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I've been planning to do a counts as empire Cathay army, so a rocket battery woulf of course be very suitable to the theme, however i need 2 questions answered:

Are they viable? or just worthless?
What are clever strategies/distances ways to fire that thing.

That thing is less accurate then my blind grandma, how do you best compensate for it's randomness?
P.S. viable doesn't have to mean tournament ready just good enough for at least a little competitive casual gaming.

Step 1) Aim ~6" short of your opponents center.
Step 2) Cross Fingers
Step 3) Profit.

They are well worth it. Just don't try and snipe the "best" target, but rather aim for the center area of several "decent" targets.

Mop up with mortars and cannons when you drift from what you needed to hit.

2 Cannons, 2 mortars and a hellstorm really makes me worry.

-Matt

Definetely viable, but HawaiiMatt hit the nail on the head.

You want to use your Hellstorm for blasting at the biggest, chunkiest part of your opponent's force where you have the best chance to do damage. You do not want to try to snipe with it.

It's only more random than a mortar because of the cannon scatter at the beginning, and that cannon scatter really isn't that big of a deal. It's basically got an extra straight line 8" spread in where it can land, and for something with a large blast template that's not that big of a deal. It reduces the number of direct hits you score, so instead of being 20+ plus model hits you're getting 15 odd hits.

Target these things at the toughest, best armoured infantry block the enemy has, and you should land some decent hits. For the increased strength and extra point of armour penetration, it's well and truly worth it. Anyone who's ever found Chaos Warriors steadily advancing while your mortars are plinking about 3 kills with direct hits will smile when they think of what a helstrom has done.

This is going to be moot in like 2 weeks when the new empire book drops...

Not necessarily. It's pretty fine the way it is, even after the changes to guess range weapons.

Since they are never seen, expect them to be awesome.

My crackpot predictions: cannons get the nerf out of 10 stat range to match the stank. There has always been to big of a discrepency between cannons/stank and everything else that was maxed around 6.

Since mortar is the other must have multiple warmachine it also gets puffed a bit.

Which leaves the rockets as one of the warmachines that could/should expect a buff

Kiwidru wrote:Since they are never seen, expect them to be awesome.

My crackpot predictions: cannons get the nerf out of 10 stat range to match the stank. There has always been to big of a discrepency between cannons/stank and everything else that was maxed around 6.

Since mortar is the other must have multiple warmachine it also gets puffed a bit.

Which leaves the rockets as one of the warmachines that could/should expect a buff

You're looking like a bit of a genius right now, aren't you?

Sigh...yeah the poor mortar and HSRB. Mortar is now Str 2 and 25pts more and helstorm 5pts more and D3 Str 3 SMALL BLAST!!! Thanks a lot Cruddace......

DakkaOrk007 wrote:Sigh...yeah the poor mortar and HSRB. Mortar is now Str 2 and 25pts more and helstorm 5pts more and D3 Str 3 SMALL BLAST!!! Thanks a lot Cruddace......

Yeh but it's more accurate now and get 3 small blasts instead of 1 large one


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And the Volley Gun looks much improved

I'm not too sure about the uses of the new Rocket Battery, less S means you arent going to crack too many high T units

On the other hand with up to three blasts, you at least have a better chance of hitting something I think. Plus you can tack on more wounds theoretically on multiple wound models


On the bright side for a Cathay army I think the two new Magic Chariots fit in perfectly, especially the one for the Heavens