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Agreed on the Terminator issue.

Now Deepstriking Deamons on the other hand.


With the Thunderfire cannon, I never take more then one. That way I am not devoting too much of my army for when I do face armies that the Thunderfire is less useful on.

Mahu: Yeah, I didn't mean the seismic shot on transports--that's a waste of shots. When I saw "deamon and tyranid" I thought you meant assault infantry running across the board that you would want to slow with the seismic shot and I was wondering if that worked.

I'm also a big fan of the "ignore cover" shot on the whirlwind. I'm still not sold on the TFC, though, possibly because my army is all-mech, so I don't really need bolster and the thunderfire cannon is just so much easier to kill than a whirlwind that disregards all str4 and less shooting, isn't auto-killed by a glance (or even by a pen) and can make a run in the late game, if needed, to contest objectives.

I can see where it might have a better role in a mech hybrid army, though.

@Demogerg: If I'm shooting a whirlwind at a unit of terminators, I deserve to lose I wouldn't even bother shooting a TFC at terminators. That's what las/plasma razorbacks are for.

Sanctjud wrote:Who deepstrikes assault terminators with any seriousness?

If it's tactical termies, they should be shooting up the WW or TFC.

It was just an example to show that thunderfires are great against small and large units, whereas the whirlwind is only really good against large units.

I'm also a big fan of the "ignore cover" shot on the whirlwind. I'm still not sold on the TFC, though, possibly because my army is all-mech, so I don't really need bolster and the thunderfire cannon is just so much easier to kill than a whirlwind that disregards all str4 and less shooting, isn't auto-killed by a glance (or even by a pen) and can make a run in the late game, if needed, to contest objectives.

My army is all mech as well. Bolster Defenses can be really handy when you are talking about giving a Land Raider 3+ cover. My area tends to have a few ruins on most tables so I can bank on that about 60% of the time.

I would say that in survivability that the Thunderfire and the Whirlwind is about even in that department. You generally don't have to worry about anti-infantry shooting at the ranges we are dealing with. So their main enemies are autocannons and the like, which can hurt both equally. Besides, the Thunderfire can get 3+ cover most of the time and the whirlwind cannot on it's own. And I think of it this way, can the gun get killed in a round of shooting? Yes. But isn't that the same for a Whirlwind. If a Whirlwind loses a weapon it basically becomes a Rhino with no transport capacity. If the Thunderfire loses it's cannon, I still have a full servo harness Techmarine that can hop down and repair a Land Raider.

I am not dogging on the Whirlwind. I think the Whirlwind wins out in economy of scale. It's an entirely different argument when you are talking about 3 Whirlwinds versus 2 Thunderfire Cannons.

Mahu: Yeah, I didn't mean the seismic shot on transports--that's a waste of shots. When I saw "deamon and tyranid" I thought you meant assault infantry running across the board that you would want to slow with the seismic shot and I was wondering if that worked.

That's never been as appealing. It could be my experience, but the difficult terrain shot is not strong enough to do any damage to foot units, and forcing them to take DT tests are a minimal benefit at best.

Against Deamons and Tyranids, it's all about them taking their "native" saves, as both armies really depend on cover to keep scoring units alive. Another thing is that the Thunderfire's High Strength shot can bypass FNP on Gaunts. Something the Whurlwind cannot do.

@Demogerg:
Yea... but why use a unit that's not seriously used?
The point is great when the supporting elements are strong.

But if you are using a weak support to hold up your point...

IE: should the Tactical Termies whiff taking out the TFC or WW when DSing in, then...blah blah blah.
But of assault termies who would be the only one's to be running? Bleh.

@Mahu:
It's all relative with the terrain thingy.
3+ cover save vs. Blocked Line of Sight...highly dependant on terrain.

As to the weaponless-WW, it's nice to have a unit that can try and tank shock stuff off objectives and such...weaponless is still holding onto it's kill points. Win/win either way.

A lot of people deepstrike Termies, in my experience. I played against two players in the last tournament I was in that used Deep Striking combi-melta Terminators to go after my Land Raider.

If they're going to shoot when they come in, that's even better for your TFC shots if it lives.

@Monster Rain:
Yes, but look at the context.
They ran after DSing in, that would mean it's an Assault Terminator delivered by Deepstriking which is not something used often because it's not a great idea.

CSM termies with combi weapons.
Tactical Termies with hvy weapons.

They will contribute something...they very well may die, but at least they were able to try and do something, maybe even kill said WW or TFC.

The point is a good point, but what I was pointing at was to have supporting elements to the arguement that holds it up better like the CSM termies and Tactical Termies, not Assault Termies with a hoop dream of doing anything via Deepstriking...other than scaring noobs.

Sanctjud wrote:@Monster Rain:
Yes, but look at the context.
They ran after DSing in, that would mean it's an Assault Terminator delivered by Deepstriking which is not something used often because it's not a great idea.

CSM termies with combi weapons.
Tactical Termies with hvy weapons.

They will contribute something...they very well may die, but at least they were able to try and do something, maybe even kill said WW or TFC.

The point is a good point, but what I was pointing at was to have supporting elements to the arguement that holds it up better like the CSM termies and Tactical Termies, not Assault Termies with a hoop dream of doing anything via Deepstriking...other than scaring noobs.

I was not trying to debate the tactics of how to effectively use terminators of any variety, I was merely illustrating the point that a small blast x4 is more effective at stacking wounds on a small unit than a large blast x1.

Here was the list I took second with at a 16 man Tournament:

Vulkan
Librarian w/ Null Zone, Vortex, Terminator Armor
Dreadnought w/ MM,HF,EA
5-man Assault Terminator Squad w/ 1 LC, 4 TH/SS
5-man Assault Terminator Squad w/ 1 LC, 4 TH/SS
10-man Tactical Squad w/ FL, ML, Combi-melta in Rhino
10-man Tactical Squad w/ FL, MM, Combi-melta in Rhino
Land Speader w/ HF,MM
Land Raider Crusader w/ MM, EA
Land Raider Redeemer w/ MM, EA
Thunderfire Cannon

@Demogerg:
Which you did well, but the choice of unit you used wasn't realistic, IMO. It would be alot stronger with more likely conditions/situations used.

@Mahu:
Did you pay for the Storm Shield T Armor? Seems best to combat perils and the dreaded Boxcar tries to instant kill himself Vortex .
Dread: no pod?
Everything else looks decent.

It's an in-your-face army that has alot of priority targets that over shadow the TFC.

The 60" range is a big plus for the TFC's survivability. It can be deployed in spots that prevent large portions of enemy fire from reaching it effectively while still being in range. I've found the subterranean rounds to be effective at slowing Thunderwolves when they are at more marginal charge ranges (18+ inches) away and the most likely targets for a charge are in cover to get an extra round of shooting, but other than that I get alot more utility out of the airburst and regular rounds. Its become a mainstay of my marines armies for its anti-infantry ability.

When the thunderfire works, it really works.
I have had one do the following over various games.

Get an entire fire warrior squad in one round, only to be gunned down by a deep strikking suit command team next turn.

Kill a squad of 14 lootas first turn, and take out snikrot and friends with the help of a 5 man combat squad turn 3.

Shred a unit of 32 hormagaunts over 2 turns.

Place templates all over against a heavy mech army, most everything was rolling difficult to move.

Put 26 wounds on a squad of plague marines with some good rolling, and kill 5. How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting. That thing and 10 tac marines held down an entire flank.

@PanzerLeader:
What's the point in a 60" range weapon when the board is only limited to 4'x6'. For you to make the most of it would open them up for outflanking units to munch them.

@I grappled the shoggoth:

How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting.

An obliterator...at only 75 points.

IMO it seems people in your area bunch up too much.

There's more to it than just the wounds though.

Tremor Rounds may be it's most effective application. All it takes is one hit to keep those Nob(or Space Marine) bikers from Turbo-Boosting.

For me, the Tremor Rounds are the only thing that interests me to use the TFC, the others are just icing on the cake should I need their services.

I feel if you are looking to use ignore cover rounds ONLY, the WW would be a better choice IMO due to the better AP value to really screw over stuff that likes cover as AP5 is pretty far from AP6 IMO.

i think the tremor rounds have an area affect(12"?) for the difficult terrain. not just units that are hit by the rounds

no they don't

@I grappled the shoggoth:

How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting.

An obliterator...at only 75 points.

IMO it seems people in your area bunch up too much.

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:
@I grappled the shoggoth:

How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting.

An obliterator...at only 75 points.

IMO it seems people in your area bunch up too much.

It doesnt matter how much you spread out, when 4 rounds all hit on target its a lot of dead stuff

willydstyle wrote:

I grappled the shoggoth wrote:
@I grappled the shoggoth:

How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting.

An obliterator...at only 75 points.

IMO it seems people in your area bunch up too much.

It doesnt matter how much you spread out, when 4 rounds all hit on target its a lot of dead stuff

If the plague marines are at perfect 2" coherency, if all 4 rounds hit you're only getting 4 hits.

If it's a 7 man squad (which they should be if they are serious with them) there's plenty of space...

Sanctjud wrote:@PanzerLeader:
What's the point in a 60" range weapon when the board is only limited to 4'x6'. For you to make the most of it would open them up for outflanking units to munch them.

@I grappled the shoggoth:

How many 100 point units can take out 5 plague marines with one turn of shooting.

An obliterator...at only 75 points.

IMO it seems people in your area bunch up too much.

First, you always play the opponent and the table. So an opponent with no outflankers makes the 60" range more easy to exploit. Second, the long range enables you shield the TFC from some of the enemys long range firepower depending on the deployment type. Spearhead is a particularly good example. There are usually lots of places to shield it from 36" and 48" range weapons when you play more of the 6' depth.

As for the Ignore Cover rounds, the Thunderfire has an extra pip of strength over the whirlwind, so its airburst rounds wound orcs on 3s and gaunts and DE on 2s and still take away all saves. Tau would receive a 4+ save either way. IG and Eldar generally get a 5+ save, but I'd rather have the extra wounds and hits from the TFC.

To me, the thunderfire is very much a metagame element, and discussing its strengths without the metagame component is pretty silly. I know many have touched on the subject, so I wont try to repost everything.

Basicly, the thunderfire on its own is very poor, thanks to its low survivability and low damage to many vehicle types. The poor tech marine repair rules dont help (the tech marine still needs to have not moved to use his ability, correct?).

So, since as far as I know the biggest metagames are all mech oriented, the thunderfire is a poor metagame choice as you have 100 points that are not efficiently used. However, if your army needs to metagame for some other opponents, then the thunderfire starts looking better.

Nids are the most recent book, and most (if not all) nid lists ive heard of on the interwebz make us of tervigons and or lots of gants. Also, the bane of the thunderfire, long ranged shooting, is at a high premium in the nid book, making the thunderfire quite a bit tougher to kill. So, versus nids, the thunderfire is good.

Before nids was space wolves. Wolves have ranged shots, mech, and long range attack options like scouts and drop pods. So thunderfire is poor.

Then it was IG. As a guestimate, only 25% of guard armies contain blobs of infantry, so mostly the thunderfire will be bad.

Versus Marines/DA/BA/BT/Daemonhunters/Witchhunters its bad, versus Daemons its mostly good, versus orks its mostly good, chaos its bad, eldar its bad, tau its bad, necrons its bad, and dark eldar is actually pretty good at downing those raiders at long range.

So I suppose its 4 good out of 16, or roughly 25% of the game matchups. In 75% of the games, you would probably be better served with 100 points in other units. In a 3 game tourney, you have about a 50/50 shot of the thunderfire being good in one of the 3 games. So by my guestimates, the thunderfire needs to kill ~300 points of stuff in the games where its a good metagame to break even. Thats up to 60 gants, 50 orks, or 20 lootas... a feasable task depending on your opponent.

As an aside, if your SM army already has tools to take out gobs of infantry, then the thunderfire is too redundant IMHO to be useful. So in vulkan lists with lots of mobile flamers, id stay away.

So in summary, my ghetto metagame math shows that the thunderfire can break you even in about half the 3 game tournies you take it to, meaning its not a bad choice if you dont have anti-horde weapons.

Right I forgot that the airburst shot is only AP6. So for denying cover saves, that makes the whirlwind better in many cases:

For each hit on a model in cover
Airburst kills .66 orks, incendiary kills .5 orks
Airburst kills .84 gants, incendiary kills .66 gants

Those are the cases where the Tfire is definitely better, where the direct shot is available and the 6+ save models are in cover. But check this out.

If the orks are not in area terrain (or KFF) then the kill number goes up to .66 orks and .84 gants with an *indirect* castellan shot, matching the thunderfire's wounds. Plus a pin check at -1

Surface detonation (because why would you shoot airburst at a guardsman in cover) kills .42 guardsmen, or .28 if they go to ground
Incendiary kills .66 guardsmen in cover, even if they go to ground, or .84 guardsmen if they're not in area terrain, plus a pin check at -1.

Surface detonation kills .42 Tau fire warriors (or ISTs or vets with carapace armor)
Castellan shot kills .42 Tau if they're in area terrain, or .84 Tau if they're not, plus a pin check at -1

So overall--for a weapon that's wanting to overcome cover saves--the whirlwind edges out the Tfire I think in most situations.

The thunderfire will always do better against 3+ save targets, and there's the range to consider, and the fact that the artillery can't be shaken/stunned and it's an open question whether a large blast or four small blasts gets more hits. But I think it's also important to factor in the barrage shot when thinking about cover saves.

You shoot airburst at a Guardsman in cover because it's statistically better and has no disadvantages?

Airburst rounds have the same hit rate and same 2+ to wound as surface detonations, except now the Guardsmen get a 5+ save instead of a 4+ or 3+ save. Airburst will kill 0.56 Guardsmen in cover per hit-- still not quite as good as the Whirlwind, especially if you can use the Vengeance missiles to deny the target's cover, but nonetheless quite effective. I've found that the Whirlwind is better than the Thunderfire Cannon against Guardsmen, but the Thunderfire Cannon is better against basically everyone else. Theoretically speaking, the Whirlwind is also better against some Eldar units, but the units in question are rarely run on foot and the Thunderfire Cannon makes up for it by being really, really mean to bikers.

The one exception to the above is against Heavy Weapon Squads, and in rare cases Company HQs, in which case you generally want to fire surface detonations in order to inflict Instant Death, cover or no cover. Strangely, this means that the Thunderfire is often actually better than the Whirlwind, especially against Heavy Weapon Squads.

The TFC is infinitely better than a WW against Guardsmen that are more than 48 Inches away.

Monster Rain wrote:The TFC is infinitely better than a WW against Guardsmen that are more than 48 Inches away.

Yes, and the whirlwind is infinitely better against targets that you have no LoS to

Sounding more and more like a matter of personal preference and army synergy, although I am persuaded by the point about heavy weapon squads and I see the sense of shooting airburst shots at T3 single-wound targets to force them to use their armor saves.

[edit] and, to be fair, the effective range of a whirlwind is actually 54", since you can move & shoot the direct shot. So only 6" short of the range of the TFC.

I've killed scores of Guardsmen in cover with the Airburst. I never took the time to mathhammer it out but I'm glad someone did. In a Capture and Control mission on a Spearhead deployment the TFC can be your best friend.

I know the thunderfire is a glass cannon, but I have found it to very useful. Not ideal but vs tau its sacrifice allows my rhinos to get one turn closer. I tend to use 2 ironclads in pods along with it, which gives the opponent something else to worry about 1st. It is hard for me not to take it when I play my orky friend.

I have had it get one round of shooting vs blood angels and still kill its points, once 30 shottas deep-struck with a warphead next to it, one volley later only the warphead remained. If I can manage to pop a transport with something (usually LS typhoons) and then get a shot off with the cannon, it tends to be easy killpoints.