How do screaming ? catapults hold up?

[ZealousJ]

I'm considering modelling a couple to give my burgeoning FEC based death list some fire power and possibly assist those crypt Flayers screams some as well

Does anyone use them? How do they compare to other artillery for their cost?

[Countmoore]

They are ok though pricey now with the new points.

The main problem is you take one you are almost forced into taking a necrotect to boost it to two shots and then when you have invested that many points you may as well throw in the second catapult. So what starts as ranged support massively ends up changing your whole force to fit around them.

Can see them working with a static crypt horror list but can't see it being great at objective play  

 

[Sception]

They're overpriced for their damage output.  As mentioned, a necrotect helps, but then you feel pushed to field a second and maybe even third catapult to get the most out of the tect, and suddenly they're eating a huge chunk of your total points.

What really makes up for the poor damage output, even without multiple catapults and arguably without even the tect, is the bravery debuff they impose at units they target, whether the shots actually land or not.

Basically, I'd only take them if the rest of your army includes Mournguls, screamers, or other units that can take advantage of that bravery debuff.  But if you do have such units, then they're worth while.

[Kousei]

if you hit the same unit with the same SSC twice , do they suffer the Bravery debuff twice ? Same question but with two different SSC? 

[Sception]

Quote

Screaming Ammunition: A unit that is
attacked by any Screaming Skulls must
subtract 2 from its Bravery until the end of
the next battleshock phase.

Nope, no stacking.  The ability asks if the target was attacked by 'any', it doesn't care how many.  Whether you were attacked by one or two or eleven, regardless of how many screaming skulls the unit was attacked by, if it's more than zero it's still 'any'.  Same with the Mourngul, or really most similar abilities, their effects are either on or off depending on whether the condition is met, there's no way to layer them multiple times.

Don't let that discourage you, though.  -2 bravery is a lot by itself, even without stacking.  If you're taking multiple screaming skull shots (whether with multiple catapults, or a tect, or both), you basically get the option to either spread that very significant debuff over multiple enemy targets or to concentrate your ranged support damage, at the cost of applying the debuff to fewer units.

Also you should be aware that the points you pay is for the catapult alone.  The crew comes free.  This means you can use the summon spell to replace slain catapult crew and keep your engine firing without having to set aside any reserve points to do so.

[Elgard]

On 17/5/2017 at 4:03 AM, Sception said:

Also you should be aware that the points you pay is for the catapult alone.  The crew comes free.  This means you can use the summon spell to replace slain catapult crew and keep your engine firing without having to set aside any reserve points to do so.

I 've found myself in that situation where i was wondering about the crew's points.Although i see logic in what you are saying ..there is no statement about crews having or not having points according to the GH1.  Any thoughts or facts about this subject based on tournaments or any GW comment ?

[Sception]

Check the generals handbook page 107, last sentence of the middle column.  sry cant quote right now, am on mobilr, and also aslep, but it specifs zero cost for crew

[Elgard]

Quote

Any Artillery unit that needs a crew
receives the associated crew unit at no
additional cost in points

Τhank you sir

[L.Bromley]

Anyone had any success with a bravery bomb death army? I know it's a lot of points to tie up in a one trick pony but wonder if anyone has tried it and it worked?

[L.Bromley]

Anyone try anything like this? Hit the enemies bravery hard, then use the sword to get the mournghoul in, scream with the big bats, get Izzy on a bale wind and get them to kill each other??

[Solaris]

Unfortunately the Mortis Engine doesn't benefit from the SSC, since its ability goes off in the Hero Phase, before any shots have been fired.

[WillofNagash]

5 hours ago, Solaris said:

Unfortunately the Mortis Engine doesn't benefit from the SSC, since its ability goes off in the Hero Phase, before any shots have been fired.

Same for Isabella

[L.Bromley]

8 hours ago, Solaris said:

Unfortunately the Mortis Engine doesn't benefit from the SSC, since its ability goes off in the Hero Phase, before any shots have been fired.

Yeah this is a shame, get a double turn and it could be amazing, failing that I think it's just different.

the meta armies at the minute all have massive damage output but all are really low bravery (skyfires, rukk+stonehornes) so if it goes off it could be amazing.

is there anyway of getting the catapults shooting in the hero phase?

[Solaris]

6 hours ago, L.Bromley said:

is there anyway of getting the catapults shooting in the hero phase?

Nope, there is nothing like that. They have to be combined with units that target the enemy Bravery in the shooting phase or later (Terrorgheist, Crypt Flayers, Tomb Banshees, Mourngul and so on).

[L.Bromley]

Do the catapults bravery deductions stack if I shoot the same target but with different catapults?

[Sception]

No, the enemy unit was either 'targeted by any screaming skulls' or it wasn't.  Targeted by one, two, or nine screaming skull attacks, targeted by those of a single catapult or several, doesn't matter, any is still any.

[L.Bromley]

25 minutes ago, Sception said:

No, the enemy unit was either 'targeted by any screaming skulls' or it wasn't.  Targeted by one, two, or nine screaming skull attacks, targeted by those of a single catapult or several, doesn't matter, any is still any.

Ok that filthy idea is starting to dwindle, think I may still try out the army though, could be good for a laugh getting a savage orruk rukk to shoot itself, with Izzy on a bale wind, then catapult, then scream off what's left as the gheists will be d6+2 mortal wounds each at that stage, same with sky fires, getting them to shoot off there own army will be great to see.

[Sception]

I mean, between the mourngul and screamers we certainly have tools available to capitalize on the -2 penalty we get from the SSC even without stacking.  I think an army built on such could certainly be threatening.  And don't forget the regular type of bravery checks.  Sure, multiple SSC shots may not stack bravery penalties, but if they put a few wounds on the unit, and some screams add a few more, then they won't be looking at a pleasant bravery check at the end of the turn.  The opposing general can only protect one unit from those tests per turn, after all, and often at the cost of using more offensive command abilities, so that's another way such a list can put the opponent on their back foot.

[L.Bromley]

So just had a real quick game with a mate proxying the army, just to trial out the bravery bomb army against his mixed daemons. He had a LOC, and Great unclean one, disc shaman, two sets of six sky fires, two twenties of tzangors, ten plague bearers, and about ten plague monks.

So he went first with the plan to set both sky fires deployed on the 12"" line off to kill the gheists, I got super lucky as one unit plus the LOC failed a mystical test, the six fires went up and put the unmourned gheist on one wound remaining!! Ouch, I know he is lucky to be alive but still. The rest of the army moved up slowly.

my first turn went really well, sat Izzy near arcane and the mortise engine and ordered up a balewind fairly easily, then cast her bravery spell on a ten at the sky fires which were now in my deployment and boooom! They did 24 wounds to themselves! Hahahaha my opponents face was a picture, he then started saying Izzy should be band as she is to powerful. I summoned in the mourngul with the sword and put him in between the two tzangor units. movement was rapid, flew the GKoTG next to the 6 man sky fires Unit, the zombies just moved close together in order to merge next turn. Shooting with death is strange but awesome, so the necrotect gave me extra shots so did one shot at the 6 man SFires, 2wounds and three shots at the tzangor doing ten wounds. Then the screams (I had fingers crossed that this would be awesome) so the wounded one only did four wounds but the unit was smashed an my opponent just took them off the table, the GKOTG rolled a big five causing 11 mortal wounds, my mate just looked pissed. The Mourngul is widely known as filth and rightly so as he finished off a twenty man unit in a turn of the charge at minus two to hit the tzangor had no chance, the only Charge I was interested in was when the GKTG went in on the fires, he whiffed most of his attacks only killing another one and taking little in return but battle shock was amazing as the unit ran.

then I got priority for turn two, my opponent started squirming saying if my turn was quick we could continue as he all of a sudden had somewhere to be, so Izzy did her business on the twenty tzangor and they killed nine of there own. Unholy vitality on the GK, mortise engine popped two more tzangor with its bravery attack. Merged twenty zombies and moved them up. Put the gheists in charge range of the LOC and 9" away from tzangor. Mourngul went near the GU. SSC kill the rats off and one wound on the tzangor, GK scream killed of the unit.

This is where my opponent ended the game.

so the game went about as well as it could, my mate has done nothing but complain in text format to me for the last hour which I have very much enjoyed.

hope you enjoyed 

[Sception]

Sounds like you were playing isabella wrong. Her spell targets an individual model, not an entire unit, and can only activate a single melee weapon, not multiple weapons, and not ranged weapons.  There's really no way it should have done that much damage.

It's a good spell, well worth her small points cost, especially if you're running arkhan or nagash, but it isn't that good, particularly against skyfires.

[L.Bromley]

Oh man, I have just re read the rules and I totally cheated him. Feel pretty bad about it, gutted as the (fake) game plan worked brilliantly.

[Sception]

Yeah, that's happened to me once or twice.  I've found that, as a general rule, when something in your army seems good, like super good, like maybe even a little bit too good, like actually maybe definitely a little bit way too good, that's usually a sign that you need slow down and double check what the rule actually says.