Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi everyone,

I want to play 2x3 Basilisk and a manticore; what is the best doctrine?

Right now I have a steel legion army, and my 100 PW list include 2x3 basilisk, a manticore and veterans 3 plasma + chimera.

As QG I use Yarrick, but I don't know if use it near the veterans or near the Basilisk.
If Yarrick is near the basilisk they can reroll any 1 to hit.

Let me know what do you think!

Cadians let you reroll 1's already if you don't move. Pretty darn good overall.

If you find yourself moving (or wanting to move) your Basilisks a lot, then use Tallarn. Put that 12" move to work!

Otherwise, use Cadia.

what about "Catachans" for the D6 re-roll?

Catachan is good but not as good for units like Basilisks.

With Catachan you get 2D6 pick the highest and you can re-roll 1 result.

Since youre not moving you'll get more mileage with Cadians. If you stick a MoO near them then they re-roll ALL to hit rolls.

 More Dakka wrote:
Since youre not moving you'll get more mileage with Cadians. If you stick a MoO near them then they re-roll ALL to hit rolls.

How do you figure that?

Oh sorry, I got the rule confused with Take Aim, yes they'd only ever get the doctrine re-roll 1s, but still you're only getting a marginal benefit from Catachan for a basilisk, compared to say a LRBT which should also be moving around.

Im biased so i say Catachan

If you park Seargeant Harker in between you arty battery you get to reroll 1s with your units.

and being Catachan arty you get to reroll 1 of dice for the number of attacks.

so the manticore 2D6 really benefits from this and its going to be hitting harder making the most out of your limited ammo.

as for the bassilisk the Earthshaker already has a built in booster roll 2 dice pick highest.
so in effect you roll 2d6 + reroll lowest (because why wuldnt you) + pick highest. Earthshakers never hit so hard
get some HWT with mortars to surround harker and you have a nice indirect battery of pain that rerolls 1s

KitfoxQQ wrote:
Im biased so i say Catachan

If you park Seargeant Harker in between you arty battery you get to reroll 1s with your units.

and being Catachan arty you get to reroll 1 of dice for the number of attacks.

so the manticore 2D6 really benefits from this and its going to be hitting harder making the most out of your limited ammo.

as for the bassilisk the Earthshaker already has a built in booster roll 2 dice pick highest.
so in effect you roll 2d6 + reroll lowest (because why wuldnt you) + pick highest. Earthshakers never hit so hard
get some HWT with mortars to surround harker and you have a nice indirect battery of pain that rerolls 1s

I second that, while I am not a fan of taking "other regiments" to sully my Valhallans or Steel Legion, I will say that a spearhead detachment with 3 basilisks, a LRBT tank commander, and Harker will do a hell of a lot of work in any standard list (reroll the amount of shots and 1s), especially if you're filling the rest up with infantry squads to make the most of your rapid fire.

Also cool to go for the tallarn regiment and put heavy flamers on all the basilisks and wyverns. move forward and create mid field/board control with some anti-conscript heavy flamers, and meanwhile you can keep shooting heavy weapons.

The math shows that Catachan and Cadian artillery is pretty close in raw shots, with Cadians getting the slight nod. Cadians get 4.47 shots per turn, hitting 7/12 of the time, for 2.61 hits per turn, while catachans get 4.96 shots hitting half the time, for 2.48 hits per turn. That's a 5% bonus.

FWIW, if catachans gain the ability to reroll ones, then they get 2.89 shots per turn, for an almost 11% buff over cadians. The cheapest way is a master of ordnance, but that's limited to when the artillery shoots far. Harker is pricey, and arguably better used elsewhere.

So... yes, it looks like basilisks want to be under the Cadian, not Catachan Doctrine.

For Manticores, Catachans sneak a bit ahead, 4.12 hits compared to 4.08, which is pretty marginal. S10 is the same against most targets to wound as S9 (T5 being the major exception), but the earthshaker has a an extra bit of AP. However, even against T8/3+ targets, the Manticore under Catachans will do more wounds than Basilisk under cadians.

 Polonius wrote:

FWIW, if catachans gain the ability to reroll ones, then they get 2.89 shots per turn, for an almost 11% buff over cadians. The cheapest way is a master of ordnance, but that's limited to when the artillery shoots far. Harker is pricey, and arguably better used elsewhere.

But Harker also gives this ability to other units so a few infantry units and/or heavy weapon squads could also benefit from this. Also consider that it is possible to use the stratagem reroll together with the catachan reroll. A manticore that get's snake eyes can really turn the amount of shots around with both d6 reroll.

Why is everyone ignoring the Cadian stratagem when comparing to Catachan? Making all your big guns BS 3 reroll 1's to focus down a big gribbly/flier after scratching it with a mortar/lasgun is huge, especially with the possible -3 to hit Alaitoc Hemlock nonsense coming in two weeks.

I second the statement regarding "Overlapping Fields of Fire". It doesn't seem to have garnered much attention yet on these forums but it is stupidly potent. I popped a few wounds on Mortarian with a missile launcher team, used that strategem, and then deleted him in short order with the rest of the army.

RogueApiary wrote:
Why is everyone ignoring the Cadian stratagem when comparing to Catachan? Making all your big guns BS 3 reroll 1's to focus down a big gribbly/flier after scratching it with a mortar/lasgun is huge, especially with the possible -3 to hit Alaitoc Hemlock nonsense coming in two weeks.

That is a good one but also a bit situational. You can only play this strategem once each shooting phase and if you bring 6 basilisks and a manticore you switch 7 x d6 hits reroll's for a +1 to hit on a single unit/model. Enemy bringing a knight or stormraven, then yes this could be better but with 6 basilisks and a manticore it's not a big problem. And why choose? you could take a cadian detachment and use this stratagem for taking down infantry units.

shogun wrote:

RogueApiary wrote:
Why is everyone ignoring the Cadian stratagem when comparing to Catachan? Making all your big guns BS 3 reroll 1's to focus down a big gribbly/flier after scratching it with a mortar/lasgun is huge, especially with the possible -3 to hit Alaitoc Hemlock nonsense coming in two weeks.

That is a good one but also a bit situational. You can only play this strategem once each shooting phase and if you bring 6 basilisks and a manticore you switch 7 x d6 hits reroll's for a +1 to hit on a single unit/model. Enemy bringing a knight or stormraven, then yes this could be better but with 6 basilisks and a manticore it's not a big problem. And why choose? you could take a cadian detachment and use this stratagem for taking down infantry units.

In my experience, the extra BS isn't really super necessary against infantry, it's needed to get past -1/-2 to hit bonuses on some murderbeast barreling towards my lines or sniping me with some crazy death laser like the Cbeam (not sure if that's what it was called but it deleted an artillery piece per turn) cannon. Rerolling shots dice is nice, but I'll take 7 shots hitting on 5's over 10 on 6's any day when something needs to die.