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My mates looking at starting AoS and wants to play a heavy artillery army what army would be the best and where would he start
Cheers

Ironweld Arsonal plus either Freeguild or Dispossessed.

You're limited to 4 artillery pieces in a 2000 point army, but neither Steamtanks nor Gyrocopter/bombers count as "artillery".

You will need some battleline units, so either 3x 10 Handgunners or 3x 10 Thunderers seems a good way to meet the theme.

Sweet as cheers

Well those restrictions only apply to "matched play." In theory he can buy and use whatever he wants. Personally i would go with the Order artillery because i like the consistentcy of it. I dont know how much he is looking to spend, but he can get 2 cannons, a cogsmith, and a unit of iron breakers for USD120 and that would be a deceptively strong war party.

If he likes the other Grand Alliances better though it is quite practical for him to get their artillery and defensive units rather than Order. AoS is very open to making whatever you want to play work out. I personally love dwarves so i go there first.

If he does want to focus on matched play the first 1000 pts i would recommend:

Cannon (180)
Organ gun (120)
Cogsmith (100)
Warden king (120)
Longbeards x 2 (280) (battleline)
Thunderers (120)
Runelord (80)

Set that up on some terrain and you have a terrifying little bunker

 Bottle wrote:
You're limited to 4 artillery pieces in a 2000 point army, but neither Steamtanks nor Gyrocopter/bombers count as "artillery".

Pretty sure steam tanks are behemoths, aren't they?

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
You're limited to 4 artillery pieces in a 2000 point army, but neither Steamtanks nor Gyrocopter/bombers count as "artillery".

Pretty sure steam tanks are behemoths, aren't they?

They are.

Similarly, IF this is for matched-play, it should be said that all but one scenario from that part of the Handbook puts you are a pretty severe disadvantage if you bunker up in a corner. Its all degrees of objective-capturing, and a competitive list in that format will either need some Gyrocopters for stealing objectives, or decent blocks of foot-slogging melee units to eventually take/hold the center-line.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
You're limited to 4 artillery pieces in a 2000 point army, but neither Steamtanks nor Gyrocopter/bombers count as "artillery".

Pretty sure steam tanks are behemoths, aren't they?

Yep. So you could have 4 Steam tanks and 4 pieces of Artillery in the same army (although you would struggle to get it under 2000 points lol!)

3 units of 10 Handgunners for themed core tax, one engineer (are they 100 or 80?) and that would leave you around 1600 points to spend on your guns. Maybe 3 Steam Tanks at 900 points and then 2 Hellstorm Rocket Batteries at 360 points and 2 Hellblaster Volley Guns at 240. Fits into 2000 points lol - with 100 points to spare for perhaps an additional engineer.