "my cannon is firing at your mage." and going along the RAW to determine if the mage is hit.

That said - I do see there isa lot of cannon hate out there but as yourself this: Is there anything in the army you use which someone could split a hair over? Are you playing elves with some hinky magic stuff - or deamons with marks and what not? now ask yourself as well if you want someone stopping the game for 15 minutes every time you attempt to do something in your army book.

But in the end I just don't get what your trying to say - this is not a TLOS issue, it's a marker issue and a point in space issue and if I declare that point to be 8 inches away (within TLOS and after the free pivot of my cannon) and it lands and bounces a full 8 inches then the model should very well be hit.

2000 Volts wrote:

hamsterwheel wrote:

No where did he mention checking TLOS from the point of the cannon, he just washed over that portion of the rules. It's 8 inches away, roll, it's 4 inches away, roll. It hits anything in it's path...well, how do I know if it can target the initial point...oh yeah, he's suppose to designate a target point, make sure it's within range and TLOS from the cannon....bingo. I can insist upon fair play, just as you can insist that my models aren't all toughness 8 strength 8 even after I've scribbled out the Army Builder print out roster and wrote in strength 8 and toughness 8.

First off I'm mildly surprised your getting so anxious about this matter. if a point is declared between the cannon and a model and that point is said to be 8 inches away from that model - I'm having a hard time understand your concern. I understand you have TLOS issues with this but if my cannon is on the ground and I'm saying it's landing "here" there will be nothing between the cannon and that point - seeing as how I can't shoot through/over units like the mortar can. If it's on a hill the whole TLOS issue is largely moot. I'm not entirely sure what your concern is.

And saying your units are S8 and T8 is a lot different from saying "my cannon is firing at your mage." and going along the RAW to determine if the mage is hit.

That said - I do see there isa lot of cannon hate out there but as yourself this: Is there anything in the army you use which someone could split a hair over? Are you playing elves with some hinky magic stuff - or deamons with marks and what not? now ask yourself as well if you want someone stopping the game for 15 minutes every time you attempt to do something in your army book.

But in the end I just don't get what your trying to say - this is not a TLOS issue, it's a marker issue and a point in space issue and if I declare that point to be 8 inches away (within TLOS and after the free pivot of my cannon) and it lands and bounces a full 8 inches then the model should very well be hit.

I'm saying that a rule is a rule and it should be followed as such. If there is nothing impeding the path of the cannon shot then I'd have no issues with someone not checking TLOS but in my local meta, I have players that place units directly in front of their cannons and shoot through their units...hence my line about taking the tape measurer and having it volley over the unit in front of the cannons to the target point. I have players that place the target point between two units, in other words, shooting past unit A to hit unit B which is behind unit A but theres no way they can place the target point between the two units within TLOS.

It seems like you use your cannons in a reasonable manner. I just have issues with players that skimmed over the firing a cannon section in the rule book and learned how to incorrectly fire them by having someone else that has no idea teach them that this is how they're suppose to be fired. If the person that is using the cannons gives any indication that they checked TLOS or its obviously unnecessary due to nothing stopping the cannon ball then there are no issues....This does not take any extra time on the players behalf. What does take time is me having to correct the player because they have no idea on how to use their own cannons.

As far as my armies. I've played Empire, WOC, HE, and Lizardmen so I don't have a preference to one army over another and I'm sure they all have something cheesy in them but that doesn't mean I bend the rules when it's convenient for me.

I may have been getting a bit anxious as I don't like to be accused of "delaying the game" when all I'm insisting on is that everyone plays by the rules.

1. Cannons Penetrate Ranks. He had 2 Ranks. I have no idea what you found complicated about that.


2. You declare where Impact Bounce will be. You then Roll to See where IT Actually lands. You then roll to see how far it bounces. Everything it hits on the Bounce take a S10 hit.

1. I suggest you go read up on your cannons m8. No Bolt Thrower suffers a Minus to Hit (unless theres magic etc, affecting it). As for Dispell Dice. These should be really Transparant as you roll the amount he gets. (eg..2 Dice you roll a 6 and a 3. He gets 3 Dispell Dice and you get 9. You are both allowed to roll a dice for each mage you have and on a roll of 6 you get 1 more.

2. You can mark it with anything you want but just let your opponent know where you will be measuring from. As for width well the easist way is just to measure the width of the cannon but i have always used a dice and never once had a complaint.

Bolt throwers suffer a negative to hit at Long Range and due to cover, same as anything which has a to - hit roll.

GBDarkAngel wrote:1. Cannons Penetrate Ranks. He had 2 Ranks. I have no idea what you found complicated about that.

He fired at the flank of the Dryads so for the purposes of the cannon's rules on who's hit, the files count as ranks so in this case he should have hit 4 models assuming he was directly in their flank. Skirmishers still require a level front, they just happen to be 1/2 an inch apart. However, if the unit of skirmishers is at a slight angle, it's possible to miss one or more. There's no way to answer this without having seen the table. The cannon doesn't automatically hit one model in each rank, it just has a maximum of one per rank or file(if on flank). The cannon hits whatever models fall under the template.

GBDarkAngel wrote:1. I suggest you go read up on your cannons m8. No Bolt Thrower suffers a Minus to Hit (unless theres magic etc, affecting it)

This isn't true. You use the standard BS firing rules for Bolt Throwers.

GBDarkAngel wrote:As for Dispell Dice. These should be really Transparant as you roll the amount he gets. (eg..2 Dice you roll a 6 and a 3. He gets 3 Dispell Dice and you get 9. You are both allowed to roll a dice for each mage you have and on a roll of 6 you get 1 more.

I think he was referring to special rules that models like the Arch Lector/War Priest and Dwarfs have concerning extra dispel dice.

GBDarkAngel wrote:2. You can mark it with anything you want but just let your opponent know where you will be measuring from. As for width well the easist way is just to measure the width of the cannon but i have always used a dice and never once had a complaint.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with using a die to mark the spot.

GBDarkAngel wrote:1. Cannons Penetrate Ranks. He had 2 Ranks. I have no idea what you found complicated about that.


2. You declare where Impact Bounce will be. You then Roll to See where IT Actually lands. You then roll to see how far it bounces. Everything it hits on the Bounce take a S10 hit.

1. I suggest you go read up on your cannons m8. No Bolt Thrower suffers a Minus to Hit (unless theres magic etc, affecting it). As for Dispell Dice. These should be really Transparant as you roll the amount he gets. (eg..2 Dice you roll a 6 and a 3. He gets 3 Dispell Dice and you get 9. You are both allowed to roll a dice for each mage you have and on a roll of 6 you get 1 more.

2. You can mark it with anything you want but just let your opponent know where you will be measuring from. As for width well the easist way is just to measure the width of the cannon but i have always used a dice and never once had a complaint.

I suggest you read up on your cannon rules M8. A cannon in a units flank counts the files as ranks when determining how many models are hit under the "what models are hit" setion. The question has more to do with the angle in which the ball entered the unit and exits the unit.

When my friends mark the spot with a die (when not nominating the center of a model) they are very clear that the central pip is the spot. Are you guys stating that you are just putting a cube out there? It can make a difference.

Also someone said something about the width of the shot. We always play it as a line (we aren't jerks about it, if it basically touches it touches) but we don't play a specific width. Are we doing this wrong?

Thirdly I hate character sniping with cannons, just doesn't make sence. A black powder weapon so poorly made that it blows up like 16% of the time can snipe individual targets? WTF?

To OP, he was playing wood elves . . . he's gonna get emotional. I'm sure he was sorry after the game, but you need to understand that the current wood elf book makes grown men cry! lol

Bastion of Mediocrity wrote:When my friends mark the spot with a die (when not nominating the center of a model) they are very clear that the central pip is the spot. Are you guys stating that you are just putting a cube out there? It can make a difference.

Also someone said something about the width of the shot. We always play it as a line (we aren't jerks about it, if it basically touches it touches) but we don't play a specific width. Are we doing this wrong?

Thirdly I hate character sniping with cannons, just doesn't make sence. A black powder weapon so poorly made that it blows up like 16% of the time can snipe individual targets? WTF?

To OP, he was playing wood elves . . . he's gonna get emotional. I'm sure he was sorry after the game, but you need to understand that the current wood elf book makes grown men cry! lol

The line is the width of the tape measurer so really there is very little width. Cannons have a very low chance of sniping characters if they're in with a group(Look out sir roll). Solo characters usually have certain equipment setups to prevent sniping. Most people complain about them because of their accuracy compared to stone throwers and the fact that they're a low cost monster killer.

I've actually come up with a solution. Pics to follow - but in essence I've glued a mini magnet inside the cannon tube and another magnet to a 6' piece of very thin twine. When I fire the cannon I will latch the magnetized end of the string to the inside of the cannon and, using a BBQ skewer to mark the point of delcaration, draw the path of travel with that string. Then I land and side the skewer along the string that many inches. Then the bounce is rolled and an additional skewer is placed along that line.

There should be little argument that a string no more than 1/8 inch wide can represent the path of travel of a cannon ball.

Pics to follow.

@ 2000 Volts
It sounds like your opponent is getting bent out of shape over nothing. Since you can guess any range as long as you make it clear the start point it shouldn't be and issue.

Once we determine the angle of shot we don't even use tokens anymore.

Our normal cannon shots sound like
"9.5in in front of that lone mage to bounce into the treeman behind"

Although I must admit I do want to see what you have put together.

I apologize for the poor production values of my iPhone but here are two shots I just took of my new cannon "template". I foudn an old dart which works better as an anchor for the string as I can wrap the string around the grips then either use the pointy end as a mark or the flat end to stand it up. There is a magnet inside the cannon tube and another magnet on the string.

Two more

Wow. That seems like a pain in the butt, though I'm sure it would cut down on arguments.

I usually just place the scatter dice, hit side up and use the leading edge as my initial point.

Also, for what its worth, I recognize I don't play RAW with TLOS and cannons firing. If I can see what I'm trying to hit, I'll take the shot, even if I can't see the bit of ground I need to use for an initial point. Conversely, I would never take a shot where I couldn't see the intended target, but *could* see the ground an appropriate distance in front.

Admittedly, this interpretation is to my advantage, since the latter happens far less frequently than the former...

i dont have any cannons in my army but i have never had a problem with someone saying

"my target point is 8" from the (front/back) of that models base" roll the first artillery die, roll the second and measure. last i checked integer math worked fine and was easy.

but different people get all wierd about different rules.

I'm not sure if the brb specifies what to use as a marker but to be fair check out how big the cannon balls are (I know dwarfs have a model where the guy is holding one and it is larger than the pip on the dice).

I don't see why it's a problem declaring how far from x guy the initial target is. I hold my tape measure over the cannon and point it at the target the place the marker under the tape that should clear things up.

The brb has the rule for how canons hit flanks tell him to read that.

Tournaments can be quite bad for rules and such so as long as you can say screw it and move on then the tourney shouldn't be bad.
I would say give the brb a good solid read so that you know the rules and that you can find em faster.

Don't worry some people are just asshats and that's the way they play.

Cannon hits what the line hits. If the line doesn't go through the unit, it doesn't hit.

"A maximum of one model per rank struck can be hit." --BRB

There is no minimum. You can hit one guy on a 10x10 infantry block even if the shot goes 2" short and 4" past, if you shoot the very corner guy for some odd reason (like that's all you could spot with TLOS or shooting between a friendly unit).

I mean there's got to be some bonus to being skirmisher. If you dropped a mortar plate on them, you wouldn't expect them to reform so you could hit more. You hit what you hit. A cannon is a template weapon (BRB). It's just limited by ranks. It specifically says

"a model whose base is between the point where the cannonball first strikes the ground and where it eventually comes to land is hit"

If a skirmisher's base is not in that line, they aren't hit. RAW.


Firing cannon can be a bit weird and, as stated. You're aiming at the ground, not a character. You can tell your opponent whatever, but you still need to be able to see that initial impact. What happens sometimes is people make parallel lines to the cannon. The way to avoid that is if you extend the measuring tape from the cannon to wherever you're trying to ultimately hit, back it up however many inches, and see if you got TLOS to that spot. If you don't, you can't hit that guy.

Except skirmishers MUST be in a "loose" rank formation, perfectly lined up with eachother, meaning if it goes directly through the file it hits one per file

We're already assuming the models are aligned properly.

It hits whatever it crosses per RAW. A diagonal line is a line. Look at the BRB pic of Skirmishers. They got a 5x3 skirmish. A flank shot going diagonal can easily hit 1, 2 or 3 models.

But I will say if it's far away in the flank, it is likely to hit 5. Because it's going to be somehwat perpendicular. But still a shot is going to hit what it touches. You can't say that simply because you're in the flank, you automatically hit an entire file. That doesn't even happen to non-skirmishers. You hit what model bases fall under the line.