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Aplogies if this has been covered before.

I'm thinking of using vibro cannons, but looking at the rules a couple of questions come to mind. how have people here interpreted them? They may be sort of obvious, but before I shell out i'll find out whether they do provoke arguments.

1) "through a unit". Probably obvious, but is 'through' interpeted as either the line touches a model in the unit, or the line leaves at least 1 model in the unit on each side of it.

2) Does the line ending 'in' the unit still count as passing through?

3) "target with an armor value that is hit by a vibro cannon always suffers a single glancing hit": Is that each vehicle can only take one glancing hit per vibro volley, or 1 glance per hit, which would be D6 glances for hitting the unit. (Vehicles still being units).

4) Vehicle formations. Does the line still have to just pass through the unit without touching a model to do D6 hits, with these hits then being distributed amongst the vehicles in the unit, each of which either takes a single glance (or however many glances per the number of hits, see Q3).

#1 It need not touch a model at all as long as it goes through the unit. it can touch the edge model of the unit and still be considered passing through the unit.

#2 Yes

#3 One glanceing hit per volley.

#4 If it touches the model in this case. i assume you refer to like units of landspeeders and such. If it has a toughness than its a unit. So bikes, jet bikes, will all take multiple hits.

I think 5th element has it, but I too wondered about point 3.  I thought it meant hits per gun, so a battery unit which rolled 2 hits, (a 3, 4 and 5) would cause 2 glancing results?  Thats how I first read it, but no I think its 1 glancing hit per volley too.  ( I have no idea what the intent was/is in this bizarre unit).

That said,

be careful, vibrocannons are not as easy to play as I thought.  I did a unit of 3 up, thinking they'd be great vs vehicles, and easy to hide and shoot through someones army all game... Not so, here are some reasons:

1 Escalation, they start off board, ensuring they loose at least 2 turns of fire.

2 reserves: see above

3 Your own units get in the way (Assuming you can't hit them) especially difficult in a mechanized eldar wing. What happens if you target an enemy unit(s), lay out the 3 feet, and it crosses a distant unit of your own? (Undefined)

4 They are really fragile (T3 5sv gets easily killed by anything

5 It's hard to hide a 3 cannon unit because the bases are so huge, and there are also 6 seperate crewmen to worry about.

6 Artillery rules are bizarre, do the guns count for coherency?  What happens if they do and the line breaks? Does the unit have to move to restore coherency? Does it matter which gunner fires which gun? (Sniper and mind war)  Which gun do you measure from when the unit fires? Does it always have to be the same one? Can the gun fire less than 36, to say, avoid a distant friendly unit?

They're a pain, I would have advocated them at one point, but after having tried them out, I give them a C-

Good luck whatever you choose!

The guns only have to have line of sight. It does not matter what gun you fire from as long as it has los.
They really are a very last heavy choice with whats out there. I prefer the big ball of wire mesh myself. Or d canons. Ill take a wraithlord,falcon, or 3 walkers any day.

Posted By 5thelement on 02/26/2007 2:17 PM
#1 It need not touch a model at all as long as it goes through the unit. it can touch the edge model of the unit and still be considered passing through the unit.

#2 Yes

#3 One glanceing hit per volley.

#4 If it touches the model in this case. i assume you refer to like units of landspeeders and such. If it has a toughness than its a unit. So bikes, jet bikes, will all take multiple hits.

The only bit I disagree with there is 4.

A unit of say war walkers is a unit. Therefore as long as the line 'passes through' it takes D6 hits.  If 'hit' each vehicle takes an auto glance (but only 1). So for 3 walkers if you roll a 3 or higher you glance each 1.

I'm not sure about the other poster above this one, As i read it, none of the cannons need LOS. You just choose a cannon and draw your 36" line.