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SO beginning painting work on my empire army and I was wanting to know from veteran empire generals what the + and - of the empires artillery beyond the cannon. My friend plays dwarves and runs just basic cannon so it's about the same and so I know what they can do. But what about the mortar and hellblaster? I have one of each(both were bought and built for me so they are what they are)

I understand the mortar is great for large infantry units, but does it have the punch against heavy infantry like chaos warriors.

The hellblaster certainly looks cool and like it has the capability of dealing plenty of destruction but is it truly effective? or is it to gimmicky and should just stay home?

Also though I dont have one I could get one, is the hellstorm battery any good? It seems as though it would be too inaccurate.

Any insight appreciated!

I run normally 2 cannons for big things, 1 mortar for crowd control and 1-2 Helblaster for skirmishers/scouts/party crashers.

I would not touch a helstorm with a ten foot pole though

I just can't bring myself to use an engineer solely to babysit a hellblaster.

A mortar is actually reasonably effective against chaos warriors, savage orc biguns, and similar things, because you really only have to kill 5 or 6 to start cutting into their effectiveness. My lists at 2200 are generally 1 cannon 2 mortars.

At 2500, 3 Cannons 3 Mortars. Engineer if you have the points.

The only limit on the numbers of mortars you take should be your own shame in packing in so much of such a wonderfully underpriced weapon. At 75 points they are an absolute bargain, and while their effectiveness is less if the enemy has high toughness, well armoured troops, they're still wondeful.

And for killing those high toughness, more heavily armed troops the Helstrom is an excellent choice. People make a big deal of the added inaccuracy, but it really doesn't mean much in a game - you place the centre of the template 6" from where you'd place the mortar template, and it'll deviate from there centre of the unit at most 4", or possiby 2", or not at all. From there it works just like a mortar, but with a Str 5 large template that can rip through Chaos Warriors and other heavy infantry.

Cannon are excellent, when you expect to face big multi-wound monsters. They're handy for plinking other targets if there are no big monsters to shoot.

Lastly Hellblasters are junk. Even ignoring the risk they'll explode on you, their range makes them quite easy to avoid, and they just straight up they just don't inflict that much damage after you've rolled to hit (typically on 5+ or 6+).

^ what he said. They are almost cheap you can buy them and really not worry if they make their points

Helblasters are about area denial, park one on an area of front where you don't want to advance and the enemy wont either.

It doesn't need to shoot to win.


as for its fire statistics there is an article here, mostly outdated but the stats for the Helblaster follow through:

http://warhammer-empire.com/warroom/general/tactica-war-machines/

In a nutshell, with a Helblaster shooting six turns in a row:

-14.2% chance of blowing itself up in a given turn
- 55% chance of blowing itself up in a 6 turn game, if fired every turn its able & not killed by the enemy
- It will produce on average 16.39 shots per turn it shoots.

You are generally better off with more handgunners, however the Helblaster delivers (or supplements) that type of firepower from a compact position in the line.

Long gone are the days when a Helblaster struck fear into my enemies hearts. I second the many mortars option. The psychological effect on its own is worth the 225pts for 3. I so want to read a report on mass mortals vs skaven

Orlanth wrote:Helblasters are about area denial, park one on an area of front where you don't want to advance and the enemy wont either.

It doesn't need to shoot to win.

The problem comes with the enemy just deploying troops that it can lose to missile fire. It'd be great if all the enemy has is pricey T4, heavily armoured troops, and sometimes that's the case (hey, sometimes it's T3, poorly armoured but pricey High Elves ), but often as not the enemy just says fine, shoot up my horde of cruddy goblins/skaven slaves/whatever and marches straight through your area of denial. I'm just not sure this is as reliable a use for them as you're claiming.

I've taken Helblasters a bunch of times, and sometimes they work wonderfully. But ultimately they're a gaks and giggles kind of gun, that might line up against the right opponent to provide area denial, but more often will just be fired off against disposal troops, and probably explode while doing so.

I had a helblaster pass into legend in my gaming group.
First turn it shot I got 30 shots
Second turn it shot I got 30 shots
Third turn I shot I got a misfire which rolled into a 6 so I got another 30 shots.
And low that day one little hellblaster killed 4 mournfang single handedly

Mortars...as a Wood Elf player I can say I hate these things with a passion. My twin bro usually runs 3 mortars, 2 cannons and a hellstorm rocket battery @ 3000pts and the results are not pretty...especially since he roles on targets most of the time thanks to his 2 engineers (1 with 2 mortars and the other with 1 mortar and hellstorm) to tweak their results to his favor. In several games the results have been horrific for his opponents especially when it comes to horde and T3 armies. Even against tougher opponents such as WoC the amount of hits those templates can do still drop alot of them. I have to say watching a 75pt. Mortar nuke a 300+pt. unit of high elf swordmasters proves they are worth taking and in great #'s.