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Now that Codex: Inquisition has dropped, we all have a fantastic mechanism for improving the accuracy of our pie plates. Whether it's servo skulls reducing scatter to 1d6 or Inquisitors with Prescience letting you reroll the scatter dice, we can get those artillery barrages where we want them pretty reliably. But if you're only firing a single blast, you're still restricted by the requirement to center your templates over a single model. Often, precise placement would allow you to hit more models -- particularly with small blast markers. This brings me to the Imperial Guard Field Artillery (Imperial Armour One: Second Edition, Page 198).

This unit contains 1-3 artillery pieces. Each piece is T7 W2 3+ and comes with three crewmen. A pair will cost the same as a Thunderfire Cannon. It can be armed either with a Heavy Mortar (S6 AP4 Barrage 5"-Blast Ordnance 1) or a Heavy Quad Launcher (S5 AP5 Barrage 3"-Blast Heavy 4). For the cost and durability of the unit, these are both good profiles. But like the elements of any good combination, they're better together. This is because of the Barrage rules.

BRB wrote:If a unit fires more than one shot with the Barrage special rule, they fire together, as follows: The barrage weapon closest to the target fires first. Place the blast marker over the target, then roll for scatter as described earlier.Once the first marker is placed, roll a scatter dice for each other Barrage weapon shot fired by the unit. If an arrow is rolled, place the marker so that it is next to and touching the edge of the first marker. If a Hit! is rolled, the firing player places the marker so that it touches any part of any marker in the group that has already been placed. Note that it is perfectly fine if some markers are placed overlapping one another (including being placed directly over the top of a previous marker).

To make this work, we place the Heavy Mortar in front of the Quad Launcher and the Inquisitor casts prescience. We then get a twin-linked Heavy Mortar...basically a Griffon on an artillery platform. The Quad Launcher fires next. If it gets a hit (and with Prescience, this happens 55% of the time), you can then place the blast marker anywhere you like in the Heavy Mortar's area of effect. Even against units at maximum coherency, this lets you get two hits per marker. And if the scatter die does miss twice in a row, only the first Quad Launcher shot is placed outside the radius of the Heavy Mortar shot. Don't forget to roll for pinning (at -1 Leadership) and look for opportunities to barrage snipe!

You can even include two Quad Launchers in this unit. With the inquisitor, you now have a 205 point unit that gives you a Large Blast firing zone, followed up by 8 smaller blast markers. The lead mortar only has 2 wounds, but the unit is T7 and has 6 extra guardsmen you can throw in front to act as ablative wounds. Ld10 Stubbrn should keep them on the table, too. And since all of the quad launcher's shots are fired as part of a barrage, you lose almost nothing by giving up line of sight. If you're concerned about cover, you can even use a CCS for "Fire On My Target" to force the enemy to reroll cover saves. It's not as good as ignoring them outright, but you're getting lot more hits.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
It now occurs to me that determining the results for 9 rerollable barrage blasts could take a while, especially since wound allocation has to be tracked individually for each blast marker. Think carefully before taking this to a tournament where time is a factor. If you do, practice the routine until it becomes an artform. If you're lucky, you might be able to get through more than two shooting phases...

All the more reason to keep FW out of normal games.

What was the question? Is divination good?

Off-topic Reply
I posted a combination of units that work well together. They take up only a single force organization slot, and offer very effective anti-horde firepower for a reasonable price. I thought others might consider the combination clever, and was inviting them to think up places where they could use it in their own lists or variations that might be more effective, even circumstantially.

Since you don't like the unit, you could offer suggestions on how to counter it. Like any other piece of artillery, it's exceedingly vulnerable in assault. Come up with some good assault threats to remove it efficiently. I can think of several possibilities.

Whether you like it or not, Forgeworld units are a legitimate topic of discussion for the Tactics Forum. But the question of whether or not people should play with them is not relevant to my topic. Please keep those comments to yourself (or at the very least, in threads created to discuss that topic). If you cannot, then the rest is up to the moderators.

On-topic
The biggest problem I see with this unit is that it's competing with the other artillery carriages. Earthshaker cannons and Medusa siege guns are priced so competitively that it's difficult to take the FOC slot, Inquisitor and 200 points away from them.

Do you guys feel that it's a worthwhile sacrifice, given the benefits I've listed?

I feel those artillery carriages would be a bit more fun with a psycho inquisitor It should be nearly the same amount of damage while being further able to threaten vehicles and BS 10 against pysker squads which is funny.

Get lucky on the inquisition warlord table and he can also contribute a orbital bombardment for kicks.

This would be a great answer to grimoire heralds. I would probably go with coteaz so you can pound DS within 12".

This combination only works with a Ld10 IC or Lord Commissar to buff the leadership. If you field IG artillery without morale buffing then they tend to run and destroy the guns. Adding the Inquisitor to the squad does this and adds a source of prescience.

If you get the relics on your Inquisitor you can also split fire the inquisitor and scout, etc. Some of these rules could be useful for this unit and if you take some sabres, etc. nearby you can jump the Inquisitor around.

If you are methodical and place markers at the blast center you can considerably speed the process up. I would definitely not take more than 1 of these units though as they always take a lot of time to resolve.

 Desubot wrote:
I feel those artillery carriages would be a bit more fun with a psycho inquisitor It should be nearly the same amount of damage while being further able to threaten vehicles and BS 10 against pysker squads which is funny.

Get lucky on the inquisition warlord table and he can also contribute a orbital bombardment for kicks.

Are you talking about an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor with a psyocculum? Other than making the Heavy Mortar BS10 for the first shot, what does the psyocculum contribute? A high BS score only helps the first shot of a barrage.

You're right, though: the Orbital Bombardment rule is a fantastic warlord trait. I'm just not sure how the orbital rule works when fired as anything but the first shot of a barrage. I suppose it would miss no matter what you rolled on the scatter die, but would still be placed adjacent to the last blast marker. If that's the case, that's certainly a good way to deliver it reliably. Nice catch!

 ansacs wrote:
This would be a great answer to grimoire heralds. I would probably go with coteaz so you can pound DS within 12".

This combination only works with a Ld10 IC or Lord Commissar to buff the leadership. If you field IG artillery without morale buffing then they tend to run and destroy the guns. Adding the Inquisitor to the squad does this and adds a source of prescience.

If you get the relics on your Inquisitor you can also split fire the inquisitor and scout, etc. Some of these rules could be useful for this unit and if you take some sabres, etc. nearby you can jump the Inquisitor around.

If you are methodical and place markers at the blast center you can considerably speed the process up. I would definitely not take more than 1 of these units though as they always take a lot of time to resolve.

Unfortunately, the S5 blasts are not strong enough to ID the grimoire herald. Just short of the S6 necessary! If the enemy doesn't have their 2+ invuln active, you might be able to pull it off anyway. I'd probably choose another target if any were available, though.

I don't think the Liber Heresius adds anything particularly useful to this unit. Scout is nice, but probably not worth 15 points. The rest of the abilities aren't going to provide any meaningful improvement. Split Fire would be actively counter-productive if you used it on anyone but the inquisitor. Neither of the other relics seem to do much, either.

And I certainly would not take more than one of these, even if speedy play wasn't a concern. It does a nice job against infantry, but I've got other threats to worry about.

The grimoire bearer does NOT benefit from the grimoire...so just stacking wounds on a grimoire herald is the way to go.

I was thinking more of if you bring more artillery he can jump around and benefit. You could also bring an actual weapon on the Inq and split fire him.

We definitely agree. I was just pointing it out as you could bring 2 of these with ease...and then take hours to resolve shooting.

Oh, excellent. You still have to get through the 2+ Look Out, Sir and 4+ invuln, though. But it's definitely doable!

As for Coteaz, I think I'm more inclined to stick him in my Medusa unit. There's nothing quite as satisfying as being able to drop an S10 AP2 pie plate on the enemy's drop pod [/b]and[/b] the squad hopping out of it!

Fair enough. I personally like to stack coteaz + Psyocculam Inq into that same unit. BS 10 on Large blast is pretty awesome and they can prescience just fine from this unit.

BTW the orbital relay is not barrage so it fires like a normal blast attack.

sucks that orbital relay is not a barrage.

But the burner of worlds warlord trait is.
Stack that with a allied SM chapter master for another st 10 ap 1 large blast from across the map

Right. So if the Burner of Worlds trait is barrage, what happens when you fire it as part of a multi-shot barrage? Does it work like any normal large blast? Or would you always scatter, but ignore the part about rolling 2d6/3d6?

I think you would just roll the scatter die and flip the pie plate adjacent to the last blast...Wow, that got a lot more lethal!

I feel that in an artillery-centric army, giving a single HS slot to a field artillery battery is worth it, particularly if you can stuff high-strength weaponry into other FOC slots like Sabre turrets in Troops and fliers in Fast Attack. Though I'm a bit more skeptical about the Medusa carriage due to lack of barrage, all of the field artillery and heavy gun carriage options are so cheap that squadroning them up is desirable.

If you still need armour, there's always the ABG from the same book that you can ally in if you want a few (awesome) tanks or something like that.

EDIT: It occurs to me that there's also the option of allying in a Krieg list for extra artillery. The Siege list has field artillery batteries in Elites and heavy artillery batteries in Heavy Support.

If only we had a Colossus artillery piece. *Sigh!*

Wouldn't it be incredible if all the artillery options were heavy artillery carriage options as well.

BTW I still haven't figured out how my medusa could possibly direct fire as the gun cannot go below ~30 degree angle...do you think they prop the support up on something?

Medusa-on-a-chimera or Medusa-on-an-artillery platform? Because if it's artillery, you can fire at any angle you like. They don't have firing arcs.

Medusa artillery carriage. Game wise sure there are not firing angles but model wise it is not possible to direct fire the dang thing. The gun was very obviously sculpted to be a barrage style weapon (and was until recently). The chimera chassis artillery can all lie the gun nearly flat but the heavy artillery carriages cannot.

I wish fw could cost these artillery pieces fairly. At the moment, they are simply way too good, and of course, the usual reaction to that is a serious nerf. I want to use them without feeling abusive or like Im playing with one arm on my back

ansacs wrote:Medusa artillery carriage. Game wise sure there are not firing angles but model wise it is not possible to direct fire the dang thing. The gun was very obviously sculpted to be a barrage style weapon (and was until recently). The chimera chassis artillery can all lie the gun nearly flat but the heavy artillery carriages cannot.

It's not a vehicle. Firing arcs aren't a concern. So long as you can draw a straight line from the barrel to the target, you can fire at it. We don't test firing arcs for infantry, and we don't do it for artillery.

 Illumini wrote:
I wish fw could cost these artillery pieces fairly. At the moment, they are simply way too good, and of course, the usual reaction to that is a serious nerf. I want to use them without feeling abusive or like Im playing with one arm on my back

I think Forgeworld and Games Workshop price their blast markers differently. Experienced players know the value of model displacement, and will always maintain at least 1" distance between their models against any opponent with significant blast or template presence. Forgeworld markets to a more experienced niche of the hobby, and they know that their models will need lower point costs if they're going to be competitive in that environment.

Lol, that is an optimistic view of the capabilities of fw rules writers. Artillery got a giant buff this edition, and the fw pieces have not increased in pts to take this into consideration, with the effect being that they are overpowered. Your very own good tactic pretty much removes spacing as a defense, and s10 ap2 guns for 100? pts is insane.

Space Wolves get a Vindicator for 115 points. It is also Str 10 AP2. Not all that different.

As I said -- I think Forgeworld writers value blast templates less. The artillery buff is certainly a factor, but they've updated those same units without changing their point costs. Imperial Armour One, Second Edition was published well after 6th edition came out. If they had wanted to change them, they would have.

If you want more evidence for how Forgeworld looks at blasts, take a look at the R'Varna Riptide. It's not official yet, but...eesh.

 Illumini wrote:
Lol, that is an optimistic view of the capabilities of fw rules writers. Artillery got a giant buff this edition, and the fw pieces have not increased in pts to take this into consideration, with the effect being that they are overpowered.

Don't forget that in 5th these units were mediocre at best and usually only taken in a "fluff" DKoK list. So the fact that they got better without a point increase doesn't automatically make them overpowered.

Your very own good tactic pretty much removes spacing as a defense

Not really. The tactic in the OP certainly makes the guns more accurate, but it doesn't get more models under each template. If you space out at the maximum 2" you're going to put a pretty strict limit on how many hits you suffer, even with a direct hit on every shot. Add in area terrain and the actual result of a blast weapon is much less impressive than the initial reactions a lot of people have, which seem to be based on the assumption that every target is bunched up in perfect blast formation. It might be a good assumption in the case of newbies with battleforce armies, but you can't balance the game around bad tactics.

and s10 ap2 guns for 100? pts is insane.

Don't forget that those guns are limited to 36" range and completely immobile, compared to 135 points for the same gun on a Chimera hull. Those 35 points you save don't seem like such a good deal when you're stuck in the back of your deployment zone (to keep them alive longer) and you can't move around cover to get a better shot or move up 18" to get into range for a shot next turn. The problem with artillery units is the giant blob of T7 meatshields surrounding them, not their firepower per point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Corollax wrote:
If you want more evidence for how Forgeworld looks at blasts, take a look at the R'Varna Riptide. It's not official yet, but...eesh.

To be fair to FW, the R'varna is in the same situation as the IG flyers relative to the Vendetta. The basic Riptide is so blatantly overpowered that anything that isn't equally overpowered is never going to take its place, so everything with a vaguely similar role in the Tau army is now going to be overpowered just to get a chance of seeing the table this edition.

Hi Peregrine. Welcome to the thread.

 Peregrine wrote:
Not really. The tactic in the OP certainly makes the guns more accurate, but it doesn't get more models under each template. If you space out at the maximum 2" you're going to put a pretty strict limit on how many hits you suffer, even with a direct hit on every shot. Add in area terrain and the actual result of a blast weapon is much less impressive than the initial reactions a lot of people have, which seem to be based on the assumption that every target is bunched up in perfect blast formation. It might be a good assumption in the case of newbies with battleforce armies, but you can't balance the game around bad tactics.

Why doesn't it get more models underneath the template? When you fire a small blast normally, you have to center the blast marker over the target, and the resulting blast only reaches 1" beyond the edge of the model's base. With this technique, you can place the center of the blast marker between two models, allowing the marker to touch them both. So long as the intervening space is covered by one of your prior blast markers (probably the Heavy Mortar), shouldn't you be able to claim at least 2 hits per "Hit!" roll on the scatter die?

Peregrine wrote:Don't forget that those guns are limited to 36" range and completely immobile, compared to 135 points for the same gun on a Chimera hull. Those 35 points you save don't seem like such a good deal when you're stuck in the back of your deployment zone (to keep them alive longer) and you can't move around cover to get a better shot or move up 18" to get into range for a shot next turn. The problem with artillery units is the giant blob of T7 meatshields surrounding them, not their firepower per point.

A good point. I'm actually considering leaving the S10 pie plates to my Thunderer, rather than trying to fit it into Heavy Support. Artillery units benefit a lot from the Barrage rule.

Peregrine wrote:To be fair to FW, the R'varna is in the same situation as the IG flyers relative to the Vendetta. The basic Riptide is so blatantly overpowered that anything that isn't equally overpowered is never going to take its place, so everything with a vaguely similar role in the Tau army is now going to be overpowered just to get a chance of seeing the table this edition.

True. Maybe my theory on the blast template pricing isn't so spot on then. Oh well.

Corollax wrote:
Why doesn't it get more models underneath the template? When you fire a small blast normally, you have to center the blast marker over the target, and the resulting blast only reaches 1" beyond the edge of the model's base. With this technique, you can place the center of the blast marker between two models, allowing the marker to touch them both. So long as the intervening space is covered by one of your prior blast markers (probably the Heavy Mortar), shouldn't you be able to claim at least 2 hits per "Hit!" roll on the scatter die?

You can do this already. Remember, a "hit" result on shots after the first just has to touch a previous shot, not overlap it entirely or be centered over a model. So if you get a direct hit on model A with your first shot, and then another direct hit you will be able to hit A and adjacent model B. Having a full 5" blast to work with does help (especially if the first shot scatters a bit), but you probably aren't going to go from 2-3 models per hit to the 10+ per hit that some people seem to think blast weapons automatically get. So the quoted comment that your tactic "removes spacing as a defense" is pretty silly.

Ah. So you're suggesting that this technique is already pretty usable even without the Heavy Mortar present. Gotcha.

Edit: Should I just leave the heavy mortar out of this unit entirely, then?

Corollax wrote:
Ah. So you're suggesting that this technique is already pretty usable even without the Heavy Mortar present. Gotcha.

Either way. The heavy mortar certainly doesn't hurt, and a 5" blast makes it more likely that the following shots will be able to find a good spot, but divination on a battery of 3x thudd guns is also a pretty good plan. You're pretty much trading a bit of firepower from "downgrading" a thudd gun to a heavy mortar to increase the chance of your other two thudd guns getting to hit three models per "hit" result instead of just two and increase your tolerance for scatter on the first shot. It probably comes down to personal preference in the end.

TBH though I'd just put the divination psyker in an earthshaker battery since I hate dealing with all the templates of a proper thudd gun battery. The extra effectiveness over the earthshakers against some targets just isn't worth it to me.