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've been looking at the Vaul's support battery and like most, loved the idea of a D-cannon. But what I had also thought was taking a warlock with them. This is so I can still push it forward and take the hits with shrouded bonuses. I didn't really want to be taking more than 2 if they were D-cannons but after doing a bit of research the shadow weavers are seeming like a choice that rivals it purely because of value in points.

I wanted to take them as a Null reserve bunker but also to act as my heavy weapon and I feel it may not be able to achieve both that effectively,

ie 1) getting shot off turn one for deploying too close.
or 2) spending the rest of the game running up into range because you wanted to deploy out of LOS

Does any one have any thoughts on the matter?

1) In my experience, apart from other Eldar armies, not many things are going to be shooting a support battery off the table, T7 W2 3+ is suprisingly resilient in practise. Assault is where they suffer.

2) I love shadow weavers, although they are only small blast, three of them are cheap as chips and with 48" range they can usually cover the entire board if you are deploying them fairly far up from the start. Although they aren't as outright killy as D-Cannons, they will hurt most things they hit other than high AV vehicles.

I've used Warlocks with them before and I didn't find them that much more survivable as they will get their armour save against most shots. The only protection it really offers is against massed anti-tank fire, so if you have a lot of that in your meta, then it might be worth it, but unless you are running footdar, they are likely to have better things to be shoting at anyway for most of the game.

My main opponents are Tau (str 5 weapons at least) and necrons (always wounding on 6's) and i know that both will need 6's to wound but it still will receive a large punishment if put up front. Is there any way to move it up the field quick? Can they embark on a transport?

No they can't be transported, so they can only really walk up at 6" per turn at which point I'm pretty sure they can't shoot the guns, only the shuriken catapults on the crew.

Off the top of my head, the only ways you're going to get them up in your opponents face are either expensive or down to luck.
Rolling a Warlord trait with Scout/Infiltrate
Attaching a Sanctic Farseer to the unit who rolled Gate of Infinity (or attaching a warlock and hoping for the 1/6 chance)
Attaching Karandras/Illic to grant Infiltrate (and it's conferred to a unit if he starts the game with them)
Taking Eldrad for the D3 Scouting units Warlord Trait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although, that said, If you're going to spend 150 points on 3 D-Cannon platforms, another 200 for Karandras is actually a hilarious option.
2+ Eternal warrior in a majority T7 unit to take the hits to the face, he grants stealth and until they shoot his exarch power also grants shrouded if they infiltrated and he will basically kick the snot out of whatever tries to assault the unit to shift it....

For a while I have been playing around with Eldrad in a unit of 3 D cannons w/ shroud warlock scouting forward into center of the board cover (near the center objective). This unit is actually really good as it does several things extremely well.

*This unit provides excellent board control. Pretty much anything that CWE is not ridiculously good at is weak against 3 D small blasts with possible TL and ignore cover. Thus against most armies you end up with essentially a 24" no entry zone.
*You can pull off null reserves with this unit to some degree. There are better ways to accomplish null reserves with CWE that are better than this. However this unit is a good unit in it's own right and can accomplish most of the major points a wraithknight would accomplish in a CWE list.
*The biggest benefit for this unit is that it often ends up with T7 2+ cover save and can even be out of LoS of the opponent's shooting without many negative consequences. This makes a very good bunker for a psyker to pass out buffs to the rest of your army. Thus you can put a farseer or Eldrad and throw out prescience or invisibility on most of your units. Interestingly this unit actually matches up rather well with just about any CWE list.

Another great use for Vaul's Wrath batteries is single shadow weaver units. They are extremely cheap, do consistent damage, have high range and barrage (thus are extremely easy to keep alive) as such they make perhaps the best null deployment unit in the CWE codex. If you deploy 2-3 separate units of these out of LoS and in cover it will take a huge amount of luck for any list to shoot your off the board. Perhaps the only other unit that is as good for null deployment lists is warp spiders placed near small buildings as they can jump out of LoS of anything shooting them and are more flexible if you decide not to null deploy.

 vorrax-ghul wrote:
I've been looking at the Vaul's support battery and like most, loved the idea of a D-cannon. But what I had also thought was taking a warlock with them. This is so I can still push it forward and take the hits with shrouded bonuses. I didn't really want to be taking more than 2 if they were D-cannons but after doing a bit of research the shadow weavers are seeming like a choice that rivals it purely because of value in points.

I wanted to take them as a Null reserve bunker but also to act as my heavy weapon and I feel it may not be able to achieve both that effectively,

ie 1) getting shot off turn one for deploying too close.
or 2) spending the rest of the game running up into range because you wanted to deploy out of LOS

Does any one have any thoughts on the matter?

I use 3 D-Cannons. Unless the enemy is assaulty and about to get into my business, I shove the D-Cannon forward i nturn one and let the tough 7 Guardians take hits for them. I intersperse the Guardians so that you kill one Guardian, then have to get through the Gun and its 3+ saves, then the second Tough 7 guardian and so on. Now given the makeup up most Eldar armies, its unlikely they will be free to dedicate enough firepower to kill the unit easily or at all. They might. Never say never. But...

On the other hand if the enemy is assaulty and WILL be up in my bizness, then I lay back and bomb the piss out of them. Those D-Cannons are as hard core as it gets. My army has three D-Cannons and two Hemlocks. Just in case someone felt sparky with bringing their Wraith Knights to the party. Even a Wraith Knights gun is going to do nothing but kill one of its Guardians with shooting if it can shoot. So... there's that. And then the bombing.

Vauls Wrath are pretty under used and awefully scary. I took out four Grotesques in one go with that battery and then when the second unit got tangled up in melee, I waited til they were done goring my dudes and then bombed them too. Multiwouund models dont in fact like D-Cannons. Nothing does. Like nothing.

So if you want to send a shock through someones system, fire those babies for a couple turns. Respect in a can.

I've been thinking about a CWE firebase.

Void Shield Generator.
Max out Vaul's Wrath Batteries.
Take rangers for troops.

Sit back and enjoy.

Thoughts?

 Otto Weston wrote:
I've been thinking about a CWE firebase.

Void Shield Generator.
Max out Vaul's Wrath Batteries.
Take rangers for troops.

Sit back and enjoy.

Thoughts?

My suggestion for that would be war walkers, because you want to stay in the bubble d-cannons lack the range of shadow weavers and shadow weavers lack the punch. So you need something that gives that punch. Rangers I really like but I don't know how good they are I only ever run one squad and usually it's an objective holding troop tax but if there were enough I think they would be quite effective.
Definitely would want farseer guide buffs. Take the primaris power from divination and runes of fate for double guide then maybe another divination would be what I'd do. Or two farseers one for each table. Just a few ideas though


After hearing the way D-cannons get used they seem to make a bubble rather than wreckage, I wanted to have them hit the heavy problems my army faced mainly vehicles but not sure that's their role. But fact is I can't help but love Vaul's support batteries, maybe a V-cannon is where it's at long range potentially hitting strong 9 ap 2 with a full battery, it would definitely need a farseer but it's do able maybe. Really I should be looking at something else for tank killing but I want it to be less all the best and more getting the best from my favourites.

More stories and ideas are welcome. Even just more ideas on how to use them.

To be fair, maxing out VW Batteries and taking rangers for troops will leave you plenty of points left!
1 Farseer, + 2x5 Rangers, +3x3 D-Cannon VW Batteries is only 715pts, if you're talking about Shadow Weavers, then it's only 490 base. Plenty of room for a VSG and still pretty much an entire army in there....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
D-Cannons put out a lot of hurt if stuff comes within 24", but generally most people won't risk it more than once before deciding how to kill them as they quickly learn how nasty they can be.

Even back in 4th/5th before they got improved I used to run a set of 3 Shadow Weavers lurking up the back and a set of 3 D-Cannons up the front. They weren't as survivable back then, but they still put a reasonable amount of hurt out there for a relatively low price and the D-cannons always end up getting focussed on as they are a massive threat, freeing up the rest of your army to move around a capture objectives and kill the stuff that is tied up with the still pretty cheap unit of artillery.

They are t 7 so even when an enemy WISHES to kill them, doing so can be another matter. And the wisdom of ignoring other elements will be entirely dependent on what else is in the force