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I'm in the process of painting up a couple of Thunderfire Cannons for my marine army. I'm looking for suggestions on how best to use them. Deployment? Targets? Synergy? That sort of stuff.

I've heard they're great, just trying to get a little leg up on learning how to use them effectively.

Thanks,
Gits

In Fantasy!? You mad man!

Its barrage so it stacks with other barrage things Coughorbitalbombardmenthackcough

Tremor can be useful, barrage hits on side armor so its ok with st 6.

There are a lot of fun things to do with C:I

Smoke out weaker armor troops that depend on cover with the ignore cover ammo.

stuff like that.

For anyone confused, the thunderfire cannon is a piece in warhammer 40k. Do not panic of new unheard of mystery units in fantasy.

Oh my... I posted this in the wrong forum!

My apologies!

Thunderfirecannon is a 100pt long range barrage spammer. I wouldnt really rely on it taking out vehicles, though S6 hits side 10/11 reasonably well, its not what it should be doing.

Tremoring to cause mobility issues or just spamming against infantry is what it does. For 100pts you get a very durable, very reliable anti-infantry unit. I would fire it at infantry every time since its along the same lines as the Grotzooka - mass of small blasts are always underrated until you cause ~15 wounds with it lol.

Also the whole +1 cover to a piece of terrain is epic. 3+ cover saves for your devastators sitting in a tower? yes please!

+1 to cover saves is REALLY valuable and you should make an army ready to utiltize it with either devastator's or scouts /w camo cloaks or whatever.

Thunderfire cannons are pretty impressive for their points cost. They don't need LOS, they are durable especially in bolstered cover. And WOW do they wreck GEQ.

It will be underwhelming vs a good MEQ player though, it's tough to get more than 1-2 wound a turn with it.

I don't suggest taking more than two, especially with other hot units contesting the heavy slot in SM.

Thanks guys, that helps a lot. Very much appreciate the info. Sounds like I have just the right number to cause a little mayhem!

They can decimate Marines too, from the mountain of dice shoved on them!

As an ork player who regularly faces 2 tfc at a time, yes the are very good at what they do. I would start off any space marine list with 3 tfc and go from there.

Two is enough, an opponent can easily spread 2" and greatly reduce hits caused. You need different threats in your list.
Keep them away from vehicles, except if you have first turn against guard and your enemy thought his manticore is safe out of sight (10 side AV )

Use it to "snipe" characters and special weapons in a unit.
Since all hits are considered to come from the center of the blast, if you place it ontop of the model you hate most and score a hit on the scatter, that model will be the first to take wounds.

I forgot about the sniping thing... thanks for reminding me.

Eh, is that how it works? I thought wounds always originate from the blast center, ie. if it scatters and hits, closest units under that template and not where you originally put the template. Nothing else makes sense.

That is how we play barrage in our group. Did I misunderstand something?

Its supposed to be allocated from the center of each individual blast template. this takes forever (thud guns) so i think A lot of people just fast dice it from the original

Naw wrote:
Eh, is that how it works? I thought wounds always originate from the blast center, ie. if it scatters and hits, closest units under that template and not where you originally put the template. Nothing else makes sense.

That is how we play barrage in our group. Did I misunderstand something?

I do not see a disagreement here..
I wrote " if you score a hit with the scatter die"

I am a crappy reader, it seems

Barrage sniping is something a lot of people forget about because Barrage is so hard to get on a model worth bringing. Most of them outside IG are complete garbage, or are competing for slots with a must-take model and has no room. Some would argue the thunderfire cannon also competes with these must-take models, but the thunderfire is such an awesome boon for such a low cost.....i'd be changing my tactics to open heavy slots lol.

For instance in a worthless one, the only Tau's barrage is a signature weapon that shoots a pi plate at 18". No thanks lol that is bound to fly back into my face, and it isnt even that strong anyway.

Yeah... I can see where that would be less than optimal. Nice to know the Tau don't do *everything* shooty to perfection.

Tau just have no artillery because they want their suits and tanks to fulfill that role. Problem is the suits are usually way too close to be considered artillery and tanks are more of a pref than a good choice. Though i imagine if they gave us a good artillery platform like the thunderfire, omg lol the tau hate would be worse than it already is.