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Hey all,

Just wonder what the general consensus for artillery is? In this case I'm speaking about the Quad Mortar Support Battery in a marine army but can extend to any artillery.

Better to have one unit of three or three units of one?

I'm leaning more towards three units of one as it gives more targets for your opponent and thus spares two of your units if one is being shot at or assaulted (as opposed to all units taking hits from one rival unit).
Plus, you can choose different targets for each weapons battery.

Obviously downside to this is more shots from that rival unit hit your single unit, but beyond that what're the benefits to having a group of three as opposed to three separate units?

My Ork Trukk list has three units of single Lobbas. Ld 5 means they'll run after being hit with a stiff breaze but they do great as out of Line of Sight objective campers. The only thing I miss is having five of them in a single unit which allowed me to buy five ammo runts for rerolls.

At T7 and in cover, they usually absorb many times more points of shooting then they're worth. I've had five man units of SM's drop in to take one out in a maelstrom game only to be immediately destroyed on my next turn. A very favorable exchange IMHO.

I always prefer MSUs for target saturation whenever possible. The only time I bunch things up is when either a buff can only be applied to a limited number of units or if I ran out of slots.

However, if they have Barrage Weapons, it might be better to bunch them up. This is because when you're resolving multiple barrages, they are clustered together. 3 small blast templates clustered together have a higher chance of hitting more stuff than 3 independently scattering blast templates.

At least that's how i understand it. I rarely use barrage weapons due to their rarity outside of forge world and Guard, and the times i do get to use them they aren't multiple barrages.

if you have the slots to do it and the weapons don't get better when there are more in a single unit, I don't real see a downside on multiple single model artillery units.

Seems to follow my thinking that 3 units of one may be better than one unit of three.
Thanks!

With barrage, if a weapon is heavy 4, that means you roll to scatter as normal and the following 3 shots you use the scatter dice alone to place the marker next to (or anywhere over) the initial shot.
But with a unit of 3 (with 4 shots each), would that mean after the first marker is placed, then the following 11 shots are resolved using the scatter dice alone or, for each weapon, you roll for scatter as normal, then the following 3 shots use the scatter dice alone (so basically you do this three times)?

My general strategy is to use multiple small units unless I plan on using something like a blessing or a warlord trait that only affects one unit. Then you might want to stack them together more to maximize effects like rending.

Barrage weapons that can both shoot while out of sight and "walk" their blast marker is better off grouped together such as Lobbas. Artillery that has to show itself (and limited in range), such as Kustom Mega Kannons may find it more prudent to be fielded as single units or babysat by a IC with higher ldr.

It depends on how the units will synergise. I've found that my Wyverns work better together and usually run all three out of sight as a single battery. When it comes to Basilisks, I prefer them to be on their own. That's just personal taste.

I prefer individual units but in larger games restriction sometimes make that impossible. take ork cannons... 18 points gets a T7 3+ armor model with crew shooting a str 8 ap 3 shot at BS4 or str 4 ap5 blast. BS4 hard to beat that, 4 points more than a barebones tac marine

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I prefer individual units but in larger games restriction sometimes make that impossible. take ork cannons... 18 points gets a T7 3+ armor model with crew shooting a str 8 ap 3 shot at BS4 or str 4 ap5 blast. BS4 hard to beat that, 4 points more than a barebones tac marine

BS3 actually, but you're right. The problem is that the cannon is heavy, so the unit isn't very mobile.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I prefer individual units but in larger games restriction sometimes make that impossible. take ork cannons... 18 points gets a T7 3+ armor model with crew shooting a str 8 ap 3 shot at BS4 or str 4 ap5 blast. BS4 hard to beat that, 4 points more than a barebones tac marine

BS3 actually, but you're right. The problem is that the cannon is heavy, so the unit isn't very mobile.

ahh righto, brain fart, hitting on 4's usually I just pop em on an objective or in a good piece of cover if no objectives in deployment. as the game goes on if they are out of 36" range start pushing them to an objective or if kill teams in range of what matters. worse case for 4 more points than a space marine it eats way more fire before disappearing

IG artillery units from FW might be worth using as a unit of 3, to maximize the benefit of orders, and offset their poor leadership.

Thanks for the responses!

Quite a bit to ponder, guess it comes down to quite a few factors than simply what's the most preferred choice.

If it's cheap barrage, i try to add more shots to the squad cause it becomes significantly better the more shots you get. If you don't scatter off too much.
If it's not barrage, the more msu you can afford - the better. But if you have buffs and added characters, you might want to stack numbers anywayz.

I am looking at a similar thing. I have 6 thunderfire cannons.

In my case I assume each cannon will get 2-3 hits per barrage template on a squad. So, 8 to 12 hits for one cannon at either str 5 (no cover) or str 6.

So, using that logic. I want to break my units up into as many MSU as possible. Or three units of 2 cannons each. That way each item they fire at will take 16 to 24 hits vs Two units of three were the squad they hit will take 24 to 36 hits.

Assuming my target is space marines that make half their saves 16 to 24 will most likely kill a marine squad outright.

Youn wrote:
I am looking at a similar thing. I have 6 thunderfire cannons.

In my case I assume each cannon will get 2-3 hits per barrage template on a squad. So, 8 to 12 hits for one cannon at either str 5 (no cover) or str 6.

So, using that logic. I want to break my units up into as many MSU as possible. Or three units of 2 cannons each. That way each item they fire at will take 16 to 24 hits vs Two units of three were the squad they hit will take 24 to 36 hits.

Assuming my target is space marines that make half their saves 16 to 24 will most likely kill a marine squad outright.

thunderfire cannons are great, but they are much more expensive points wise than they should be because of the tech-priest attached. now they are totally worth it and if I played psace marines more often I would have 1 in every heavyt support slot that I could squeeze in.... but compare ti to something like cheap as chips ork or IG artilary as well as more expensive ones like vaul support battery of the elder that get str d blast with crew for 55 points ( for 35 points they can get a warlock to stealth it to if needed)

also in the SM case thunderfire competes with things like grav centurians which are just plain amazing (though 240 points) or a lasboat predator for 140 (or 95 for your heavy bolter sponson auto cannon variety) or if you want points for points a 10 man dev squad w/ 3 hevavy bolters for the same cost. (though I would take TF cannon ver them thought eh devs can take things like lascannons for other targets.

my point is you have to think about a thunderfire vs other armies that get them for less than the cost of a power fist

tfc are super undercosted. 100 pts for a 85 pt techmarine and a 4-shot barrage cannon that makes him t7. And unlike most other artillery, this one's gona kick your butt in mellee. Oh, it also fortifies a piece of terrain further buffing your army cause why not!

The thunderfire cannon may seem overocosted or not exactly amazing only because SM have a lot of overpowered stuff. But for what it does and at that cost the thunderfire cannon is a really good unit.

 koooaei wrote:
tfc are super undercosted. 100 pts for a 85 pt techmarine and a 4-shot barrage cannon that makes him t7. And unlike most other artillery, this one's gona kick your butt in mellee. Oh, it also fortifies a piece of terrain further buffing your army cause why not!

100% agree, it does great, is an amazing unit but my point was more in most other armies I use a single artillery unit to round out points often, 100 points is not really rounding out. it also depends on your army. if you have mass anti infantry and very little anti armor then they are not necessarily an auto include (though to be fair when I run SM I usually run one).