I Hate My Kharadrons

[Vextol]

Topic basically says it all.  I love the models, I love the ships, I love the theme but boy do I hate playing with them.

I've played 25 or so games with them and once they buried the thunders in a pile of nerf, I've basically lost interest completely.  My ships get absolutely wrecked by archers, I can never hit anything with cannons, I get one good round with the chainsaws and then they get wrecked, the arkanauuts are annoying and slow, the heroes aren't interesting to me and they get wrecked by archers if being useful to hold objectives at all.

Am I just playing the wrong army or does anyone have any suggestions to make them more...fun?  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here because I WANT to love them.

[ledha]

What do you mean wrecker by archers ? You are the one supposed to wreck them. What archers are you talking about ?

[stato]

Thunderers lists were the opposite of fun, its good they are not default now.

Ships suggests more than 1? Yeah more than 1 is less effective unless you are using it to allow a 2 drop list. 

Cannons dont hit yeah, but threat of them can put opponents off.

1 round of chainsaws suggests your just throwing them out there, so they will just be counter charged if youve nothing to support them. Either hold them back as your own counterpunch, support with other ballon units or allies, or be more tactical with their use.

Arkanauts are slow, but have great firepower if running as 20s with the same special weapons, helped by chosing the hero or monster as target to get +1 to hit.

Heros have a purpose, and sitting on an objective isnt it.  Behmoths can hold objectives heros can, and they last longer.

Enemy shooting is your biggest threat, but we have the firepower to take out anything (other than another KO army), prioritise your targets.

 

Overall it sounds like your not playing to the factions strengths. Maybe try different Skyports if you have not.  I use Mhornar and while its not the most powerful or interesting if you just gunline, but it gives you speed, more accuracy and a little one-off combat boost. 

Im a ****** player but even i am about 50/50 wins and can take on any list I face if play well (including well palyed Tzeentch), they certainly can be fun to play with, even if your opponent does wince a little at getting shot to hell (though they can still win by playing the scenario and often still do as my win ratio shows).

 

[Vextol]

18 minutes ago, ledha said:

What do you mean wrecker by archers ? You are the one supposed to wreck them. What archers are you talking about ?

Juudicators and Vanguard Raptors mostly.

5 minutes ago, stato said:

Thunderers lists were the opposite of fun, its good they are not default now.

Ships suggests more than 1? Yeah more than 1 is less effective unless you are using it to allow a 2 drop list. 

Cannons dont hit yeah, but threat of them can put opponents off.

1 round of chainsaws suggests your just throwing them out there, so they will just be counter charged if youve nothing to support them. Either hold them back as your own counterpunch, support with other ballon units or allies, or be more tactical with their use.

Arkanauts are slow, but have great firepower if running as 20s with the same special weapons, helped by chosing the hero or monster as target to get +1 to hit.

Heros have a purpose, and sitting on an objective isnt it.  Behmoths can hold objectives heros can, and they last longer.

Enemy shooting is your biggest threat, but we have the firepower to take out anything (other than another KO army), prioritise your targets.

 

Overall it sounds like your not playing to the factions strengths. Maybe try different Skyports if you have not.  I use Mhornar and while its not the most powerful or interesting if you just gunline, but it gives you speed, more accuracy and a little one-off combat boost. 

Im a ****** player but even i am about 50/50 wins and can take on any list I face if play well (including well palyed Tzeentch), they certainly can be fun to play with, even if your opponent does wince a little at getting shot to hell (though they can still win by playing the scenario and often still do as my win ratio shows).

 

 

How do you keep your arkanauts alive?  I get that they shoot well and obviously you give them the same weapon buffed by a khemist and whatnot but if I put them near an objective, the other team, that is also near an objective, just cuts them down.

"Heroes have a purpose just not sitting on objectives"-I know.  But they don't do much good sitting in a ship and when I bring my khemist to the party to buff my arkanauts he usually only lasts about a round before getting wrecked.  If I use him to buff the saws, he has to be too close or I have to get my "go a million miles" grapnel launch off.  Then, the saws are really far away.  If I wait until I have support for the saws then what good are they?  Aren't they the shock troops? 

I will definitely try more skyports.  I just feel like the coolest thing about the army is the ships and when people talk about kharadrons, they usually start with "If you're taking more than one, you're doing it wrong."  Well...that leaves like...3 models to play with lol.

[ledha]

39 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Juudicators and Vanguard Raptors mostly.

 

 

Both of those units are overpriced for what they do. The judicator does low damage and are completely dependant of good rolls of the prime, and the vanguard raptors have 6 wound with a 4+ save. Those unit have a 29/30 threath range, with low damage output on average which is less than skywarden, endririggers, or any boat shaeningan (barak ziflin come to mind). We take the judicator because they are a battleline and can sit on objective and participate, and vanguard raptors... well, i don't see much of them outside of an aetherstrike. 6 wound for 180 pts is a huge burden, they die as soon as something watch them

You are a kharadron. You have dozen of way to come and struck down a unit with ranged before it even react. The stormcast, who count on their high armor, suffer A LOT against rend-2

[Gecktron]

I think I see where the problem lies. 
Your Sky vessels aren't tanks. They break easily and don't have much firepower. Im not sure if you are familiar with 40K but think about the Frigate like a flying rhino. Its job is to get units safely from point A to B. The only thing that can withstand a few shots and packs a punch is the Ironclad. Take one of them and put a Endrinmaster inside, and watch it ignore volley after volley. 
Thats not to say that a frigate has no use. You can put a few more elite units (10 rifle thunderers, Endrinriggers) + a khemist in there and sneak around the edge and surprise the enemy with overwhelming firepower.
A Ironclad on the field can buff your units considerably. Re-rolling to-hit or to-wound rolls can be really useful on your main canon. 

Sky-ports where already mentioned, which port did you play against the Stormcast? 

[Vextol]

1 hour ago, ledha said:

Both of those units are overpriced for what they do. The judicator does low damage and are completely dependant of good rolls of the prime, and the vanguard raptors have 6 wound with a 4+ save. Those unit have a 29/30 threath range, with low damage output on average which is less than skywarden, endririggers, or any boat shaeningan (barak ziflin come to mind). We take the judicator because they are a battleline and can sit on objective and participate, and vanguard raptors... well, i don't see much of them outside of an aetherstrike. 6 wound for 180 pts is a huge burden, they die as soon as something watch them

You are a kharadron. You have dozen of way to come and struck down a unit with ranged before it even react. The stormcast, who count on their high armor, suffer A LOT against rend-2

Interesting.  For one, I've never faced a judicator or a vanguard with less than a 3+ save since the release of the new battletome.  3+ save for 10 wounds at 160 points with an effective range of 28 inches is pretty not overpriced.  3.72 hits through on average before save.  Not bad, but yeah, not great.  Except don't talk about 1 unit, talk about ship points.  You can get 3ish units for the price of an ironclad.  Now we are looking at 11.16 through.   The vanguards dish a similar 5 hits through (effectively the same damage) but at higher range.  So I'm probably taking 6-8 wounds on my ironclad every turn from 480-520 points of archers . 

The problem is I don't face 450 points of shooting, I face 1000-1250.   The healing mechanics don't get off because I'm dead and now all my guys are stranded wherever the ship went down.  That strands my forces turn 1 every time if I'm only supposed to take one ship.  How do I deal with that?   I know I can get places quickly, but usually you need to get to several places.  Are we anticipating the ships getting s*** canned?  Is that part of the strategy?

[stato]

1 hour ago, Vextol said:

Juudicators and Vanguard Raptors mostly.

 

How do you keep your arkanauts alive?  I get that they shoot well and obviously you give them the same weapon buffed by a khemist and whatnot but if I put them near an objective, the other team, that is also near an objective, just cuts them down.

"Heroes have a purpose just not sitting on objectives"-I know.  But they don't do much good sitting in a ship and when I bring my khemist to the party to buff my arkanauts he usually only lasts about a round before getting wrecked.  If I use him to buff the saws, he has to be too close or I have to get my "go a million miles" grapnel launch off.  Then, the saws are really far away.  If I wait until I have support for the saws then what good are they?  Aren't they the shock troops? 

I will definitely try more skyports.  I just feel like the coolest thing about the army is the ships and when people talk about kharadrons, they usually start with "If you're taking more than one, you're doing it wrong."  Well...that leaves like...3 models to play with lol.

Arkanauts die quickly but if they get to shoot at something up close it tends to die, pistols can do a lot of damage en-mass. You need to keep threats off them, i do that by using small units to screen my big unit, and use scenery or boats to help. But they should only be that close if you have putting all your long range firepower into bigger threats, meaning the unit about to charge you is probably almost on its own.

Hero should be placed protectively, they have a good range for their buff and the units you buff also have a good range. They shouldnt be getting sniped all the time as you should be positioning to not be in sniper range and taking out the sniper before they can hit you.

Ive lost my riggers a lot, but im reckless and do just charge them forwards because often its fun.  If I play tactically you can either sacrafice them to remove a major threat, such as a Lord of Change or Archaon etc.  Or you can hold them back a turn until youve used your long range shooting to soften up targets enough that the riggers will survive initial combat, at that point they dont need to be buffed as they should have done enough damage to hold place and keep fighting whats left of the enemy around them. Not to mention if they do survive getting to fire their pistols almost makes up for not having a khemist buff (and your khemist can be buffing other skyhooks which will do the same damage anyway, so double bonus).  Of course dont forget you can use the grapnel to retreat after firing the pistols, something you might want to do to grab objectives, its won me a few games.

Having a few rigger/warden units is important too i think, more flexibility and speed to play objectives, which is where the Thunderer heavy lists failed anyway.

You can run more boats, but yes they are not 'optimal'.  I run a frigate anyway so im already losing in many people eyes, but KO are strong in my opinion so I still know ive got a chance in every game. When i get my second frigate built ill be using it as it will slot in my list nicely, and i think it will surprise a few people.

 

[Vextol]

1 hour ago, Gecktron said:

I think I see where the problem lies. 
Your Sky vessels aren't tanks. They break easily and don't have much firepower. Im not sure if you are familiar with 40K but think about the Frigate like a flying rhino. Its job is to get units safely from point A to B. The only thing that can withstand a few shots and packs a punch is the Ironclad. Take one of them and put a Endrinmaster inside, and watch it ignore volley after volley. 
Thats not to say that a frigate has no use. You can put a few more elite units (10 rifle thunderers, Endrinriggers) + a khemist in there and sneak around the edge and surprise the enemy with overwhelming firepower.
A Ironclad on the field can buff your units considerably. Re-rolling to-hit or to-wound rolls can be really useful on your main canon. 

Sky-ports where already mentioned, which port did you play against the Stormcast? 

My frigates get cut down so quickly though.  That 5+ save means if vanguard raptors OR judicators focus fire on me it's going down.  I would just ignore them but I really struggle to get away from them.  Once they get centered on the board they pretty much have free reign to slaughter my ships.  My guns fire alright but what do I shoot at? The castellants with the 2+ saves or one of the two big shooting units with a 2+ save?

I played the merchant and the wind I think.  Basically the double kemist one and the make your ships go faster one.  I should probably play the add one to your attack rolls one.  Sorry, no names in front of me.  I was using the kemist to buff the saws and the skyhooks as those were my strongest attacks.

[stato]

2 minutes ago, Vextol said:

My frigates get cut down so quickly though.  That 5+ save means if vanguard raptors OR judicators focus fire on me it's going down.  I would just ignore them but I really struggle to get away from them.  Once they get centered on the board they pretty much have free reign to slaughter my ships.  My guns fire alright but what do I shoot at? The castellants with the 2+ saves or one of the two big shooting units with a 2+ save?

I played the merchant and the wind I think.  Basically the double kemist one and the make your ships go faster one.  I should probably play the add one to your attack rolls one.  Sorry, no names in front of me.

I think you need to post up some of your lists for us to comment, i dont understand what your are taking in your list. 

Also have a look through the 'Lets chat KO' thread  (start on the more recent pages obviously as its a long thread now!) and see what and how people are playing.

[Vextol]

10 minutes ago, stato said:

I think you need to post up some of your lists for us to comment, i dont understand what your are taking in your list. 

Also have a look through the 'Lets chat KO' thread  (start on the more recent pages obviously as its a long thread now!) and see what and how people are playing.

List below.  The 2+ save Judicators are a bulk unit being buffed by Castellant.  The 2+ save vanguard raptors are a big unit being buffed by castellant.  All of these guys are within 6 inches of one of the castellants who has staunch defender.  This grants the whole bubble a 2+ save. 

My list last time was

Barak-Urbaz (two picks from khemist, extra shooting in hero phase once per battle).

Ironclad-cannon

Endrinmasterx2

Admiral (general)-Aethershock (+1 rend), Fleetmaster

Khemist

Endrigger (@6)x2-all saws.  I've played with grapnel launchers as well.  I also took them once as a big unit to maximize khemist buff.

Arkanaut @10 with skyhooks

Arkanaut @10 with skyhooks

Arkanaut@20 with skyhooks

 

[stratigo]

You want more khemists, you want your iron clad to have a volley gun, you want your riggers in a combined unit with 2 or 3 grapples. Aethermatic earburster is a fantastic artifact and better than the one you have. But it on a khemist. You really don't have enough bodies to justify taking an admiral unless you just really dig the model. 2 khemist minimum and then the admiral if you still have points left over. Also, with urbaz, you get a second artifact and every skyport can pick a great endriwork as well as an artifact

[Drofnum]

Is this at 1500 pts? Why 2 Endrinmasters?  1 is really all you need and another Khemist would help you burn down targets faster.  

Volley gun on the Ironclad is more reliable output and the Admiral is really only good if you're taking large blocks of Company to protect them from battleshock.

I ran a pretty similar list at LVO last weekend and only felt outclassed by the Vanguard Wing list that I played and most of that was down to my poor deployment and not knowing what the army can do.

 

Edit:  I missed that you are doing 2 x 6 Endrinriggers.  Makes way more sense at 2000 pts now.

[Dez]

Some good advice here so far, I recommend dumping the 2 Endrinmasters for more Arkanaut Company. Get them up to a unit of 40, using your other 2 units as screens. This is when the Admiral shines, granting his Immune to Battleshock bubble. Place them strategically...I like to use denied flank/corner deployment.

I'd also combine the Endrinriggers and take 3 grapnels in the big unit, which is a combined unit of 9 or 12. I've been experimenting with 9 and then having 3 Skywardens which works great. The Endrinriggers are your speed and threat, the Skywardens are speed and objective sitting with range. 

You need your Khemist to buff your Endrinriggers and the huge unit of Arkanauts. Otherwise...time for a trim, and work in a second Khemist. Your first turn needs to be your best, things need to die.

Always take out the lynch pins of your opponents army first, which are usually the heroes. Ask how your opponents army works if you don't already know. I'd rather burn a turn of shooting killing off the Staunch Defender than trying to pick off other units, it's the force multipliers you need to be aware of. Like for Vanguard Wing, the key is killing the Prosecutors and stalling out their movement.

I think the key here is in either low drop and alpha striking your opponent, or being able to weather the first round of shooting well enough to counter strike in your turn. 

[Vextol]

The volley gun does not hurt stormcasts with a 2+ save.  Just not enough rend.  It's range is also 6 inches less meaning I HAVE to be in range of everything to use it.  The volley gun will hit roughly...3.25 times ish?  That means it will do 1 damage.  I don't see the point in that.

How are you keeping your ships alive if you take no endrinmasters?  And if you combine your endriggers into one unit, you lose the healing.  That's fine?

How are you keeping your saws alive if you rush them into combat?  I thought rushing them in was the wrong thing to do (as mentioned earlier).

What is the second khemist buffing?  Just more arkanauts?  Because one khemist can already buff a huge unit of arkanauts and endriggers unless I should take a different house.

If staunch defender is on a stardrake it's a waste of time shooting at it.  Even with -3 rend, it's almost fruitless.

Sorry for all the questions.  I am just struggling on how these approaches handle these 2+ reroll 1s guys or bulk really tough heavy hitting shooters.   In games like "2 places of power" or any of the 2/3 objective point games, I can't get in to take enough points and if I do I can't seem to hold long enough to get the points.   I guess I battle with attrition and try to get the bulk of the points first but in the comet strike scenario I barely have enough guys left on the board by the time the first comet falls to do anything or my ships are dead and now I have to slog place to place with the very slow arkanauts.  If I need to get somewhere fast, I can send the endriggers but they can't handle a 300 style sunblock arrow volley. 

I guess this is kind of my initial concern.  People say the only (best) strategy is a million arkanauts and a million balloons.  Don't take thunderers, don't take gun haulers, don't take frigates (unless you just want to mess around), probably shouldn't take navigators, endrinmasters a no, the admiral is meh, you can't take two ironclads because they're so expensive, endriggers are better than skywardens.   Also, probably should avoid the named guy....

So...khemist X some, arkanauts X bazillion, Endriggers X bazillion and unfortunately a ship because everyone's is so slow.  That just seems a bit dry.

I really appreciate all the suggestions though

Edit: Also, how are you moving that unit of 40 arkanauts?  Also also, I would be lying if I said the least attractive thing about this strategy is the idea of painting 90 or so arkanauts.

[Vextol]

35 minutes ago, Dez said:

Some good advice here so far, I recommend dumping the 2 Endrinmasters for more Arkanaut Company. Get them up to a unit of 40, using your other 2 units as screens.

I hear people talking about screens all the time.  We are talking about melee screens right?  Because archers just ignore your screen as far as I've ever seen.

I basically only ever fight stormcast with crazy saves or stormcast with ungodly amounts of long range shooting so I'm sure my experience would change against other armies.

[ledha]

With Barak Ziflin special artifact, you can teleport a ship 9" of the ennemy. Take the first turn (easy to have one drop/two drop battalion)

Overcharge it with arkanauts, one khemist and lot of skywarden/endrirrigers (they don't count as the maximum capacity), drop it in range of his characters and ranged unit, unload everything you have, everyone dead, gg.

This, plus the ability to make a ship advance in hero phase, and the command trait you can give to your general (fleetmaster) which make you able to redeploy a ship, mean you can basically put 2 ship pretty much wherever you want on the board, always in range of your foe (except if it is hidden behind a big scenery) and kill it without your opponent being able to do anything against it, except stacking malus to hit and praying for catastrophic dice rolls from you.

You can even decide to let the ennemy play first. It mean he will be able to buff his units, making it a big harder to kill him, ( but even a 2+ save don't save you against dozen of skyhook or drill canon shots) but preventing him to retaliate too hard of your alpha strike with a double turn.

If your opponent strategy is too have a gunline stacked around one character, then he must be very defensive, which give you the edge in some scenarios.

[Drofnum]

Quote

The volley gun does not hurt stormcasts with a 2+ save.  Just not enough rend.  It's range is also 6 inches less meaning I HAVE to be in range of everything to use it.  The volley gun will hit roughly...3.25 times ish?  That means it will do 1 damage.  I don't see the point in that.

You cannon is only hitting about 35% of the time, doing no damage 3/5 rounds. The point is to get any damage out really, and not everything has to be shot at a 2+ save unit.

40 minutes ago, Vextol said:

How are you keeping your ships alive if you take no endrinmasters?  And if you combine your endriggers into one unit, you lose the healing.  That's fine?

Your ship will die, this is fine.  It just needs to get troops where you want them before it does, mine never dies before the second round and usually the 3rd, by then its done its job.

Quote

How are you keeping your saws alive if you rush them into combat?  I thought rushing them in was the wrong thing to do (as mentioned earlier).

I consider my saws as expendable to a degree, I charge them at something that needs to die.  They almost always kill whatever they charge and once they've done that anything else on top of it is great but if they die its no big deal.

Quote

 

What is the second khemist buffing?  Just more arkanauts?  Because one khemist can already buff a huge unit of arkanauts and endriggers unless I should take a different house.

If staunch defender is on a stardrake it's a waste of time shooting at it.  Even with -3 rend, it's almost fruitless.

 

Khemist buffs skyhooks, shooting skyhooks at a 2+ save still gets you a decent amount of damage through and twice as many shots means more wounds. Also as KO you have to be okay falling behind on points early, you will generally be able to kill enough to make it up in the last 2 or 3 rounds.

Get your ship into combat with the stardrake and let them just sit together, if he retreats the stardrake follow it with the ship.  You can potentially kill it with the saws as well if you get good rolls but its more risky.

 

I use 50 arkanauts in my list running Urbaz with 2 khemists and i havent had any problems with most Stormcast lists bar Vanguard wing. Stardrake is a pain but you basically just ignore it and kill everything else around it.  Yes there are only a few units worth taking, if you want to be competitive it is the sad truth, hopefully that will change but currently it is what we have to work with.  You can take allies for more variety that fulfill some roles you are missing with KO units.

[Vextol]

Thanks for all the input guys!  My opponent is VERY defensive. Doesn't like to lose models.  In all fairness, I am still struggling (even after a million games) to shake the "kill em all" mentality as well.  And in my heart of hearts I do really want to be able to field 5-8 ships and still be effective.

[Freejack02]

Are you playing the objective-based scenarios from the GHB?  Defensive shooter SCE lists are tough to crack, but have a real problem actually capturing objectives while staying in buff proximity. You should be able to outrun them and scoop up enough objectives to force them playing catch-up.

I don't play KO, but I frequently play against them as SCE. I really only fear big balloon-saw units and big skyhook units buffed to the hilt - nothing else I've seen them field really managed to hurt much. Frigates are just a nuisance after delivering their troop payloads, just used to block charge lanes and objectives while trying to harass (and missing) with it's cannon. 

[swarmofseals]

Part of the problem here is that your opponent is playing a very hard list. It may not be an absolute top tier tournament list but it's at least tournament ballpark. In order to compete with that, you also have to take a similarly hard list. That means min maxing, which in turn means that you are only going to have a very narrow range of options if you are playing a faction that already starts with relatively limited options (like Sylvaneth or Kharadrons). The min-maxed Kharadron list for this situation doesn't happen to suit your playstyle, so you are kinda stuck. You basically have four options: get your opponent to play a softer list for non-tournament games, accept it and play your own min-maxed list even if it isn't what you particularly like, play a different army, or accept that you will lose most if not all games. 

[Vextol]

Fair enough.  I will get to painting some more arkanauts!  Thanks again everyone.

[Vextol]

4 hours ago, Drofnum said:

You cannon is only hitting about 35% of the time, doing no damage 3/5 rounds. The point is to get any damage out really, and not everything has to be shot at a 2+ save unit.

Just for clarification, mathematically the volley gun is worse than the cannon on units with a 3+ save or better.  It's a good bit better against units with a 5+ or 6+ save and a little better at 4+ but if you're expecting a lot of 3+, the cannon is the way to go. 

[stratigo]

Well... there's 2 ways you can go.

 

The first is zilfin. There you want probably 30 arkanauts, and certainly no more than 40. Then you take an ironclad, 2 khemists and a bunch of balloon boys. I do 2 units of 9 endrinriggers and will eventually have 6 wardens with it for my version, but some people mix the exact numbers. There's always at least 1 big unit of riggers, and then the numbers in the second unit verse the number of wardens vary. In this version of the list you rock a 2 drop army. twenty arkanauts from 2 units, your characters, and all the balloon guys on the ship. Your last arkanaut unit sits on an objective in your backfield. Against your buddy's army, you actually DON'T drop in. You won't need to unless he's got a 1 or 2 drop army himself and can take first turn. So, you take first turn, hero move your ironclad up. dump everyone, or most everyone out, buff two of them (almost certainly your saws). Your effective shooting range for skyhooks in this set up is currently 38 inches. Very little will avoid that. Try and snipe his support chars since I am presuming he has a mirrorshield on his drake (if not, great, shoot that little ****** dead). And then your saws go forward. Without a grapnel they are already moving, maximum, 22 inches. And then they can grapnel AT the star drake. Also they have uzis. Clear chaff with uzis and ironclad, grapnel at the drake, murderize (or get very close to) the drake, OR, if he positioned poorly, all his support chars. Now, your first unit of riggers are gonna die after this. But you've likely removed his big threats.

 

Your second option is a much more static list. It's Barak Urbaz. You take multiple BIG units of arkanauts, no boats, some melee chaff, and still a big unit of riggers. Here is where the admiral shines. He makes all your big units battleshock immune. Still a couple of khemists. This is full firepower based, and your have a 28 inch threat range on bit units of skyhooks. Now, this list is riskier than the above as you are likely not getting to go first and a nasty enough lit can alpha your admiral and your hemists and after that you're screwed, but with proper placement, you can minimize the risk. Leaving your admiral on the back edge of the board with a tail can help, for example. This army is also sort of slow, BUT it has unbelievable firepower, and maintains a deadly counter attack in your riggers

[stratigo]

17 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Just for clarification, mathematically the volley gun is worse than the cannon on units with a 3+ save or better.  It's a good bit better against units with a 5+ or 6+ save and a little better at 4+ but if you're expecting a lot of 3+, the cannon is the way to go. 

 

If you're building for the alpha strike, you won't be shooting at 3+ units