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Good god, this is the worst, most fun sucking rule in the game, with absolutely nothing redeeming about it whatsoever. With their ability to hit any precise point on the map regardless of line of sight and regardless of what your opponent does, they are the most absolutely no-skill scrub weapons I've ever seen and if you use them willingly, you are a bad person. To counter them, I find myself either bringing heavy mech (boring) or my own barrage weapons (Grot Bomm), which are so fething effective that I have to justify to myself as to why I take anything else. I'm at the point where I request before a game (all of my games are prearranged) that we play without them, but I figured, the *concept* isn't all bad, its the execution ~ so lets try and fix it.

So heres what I came up with;

>barrage weapons must centre on a model like every other weapon
>if the shooter cannot see the target, but another model from your army can, you may fire at it but not subtract BS from the scatter. The model that is "spotting" for your barrage weapon cannot shoot this turn.
>if nothing in your army can see the target, you cannot fire at it

Thoughts?

So you have been nailed by IG artillery behind cover and the rule is stupid and "fun sucking"? right?

Barrage is fine.

No. Believe it or not, some people can find fault with the rule *without* having been stomped by it.

It's honestly fine, sure IG can grind you into the dirt with Barrage but that's pretty much one of their strongest point. I can't fathom why any changes are necessary rather than "I lost to a load of Barrage weapons, it's a suckish rule".

 Dakkamite wrote:
>barrage weapons must centre on a model like every other weapon

You already have to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
So you have been nailed by IG artillery behind cover and the rule is stupid and "fun sucking"? right?

Barrage is fine.

This.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
So you have been nailed by IG artillery behind cover and the rule is stupid and "fun sucking"? right?

Barrage is fine.

Ever played against a Thudd Gun before dude? You HAVE to break the rules to resolve that weapon, or have 6 other people handy.

 Krellnus wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
So you have been nailed by IG artillery behind cover and the rule is stupid and "fun sucking"? right?

Barrage is fine.

Ever played against a Thudd Gun before dude? You HAVE to break the rules to resolve that weapon, or have 6 other people handy.

Double FOC Thudd gun spam. It may not win you the game, but it may just get the other guy to ragequit from the amount of time wasted.

What's exactly the issue with the Thudd Gun?

 Valkyrie wrote:
What's exactly the issue with the Thudd Gun?

It's a cheap unit that throws out a large number of barrage blasts and can be squadronned. So you have to roll for scatter, then argue about which unit is closer to the center, then roll for wounds, then roll for armor saves. With 18 of them? This can take freaking forever.

Uh, you do realise that you only scatter with the first template, right? The other templates are just placed adjacent to the first template, in the direction indicated by a scatter die?

Just treat the centre of the first blast as the point of origin, all the barrage is doing is making the template bigger in a funny shape.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, you do realise that you only scatter with the first template, right? The other templates are just placed adjacent to the first template, in the direction indicated by a scatter die?

Just treat the centre of the first blast as the point of origin, all the barrage is doing is making the template bigger in a funny shape.

But you have to resolve which wounds go where as you are pulling from beneath each template not the first (though id pull from the center of the initial blast to speed things up anyway)

 Krellnus wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
So you have been nailed by IG artillery behind cover and the rule is stupid and "fun sucking"? right?

Barrage is fine.

Ever played against a Thudd Gun before dude? You HAVE to break the rules to resolve that weapon, or have 6 other people handy.

Not a common sight considering its status as a Forgeworld model/Imperial Armour unit.

As I said before, barrage is fine. Either play it safe and shoot with LOS or be risky and fire blind. Resolving the template scatter is easy.

My only real gripe with certain barrage weapons is the same I have with certain ordnance weapons: I think very high strength/very low AP large blast weapons should be extremely rare. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for such weapons to have high AP either. For balance purposes they should be fairly middling in both respects, or high strength/high AP or low strength/low AP, for balance purposes. Wiping out entire squads of my poor meganobz isn't fair :/

But to be more on point, if I were to change anything (else) I think it should be harder to score direct hits with indirect firing of barrage weapons. It could be simply so they always scatter, using the directional arrow on the Hit! side as well, except you can then subtract your BS as per direct fire. That way, the only way to score a direct his is by rolling sufficiently low on the dice.

Maybe I've been doing it wrong. Large Blast with deviation. where ever it lands, the next die rolls deviation die. where ever it points flip the large blast in that direction. if there are 3 models from where the second shot landed roll deviation die. again where ever it flips is where it lands. At any point if it deviates off the board that shot and the rest of the shots are lost.

My biggest problem with barrage is being able to shoot with no line of sight, which just seems unfair because you can't shoot back, or do anything in your power to counter fire. Having pseudo-ignore cover is also pretty bad.

I think if you just removed the part where they could shoot without line of sight they would be fine.

 lambsandlions wrote:
My biggest problem with barrage is being able to shoot with no line of sight, which just seems unfair because you can't shoot back, or do anything in your power to counter fire. Having pseudo-ignore cover is also pretty bad.

I think if you just removed the part where they could shoot without line of sight they would be fine.

That's what indirect fire does. Not every army gets barrage, so there's a good side...

If you like hiding behind cover, do you think sonic blasters are unfair, too? You can't hide from every enemy, even if you play Nids.

 Sleg wrote:
Maybe I've been doing it wrong. Large Blast with deviation. where ever it lands, the next die rolls deviation die. where ever it points flip the large blast in that direction. if there are 3 models from where the second shot landed roll deviation die. again where ever it flips is where it lands. At any point if it deviates off the board that shot and the rest of the shots are lost.

You're doing it wrong. You place the first shot, then roll each following shot. If it's a "hit" you place it anywhere you like in contact with at least one previous template, if it scatters you scatter it from the original template. The whole barrage is only lost if the first shot scatters off the table, if you scatter a later shot off the table it just wastes that shot.

And of course you need to work out wound allocation separately from each blast. That's not too bad if you have a pair of Basilisks, but a full 12-shot thudd gun barrage is a nightmare.

- Removed by insaniak -

OP: I play Arty DKok and I think the barrage rule is just fine.

As an IG player, the only problem I have with the barrage rule is that its hard for certain players to understand as its described in the BRB. Seriously, I've actually had to draw pictures for people to get it...

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
>barrage weapons must centre on a model like every other weapon

You already have to.

Really? That isn't how anybody at my club plays and its one of my major gripes with the rule. Got some words for them then. Cheers for pointing that out.

It's honestly fine, sure IG can grind you into the dirt with Barrage but that's pretty much one of their strongest point. I can't fathom why any changes are necessary rather than "I lost to a load of Barrage weapons, it's a suckish rule".

Actually, I ran a test between two 500 point Ork armies. One had Kannons, one had lobbas. The lobbas completely negated all movement in the other army. Without movement IMO, there is no skill.

tgjensen wrote:
My only real gripe with certain barrage weapons is the same I have with certain ordnance weapons: I think very high strength/very low AP large blast weapons should be extremely rare. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for such weapons to have high AP either. For balance purposes they should be fairly middling in both respects, or high strength/high AP or low strength/low AP, for balance purposes. Wiping out entire squads of my poor meganobz isn't fair :/

When I saw the Doomsday Ark I was pretty pissed. It has perfect strength, perfect AP, perfect range, and the largest possible blast template. Literally a 10/10 in *almost* every regard (it can't shoot fliers... guess that balances it geiz)

Maybe I've been doing it wrong. Large Blast with deviation. where ever it lands, the next die rolls deviation die. where ever it points flip the large blast in that direction. if there are 3 models from where the second shot landed roll deviation die. again where ever it flips is where it lands. At any point if it deviates off the board that shot and the rest of the shots are lost.

That *is* wrong. You always deviate from the target of the first shot unless its a special weapon like the Thudd that looks like it resolves differently.

 lambsandlions wrote:
My biggest problem with barrage is being able to shoot with no line of sight, which just seems unfair because you can't shoot back, or do anything in your power to counter fire. Having pseudo-ignore cover is also pretty bad.

I think if you just removed the part where they could shoot without line of sight they would be fine.

Thats my issue exactly. Player 1 has barrage weapons. Player 2 has no ability to influence their usage ~ simply pray that he misses. I think them firing without LoS is fine, as that makes logical sense... but so does needing a 'spotter'

Please would everyone try to discuss the issue without making personal remarks?

 Dakkamite wrote:
The lobbas completely negated all movement in the other army.

Err, how? You shouldn't be failing that many pinning tests unless you're using the wrong loaded dice.

unless its a special weapon like the Thudd that looks like it resolves differently.

Thudd guns are just normal barrage weapons, they don't do anything differently at all. They just require a ton of templates to resolve them properly.

Player 2 has no ability to influence their usage ~ simply pray that he misses.

So we're just going to ignore flyers, outflanking, deep striking, etc, and just pretend that no units have the ability to use special movement options and quickly get around LOS-blocking terrain to deal with artillery? Maybe the problem is with your list, not with barrage weapons.

Barrage is fine imo, plenty of armies have stuff that ignores LOS (Tau have got quite a bit...) It's like complaining that Eldar can use Guide to buff troops with no ability to influence it's usage from player 2.

The 'negated movement' refers to the fact that no matter where I put my Orks on the field, they can be hit. There is no way to conceal oneself from the attack.

The outflanking/deep striking/fliers don't kick in until turn two. By then, you've had your fun, your unavoidable S9+ pie plates or whatever and the army is a smoking ruin.

This is the core of my issue. To stand up to such weapons, I have to build my entire army around it, disregarding the majority of the codex; which ends up being something I don't enjoy using. Between movement becoming less important and my being forced to build my army a certain way to compete, I end up having no fun at all even if I win ~ ergo, I find these weapons to "suck the fun" out of the game.

I don't have to do this for TEQ, MEQ, GEQ, AV 14, Monstrous Creatures... even fliers cause less of a disturbance. I'm pissed that this one category of unit exists that changes the meta so much, the same way lots of people got pissed about the helldrake.

If a unit of lobbas changes your meta so drastically, maybe it's an issue with your meta and a rigid way of thinking in your area rather than an issue with every single barrage weapon ever? Same with anything that drastically changes a meta (and tbh, barrage doesn't do that unless it is taken to ridiculous extremes), that leads to a change in meta, which is a good thing for the game.

 Dakkamite wrote:
The 'negated movement' refers to the fact that no matter where I put my Orks on the field, they can be hit. There is no way to conceal oneself from the attack.

So why don't you take a KFF for defense and use your movement to attack the enemy? Being unable to hide from a single type of weapon doesn't mean that your entire movement phase is negated.

The outflanking/deep striking/fliers don't kick in until turn two. By then, you've had your fun, your unavoidable S9+ pie plates or whatever and the army is a smoking ruin.

If your army is crippled by a single turn of barrage weapons you're just playing a terrible list. Try deploying in area terrain?

I don't have to do this for TEQ, MEQ, GEQ, AV 14, Monstrous Creatures... even fliers cause less of a disturbance.

Of course you have to do it against those target types. Having to take anti-AV 14 isn't any different than having to take a KFF to protect against barrage weapons.

All that advice seems largely geared towards a Green Tide. 5+ cover is great when it applies ten times per shot, but not so great protecting trukks or wagons which rely heavily on LoS and armour frontage to survive on the way to the enermy line.

What I was referring to is "building my whole army around dealing with these weapons", which is something I have to do to handle the threat of multiple massive barrage blasts per turn, but not something I have to do for anything else. Fliers are second, necessitating Lootas which generally would be taken anyway. MEQ ecetera is all stuff that can gain a modest advantage if your not prepared, not something that can table you in a few turns, ergo not something I have to massively tailor my list for.

If a unit of lobbas changes your meta so drastically, maybe it's an issue with your meta and a rigid way of thinking in your area rather than an issue with every single barrage weapon ever?

The lobbas was just in that trial set-up that touched a nerve. The ones that matter more in the meta are all the IG ones that others have mentioned.

Anyway, all this reasonable discussion has made me change my mind about these weapons, and I withdraw my comments about barrage weapons ruining the game. I still dislike them and would really like to see them lowered in strength, but not necessarily *gone*.

Honestly, OP's acting as if he didn't have 2" unit coherency...

The fact is, some weapons are always going to be effective against some army types. Flyer-heavy Elysians are super effective against melee Sisters. Barrage-heavy Guard are super effective against Green Tides.

Actually, lets go back to that. The Orks are the greatest single xeno threat the Imperium deals with on a daily basis. Not because they're the strongest or the most numerous, but because Orks are literally everywhere. There's something like a 50% chance that your first deployment as a Guardsman will be against Orks.

Is it any wonder that almost every army in the game is designed to have lots of options to slaughter massed orks? Bolters are practically dedicated anti-ork. Barrage weapons are the Guard's answer to the Ork problem. Do you know what you need to do to counter barrage? Grab trukks and split your 30-strong boy mobs into 3 10-strong trukk mobs. Same hitting power, more resistant to overwatch and the trukks will waste most of the multiple barrage shots because it doesn't matter if you're throwing five templates or one, you can still only kill a single trukk with them.

 Dakkamite wrote:
All that advice seems largely geared towards a Green Tide. 5+ cover is great when it applies ten times per shot, but not so great protecting trukks or wagons which rely heavily on LoS and armour frontage to survive on the way to the enermy line.

It only applies once per shot, but you only get hit once per shot. And since you're talking about vehicles you have even less to complain about, since your trukks are hard to hide 100% out of LOS (especially if you're positioning them aggressively to get into assault asap, trukk boyz aren't doing much good hiding in the back corner behind a hill) and probably get shot immediately even without barrage weapons. All the barrage weapon really does is ignore directional cover, but your KFF gives you the same save you'd normally have.