Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am stepping into fantasy turf now so bear with me here. Okay so I want to know dose warhammer fantasy have more artillery than 40k?
Also I am about to drop 40k for a while ive been on it for so long its a wonder ive lasted so I might be on these boards more often.

Well it depends on the army in fantasy, just as it does in 40k. And also how you define artillery. Can you be more specific? For example, is a leman russ artillery? Or are only basilisks, medusas, etc artillery?

motyak wrote:Well it depends on the army in fantasy, just as it does in 40k. And also how you define artillery. Can you be more specific? For example, is a leman russ artillery? Or are only basilisks, medusas, etc artillery?

If only you knew what college I went to .__. military history thank you very much!
I am talking about field guns. They stand still, have a long range and blow everything off the table. Think of the WWI and WWII cannons.

Nurgle wrote:

motyak wrote:Well it depends on the army in fantasy, just as it does in 40k. And also how you define artillery. Can you be more specific? For example, is a leman russ artillery? Or are only basilisks, medusas, etc artillery?

If only you knew what college I went to .__. military history thank you very much!
I am talking about field guns. They stand still, have a long range and blow everything off the table. Think of the WWI and WWII cannons.

I don't see if it matters if you went to Duntroon or if you went to University of the Hippies, Artillery is a blurred line. In 6th ed 40k artillery is now an actual unit type, but you wouldn't be wrong in considering basilisks and what not 'artillery' as well, even if they aren't technically artillery, simply because of what their role is and what they are.

So I'm assuming you mean things (in fantasy) like cannons, stone throwers, hellcannons and what not are artillery, but organ guns, helblasters (I think I spelt it wrong, but I don't play empire, so hush), even though they are warmachines, are not (because they have shorter ranges and fire fist size balls or something instead of proper shot). Is that right?

If that is the case, then you'll find that the Empire and Dwarf armies can have very artillery heavy armies, Chaos can have the Hellcannon but (I think) only 2 in a small sized army, limiting their access to artillery. I also think that the lizardmen got an artillery unit in their new army book, but I haven't played them, so I have no idea...Skaven have some artillery too, but its a wee bit less reliable.

So I'll go with (again, still unsure on what you classify as artillery, but I'm going to assume its all the big gun units, whether they are artillery technically or not) saying that fantasy has, by and large, less artillery, apart from in several builds (namely gunline empire and dwarf builds) where there can be quite a bit more.

Also, if the start bit comes off snippy at all forgive me, its state of origin tonight in Australia, which is a big thing to a part of the population, and my side is currently up but playing like rubbish until the close of the half...so I'm quite nervous.

Edit: Oh, and Duntroon is where the royal military academy is. Just so the first sentence actually makes sense ha, would read a bit weird if you didn't know what I had meant.

Fantesy does have a fair dose of warmachines that fit the bill. Dwarves and Empire having the most.


Empire has the following,

Great Cannons, Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, Mortars, and Hellblaster Volley Guns(similer to historical Organ guns)

Empire also has the Steam Tank which mounts a cannon.


Dwarves have the Grudge Thrower(a catapult), bolt thrower, cannon, flame cannon, and organ gun. They also have the Anvil of Doom which is kinda magical artillery/support piece.


These things don't win games on their own, but when combined with a shooty list they can win games.

Fantasy, while having artillery, does not have more than 40k. Sure there can be gunlines. But they're often underpowered. Dwarven gun lines are ok. Empire got a nerf with the new book (with gunners and crossbow men costing more).

So you won't have a massive amount of artillery and shooting on the table. There's a lot of magic and combat as well.

It's also difficult to equate the two styles of "artillery" if you're classifying them as warmachines. For example, the closest thing to the artillery in the Guard in 40k is actually not artillery at all, it's stone-thrower catapults. Cannons, the closest things to "field guns" in military etymology, don't function as a shelling field gun, they're direct fire only and they fire *through* the enemy in a literal straight line. Rather effective since every non-skirmisher unit in the game is rank and file.

Then you have the oddball things like the Dwarven Flame Cannons and Organ Guns. Flame cannons are essentially a Hellhound cannon but less mobile and the Organ gun is... Unique. It's not much of a cannon per se, more of a large... I really don't know what to call it. Almost like ack-ack but it doesn't fire flak, it fires some sort of smaller-caliber shot. I'd say it'd be equivalent to strapping several early phase muskets together, and firing them all at once. Mind you I'm not talking the Civil War era percussion pin and buck-n-ball muskets, I mean early phase Turkish stuff. Big Bore muskets.

And no, Fantasy doesn't have *more* artillery thanks to the glorious ordnance batteries of the Imperial Guard you won't find so much death-raining pie-plate slinging in Fantasy, but Cannon lines speak for their own since they have the potential to do a good bit more damage than most 40k artillery. For example, last game I played I was running a dwarf cannon brigade against Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, and Wood Elves. The wood elf player made the mistake of turning one of his upgraded Glade Guard units with some 8 models per rank to face their flank to my cannon (He'd been preparing to riddle a Tomb Kings unit) so next turn I took a shot with the cannon, the artillery dice roll said the shot bounced and went flying another 10," eradicating the entire second rank (one of two) in a bloody mess and forcing them to immediately retreat.

Now that doesn't happen to me at least too often in 40k because it's often difficult to get a whole half of a squad under a pie plate unless they're a smaller marines squad and even then, when they only take half-strength hits since you can only get one or 2 models under the center hole... I find Fantasyhammer artillery to have more potential than 40k in many respects. But that's my two bits.