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Solar auxilia LRBT battle cannon: H1 S8 AP4 3" blast, pinning

Solar auxilia LRBT twin lascannon, for the same price: H4 S9 AP2, sunder

Is there some unwritten rule in 30k that you're a WAAC TFG if you space out your models to minimize blast weapon hits? Does GW not know how few hits 3" blasts get in normal circumstances and balance them based on that one time they packed everything into base contact and lost a whole unit to a single plasma cannon? Or am I missing something here? Because to me it seems like 99% of the time the four lascannon shots are going to do more damage than a 3" blast that will usually only hit one model and allows armor saves against the vast majority of targets. And if I'm accurate in this analysis WTF is the point of "bringing back templates" only to make them all so terrible that nobody uses them?

Blast weapons have a chance to scatter and hit something else on a miss, on the TL cannon, if you miss, you miss.

Also pinning can be very good, if minor vs some armies/units and also not always be in the perfectly spaced 2" apart due to terrain, or being bunched up after combat/ other weird and wacky situations.


Also as an IW player just shelling the battlefield with endless blasts and watching them scatter to me is endless fun!

The battlecannon currently is bad at everything. It's stats are utterly nonsensical to the point that autocannons are more dangerous weapons even though they are a lot smaller.

I love area of affect weapons for the tactile joy of resolving them but they do tend to be overcosted.

They bungled Battle Cannons. Yes, Pinning is both useful and important, but a Battle Cannon should be more than a trumped up Frag grenade launcher. They should have given it Breaching, or something else that let's it threaten heavy infantry.

I also think that they screwed up the Vanquisher Cannon. Sure, it's actually pretty good, but it should have Armourbane. How do you not give Armourbane to the gun that had Armourbane before Armourbane was ever a USR?

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Solar auxilia LRBT battle cannon: H1 S8 AP4 3" blast, pinning

Solar auxilia LRBT twin lascannon, for the same price: H4 S9 AP2, sunder

Is there some unwritten rule in 30k that you're a WAAC TFG if you space out your models to minimize blast weapon hits? Does GW not know how few hits 3" blasts get in normal circumstances and balance them based on that one time they packed everything into base contact and lost a whole unit to a single plasma cannon? Or am I missing something here? Because to me it seems like 99% of the time the four lascannon shots are going to do more damage than a 3" blast that will usually only hit one model and allows armor saves against the vast majority of targets. And if I'm accurate in this analysis WTF is the point of "bringing back templates" only to make them all so terrible that nobody uses them?

You might try talking to your opponents, but my local HH group has house ruled battle cannons to be AP3 for all iterations of the weapons. It really hasn't seemed to upset the balance for them, just made life a bit more fun for our three SA players. I've heard of some other regional groups doing this too.

blast weapons are the worst part of any game system they are involved it, if i can get a 30k game in without ever needing a scatter dice my enjoyment goes up. So i support anything making them not present on the table.

Blast weapons in general were nerfed a bit from last edition due to there being a proliferation of lists that spammed ap2 and ap3 blasts. The idea this edition seems to be making marines more durable while mortals still die in droves. It definitely seems to be a divisive point for the playerbase. It's great seeing tactical marines and terminators survive a lot longer but I can get it's a bit frustrating for people who enjoyed removing the enemy army by t3 with blast templates

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They bungled Battle Cannons. Yes, Pinning is both useful and important, but a Battle Cannon should be more than a trumped up Frag grenade launcher. They should have given it Breaching, or something else that let's it threaten heavy infantry.

I also think that they screwed up the Vanquisher Cannon. Sure, it's actually pretty good, but it should have Armourbane. How do you not give Armourbane to the gun that had Armourbane before Armourbane was ever a USR?

Giving Breaching to blast weapons which were previously high strength & AP3 only causes the game to last longer than it should be thanks to needless additional dice rolling. Just change it back in your gaming group to AP3 & the large blast template.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bobug wrote:
Blast weapons in general were nerfed a bit from last edition due to there being a proliferation of lists that spammed ap2 and ap3 blasts. The idea this edition seems to be making marines more durable while mortals still die in droves. It definitely seems to be a divisive point for the playerbase. It's great seeing tactical marines and terminators survive a lot longer but I can get it's a bit frustrating for people who enjoyed removing the enemy army by t3 with blast templates

The better solution would have been a restriction of such units rather than a nonsensical nerf.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They bungled Battle Cannons. Yes, Pinning is both useful and important, but a Battle Cannon should be more than a trumped up Frag grenade launcher. They should have given it Breaching, or something else that let's it threaten heavy infantry.

I also think that they screwed up the Vanquisher Cannon. Sure, it's actually pretty good, but it should have Armourbane. How do you not give Armourbane to the gun that had Armourbane before Armourbane was ever a USR?

Demolisher gun was used back in the days to breach fortifications. So armour piercing should be in it´s job description.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
blast weapons are the worst part of any game system they are involved it, if i can get a 30k game in without ever needing a scatter dice my enjoyment goes up. So i support anything making them not present on the table.

So you think it's a good thing to have various units nerfed to the point of uselessness and have a game that is advertised with "BLAST TEMPLATES ARE BACK ITS AMAZING" actually have those weapons be so weak they don't ever appear on the table?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Togusa wrote:
You might try talking to your opponents, but my local HH group has house ruled battle cannons to be AP3 for all iterations of the weapons. It really hasn't seemed to upset the balance for them, just made life a bit more fun for our three SA players. I've heard of some other regional groups doing this too.

Even at AP3 I don't really see the point compared to the lascannon option that has way more shots with better stats. A 5" blast would make it relevant again since it can reliably hit more than one model but at only 3" you're never going to do enough damage to justify the cost.

(Unless, as I was wondering about, there's some unwritten rule that you're a WAAC TFG if you space your models out to negate 3" blasts and you will reliably hit several models with each shot.)

So generally speaking a small blast will hit 1-3 models and a large blast will hit maybe 2-5 right? That's a unit that is advancing up the field or hugging cover and thus spread out a little.

If your opponent has no blasts then deepstriking becomes more appealing an option. If you're playing defensively you can also bunch your models up to have a smaller foot print and also have more of your unit in range to strike in combat.

A 20 strong unit spread out to full coherency will rarely get to shoot with the whole unit, and unless you roll high on charges you may only get to attack with a portion of the unit. Also, things like terrain become easier to tag, giving you -2" to your move which could screw a push forward.

Blasts are a little clunky when they scatter, can lead to less hits than you'd get with a heavy 8 weapon or what have you. But them existing do force choices on your opponent. Oh you want to charge that small unit of scouts, go for it. Hey you killed them and are now in the open pretty bunched up. Out come the templates and a Tzeentchian giggle.

In the chaos of a game there will occasionally be those moments where a good blast or two will make their points back. Ooooor scatter back onto you and be worth a laugh. (I'm an ork, guard and skaven player at heart it's all part of the game to me)

Sorry if that was a little wordy, my 2 cents on the matter.

the nerfing of many blasts, especially in the Ap area, has to do with someone probably not being able to march his marines over the field without support and use of cover.


incidentally nobody gave a feth about solar auxilia or mechanicus or militia(soon tm) because AP 4 is probably the single most prevalent AP value.

Not Online!!! wrote:
the nerfing of many blasts, especially in the Ap area, has to do with someone probably not being able to march his marines over the field without support and use of cover.


incidentally nobody gave a feth about solar auxilia or mechanicus or militia(soon tm) because AP 4 is probably the single most prevalent AP value.

It´s probably in conjunction with GW´s poor store tables. The ones with almost zero cover. So when a manager does an intro game to "Little Timmy" most of the infantry make it across the table to punch the big, bad tank right into it´s snout.

They do intro 30k games in store????

I don't think my local GW even has a painted AoD box on display.

 Platuan4th wrote:
I don't think my local GW even has a painted AoD box on display.

Most of the ones in AU that i've seen have had one painted up, wonder if it's a regional management thing?

cody.d. wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:
I don't think my local GW even has a painted AoD box on display.

Most of the ones in AU that i've seen have had one painted up, wonder if it's a regional management thing?

Well, a decent number of corporate stores in the States only got enough product to support the game a month or so ago, going by how many stores posted on Facebook about "finally" having it.

I think artillery was a bit overnerfed in 2.0. Pinning is strong, but AP4 is pretty binary, good against mech & solar but useless against marines without many hits, i.e. a big template. Some of the blast weapons have breaching which makes a big difference.

A Russ battle cannon should probably have a large blast and/or AP3 IMO. breaching might be too strong on it since it never was an AP2 weapon. Haven't played solar yet so can't comment on point cost relevance.

It makes no sense when an AT weapon like a twin lascannon is a better antipersonell weapon in-game than a big bore HE weapon.

That said, I agree blast templates slow the game down, so I don't want them to be strong and popular choices like in 1 0.

I've always played my Solar Aux with infantry loaded up in Demolisher Cannon Dracosans, a Stormhammer, and Malcador Infernus. It wasn't super strong, as I was super reliant on the Blast weapons to kill units. Obviously this was terrible against Primarchs or any of the Mechanicum Monsterous Creatures because I would get only a single hit vs them. I've literally watched Ferrus Manus walk up the board and wipe my army single-handedly. The army is beautifully painted though, I could get some wins, and I loved the ascetic. It's all garbage now because of the Blast changes. Demolisher Cannons are Brutal (3), sure, but most of everything with multiwounds have a 2+. Dealing at best 3 wounds that save on a 2+ doesn't do anything. Infernus? Not bad, but without Chem Rounds I can't get to AP2 so Terminator Bricks will just walk up. Stormhammer is the same problem, the only AP2 I can get is Lascannons. I don't own a lot of the infantry and can't pivot to any of the Artillery because of the same issue. I'm mostly stuck playing with Vanquisher Leman Russes, which are expensive points wise and I don't have any build/painted. This is basically forcing me to shelve the army because of Forgeworld's incompetence at balancing Blast weapons.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


It's almost like things needed fixing. That's not to say that things shouldn't also be changed now, but things DID need a fix.

An over correction then? I'm not sure what needed a fix, the ap of most blast weapons seemed appropriate, the typhon was a bit strong but not sure what needed lowering in terms of ap of strength.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


It's almost like things needed fixing. That's not to say that things shouldn't also be changed now, but things DID need a fix.

An over correction then? I'm not sure what needed a fix, the ap of most blast weapons seemed appropriate, the typhon was a bit strong but not sure what needed lowering in terms of ap of strength.

I think that the durability of infantry and dreadnoughts was in need of a fix, and I'm glad that much of 30k has leaned that way. I feel that either artillery needs larger templates or more inaccuracy, and just that blast weapons could have been more expensive. I'm not saying things are perfect now, but I personally prefer them this way than previously.

To be fair infantry as a whole isn't particulary more durable, it's Space Martine infantry that is considering a lot of ap3 weapons got moved to ap 4 and a weak version of breaching f.e.

Indeed arguably one can debate that solar and mechanicus infantry has dropped in durability due to a lot of f.e. special issue bolters becoming s5 and still making their armor obsolete.

Meanwhile those armies relied upon plasma and templates to Deal with marines which both seem to have dropped in effectiveness.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


It's almost like things needed fixing. That's not to say that things shouldn't also be changed now, but things DID need a fix.

An over correction then? I'm not sure what needed a fix, the ap of most blast weapons seemed appropriate, the typhon was a bit strong but not sure what needed lowering in terms of ap of strength.

I think that the durability of infantry and dreadnoughts was in need of a fix, and I'm glad that much of 30k has leaned that way. I feel that either artillery needs larger templates or more inaccuracy, and just that blast weapons could have been more expensive. I'm not saying things are perfect now, but I personally prefer them this way than previously.

The fix has lead to the current state of the meta, where dreadnoughts and terminators are now ascendant. Could playing with more terrain/cover or increasing the value of cover saves not have been a better route than upending the whole internal balance of unit types? It just seems like fixing one perceived problem by creating a very real one.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't really use "fren" or similar words. I try to type formally, generally. So when my girlfriend and her friends use it, I just kind of nod along. I just wanted to try and steer away any political discussion before it became too inflammatory. I certainly know people who say "friend" a lot, in friendly environments, without knowing the people at all.

But, staying on topic, blasts won me a lot of points in my last few fights in HH2. I was Ordo Reductor fighting Solar Auxilia, and no one in my group ever wants to run Space Marines, so I'm probably going to get better mileage than Marines versus Marines.

That does give me some hope for arty. But maybee that is a case of local armies being skewed in a certain way.

Not Online!!! wrote:
To be fair infantry as a whole isn't particulary more durable, it's Space Martine infantry that is considering a lot of ap3 weapons got moved to ap 4 and a weak version of breaching f.e.

Indeed arguably one can debate that solar and mechanicus infantry has dropped in durability due to a lot of f.e. special issue bolters becoming s5 and still making their armor obsolete.

Meanwhile those armies relied upon plasma and templates to Deal with marines which both seem to have dropped in effectiveness.

Ya fair point, auxillia seem to really lose out for reasons stated.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


It's almost like things needed fixing. That's not to say that things shouldn't also be changed now, but things DID need a fix.

An over correction then? I'm not sure what needed a fix, the ap of most blast weapons seemed appropriate, the typhon was a bit strong but not sure what needed lowering in terms of ap of strength.

I think that the durability of infantry and dreadnoughts was in need of a fix, and I'm glad that much of 30k has leaned that way. I feel that either artillery needs larger templates or more inaccuracy, and just that blast weapons could have been more expensive. I'm not saying things are perfect now, but I personally prefer them this way than previously.

The fix has lead to the current state of the meta, where dreadnoughts and terminators are now ascendant. Could playing with more terrain/cover or increasing the value of cover saves not have been a better route then upending the whole internal balance of unit types? It just seems like fixing one perceived problem with a very real one.

Gw isn't and hasn't been very creative with cover since .. ever.

Personaly i think a cover Save should exist but i'd
add that if yourr armor is better instead of just being pointless should add a -x to hit, that way all infantry types profit from cover.
One could even go one way further and add cover ignoring effects to weapons which often don't get picked or used like frags and greanade launchers.
Or go even further and add higher hit chances for greanades, flamers and indirect hitting artillery due to the packend nature and environement against units in cover, f.e. a trench Line getting directly hit with a mortar.

Well what compounds the issue with blasts is it seems like the trend in this edition is to make cover saves worse. Granted terrain is more subjective in so much as they can only suggest density or volume/amount or type of terrain but it really is mostly up to both players. I tend to default to a lot of ruins being 4+ cover, with stuff like low cover/sandbags/low walls beinhg 5+.

But this also ties into another change, in 1.0 the going to ground mechanic was well conceived of, basically there was no limit as there are now with reactions, and you could just self pin a unit to get a bump to the cover save. This is another casualty of replacing that with a "reaction".

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


It's almost like things needed fixing. That's not to say that things shouldn't also be changed now, but things DID need a fix.

An over correction then? I'm not sure what needed a fix, the ap of most blast weapons seemed appropriate, the typhon was a bit strong but not sure what needed lowering in terms of ap of strength.

I think that the durability of infantry and dreadnoughts was in need of a fix, and I'm glad that much of 30k has leaned that way. I feel that either artillery needs larger templates or more inaccuracy, and just that blast weapons could have been more expensive. I'm not saying things are perfect now, but I personally prefer them this way than previously.

The fix has lead to the current state of the meta, where dreadnoughts and terminators are now ascendant. Could playing with more terrain/cover or increasing the value of cover saves not have been a better route then upending the whole internal balance of unit types? It just seems like fixing one perceived problem with a very real one.

I think I prefer Terminators and Dreadnoughts being more prevalent than artillery, personally. Dreadnoughts DEFINITELY need a price hike, IMO, but I prefer them being more common on tables than artillery, simply because that fits my internal vision of what Heresy armies should, with exceptions, look like (in the same way I think Heresy armies should bring more infantry than two barebones Tactical Squads, etc)

Playing with more terrain/cover requires players to HAVE more terrain/cover available to them, and sometimes, that isn't feasible if you're playing on a themed/pre-built table anyways. Furthermore, I don't imagine its easy to force players into having a set amount of cover, or to rely on the players to accurately construct it in such a way that it is crucial to the balance of blast weapons.

A core change to how Astartes infantry and blasts/artillery interacted was more in order, IMO, and I don't believe that upending internal balance to achieve a more suitable image of the game is a bad thing.

Furthermore, it's not like it was a "perceived" problem any more so than your problem is. They were/are both very real problems.

Here's the bigger opinion than either of our preferences for the game, you can't have a combined arms wargame then make 2 of the unit types just completely superior to all others then worse think that just upping the points fixes the problem. It doesn't. The problem isn't just that they've made 2 unit types better, they've made plenty far far worse in addition to that. Bikes losing toughness, javelins losing the ability to fly over friendly or enemy models, many many many tanks having their weapons just totally neutered (hence the topic of this thread vis a vis blast weapons)

Not that skew lists need defending but there is a thin line between that and thematic lists so changing balance as expected between editions is one thing but completely upending it to the point of rendering whole armies entirely ineffective isn't good for a combined arms turn based wargame. Much like 8th edition threw the baby out with the bath water in the name of "streamlining" it rendered the distinction between many unit types basically pointless to the point where the game basically has 2 unit types, fly and not fly. These changes have huge ramifications, 30k like 40k relies pretty heavily on the distinction between unit types and their inherent strengths and weaknesses. Making dreadnoughts and terminators just better than everything else certainly makes some happy, only some.

The fact that you hand wave away terrain is why I call it a perceived problem, suggesting "maybe don't fight over planet bowling ball" as a baseline experience seems fair. As cool and thematic as power armour guys striding fearlessly across the battlefield is, I don't think that's how marines would fight, they'd use cover like anyone else. Especially considering that even though power armour offers protection from small arms, it's not impervious to heavy weapons. Blast weapons like the vindicator should be bad news, especially if the shell is lending right on a guy.


Going right back to the op's post "Solar auxilia LRBT battle cannon: H1 S8 AP4 3" blast, pinning"

is not a good model for battle cannon, this used to be an ap3 weapon with a 5 inch blast.

Tbf more skewed thematic lists should be facilitated by rites of war and not the inverse, where certain unit types dominante so much (cue dreads) that many rites just are obsolete, cue armored spearhead rite...


Edit:
@crable actually considering there are pics Like the AL packend pa Mass assault, and AL being normally pictured as more competent tactically i do think there should a Way to build such a force.

That said the game itself shouldn't baseline be built for it.

Now for how you facilitate that , that is a whole other question, f.e. a rite that restricts your slots beyond frontline troops but allows for destroyed or fleeing units to roll a d6 and on a 5+ you get the squad fully back in reserve.