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Artillery in AoS


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After recently building a bunch of Helstorm Rocket Batteries for a Cities of Sigmar artillery detachment, I have been thinking about the state of artillery in Age of Sigmar for a bit.

At the moment, I think there are actually no good artillery units in AoS. At least, not any units that are good enough to see play in tournament winning lists. If I had to name the best artillery units in AoS overall, it would probably be the Mortek Crawler and the Warp Lightning Cannon. Both of these units are currently fine, but being held back by the factions they belong to. Maybe add the Beastskewer Killbow to that list. But other than those three, artillery is in a pretty sorry state.

Being in the artillery battlefield role is overall detrimental to a unit. The role has, as far as I can tell, only a single upside, which is that it artillery units can go into certain core battalions. Up to three artillery pieces can go into a Grand Battery (which is bad, because it gives you access to buffs that artillery is paricularly ill-suited to take advantage of) and a single one can go into a Battle Regiment.

As a trade of for that, artillery faces a bunch of difficulties. The max number of artillery that can go in a list is limited, so you can't spam them beyond a certain point. Artillery can't take up regular unit slots in battalions. And while not part of the battlefield role, almost all artillery units have to deal with additional downsides: They are usually single units that can't be reinforced, making them bad targets for command abilities and driving drops up if you take multiple. They almost exclusively have to deal with minimum range requirements. They have a high chance of being saddled with the WARMACHINE keyword, which is also all downside. They are usually very immobile and can't contribute to the objective game. They usually require a dedicated buff hero to unlock their full potential (Lord-Ordinator, Cogsmith, Warlock Engineer...).

So since being in the artillery role is pretty much all downside, artillery units must have really pushed stats to make up for it, right? Actually, most of the time, the opposite is true. Cannons almost always just get a single attack at 4+/2+/-2/d6, which works out to a bit over 1 damage against a 4+ save. Catapults have similar profiles and also have to deal with minimum ranges. Ballistas seem to be the best artillery units overall, but even they don't put out spectacular numbers. And for most artillery units, you pay about 130 or so points for that damage, which even at 24"+ range is unappealing.

At the same time, regular units often do long-range shooting much better than artillery does. Stormcast Longstrikes do more damage (and mortals) than their ballista, for fewer points and without the need of a hero. Lumineth Sentinels outclass the Lumineth ballista. Most shooting in Cities outclasses Cities artillery (plus they can also just bring in Longstrikes, which in turn outclass most Cities shooting). It seems like artillery is currently in the position that non-hero monsters were in during 2nd edition: Being artillery is overall worse than not being artillery, but they are costed as if it is an upside.

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So far for the state of artillery in AoS. But what should be done about it?

Personally, I would like to see artillery be more viable. I think the fantasy and aesthetics of big cannons and catapults is appealing, and it would be nice if they did more work on the tabletop. But I know what some of you may be thinking right now: Everyone is already sick of long-ranged shooting dominating the game. So should we really buff artillery and bring on even more of that? In my opinion, the artillery role is the perfect place for long-range shooting to live, precisely because of all the downsides that it brings.

For one, the limit to the number of artillery units a player can bring that is already in place would put a hard cap on the long-range shooting damage a list could put out if long-range shooting was mostly found on artillery. Artillery units could be balanced around the assumption that for them to put out really threatening damage numbers (the kind of delete-a-unit-per-turn damage that Longstrikes currently do), you would have to bring the max number allowed and dedicate about a third of your army to it. As mentioned above, that would come with the trade off of running a dedicated support hero and driving your drops way up. As well as having about a third of your points buried in your deployment, not contributing directly to the objective game.

What do you think? Do you agree with this idea of confining long range shooting mostly to artillery units? It will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle with Longstrikes, Sentinels and Blood Stalkers, but how would you feel about all shooting with more than, let's say, 18" reach being off limits to regular troops as a rule? Would that make the game more enjoyable to you? How would you feel about buffs to artillery in general?

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Aesthetically I love artillery and therefore I will always have a place for it in my collection.

Lore wise, however, I see the Mortal Realms as a place dominated by magic and where technology has failed to keep up, sadly. (The exception being the dwarfs in their airships)

Edited by EntMan
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I love artillery and I tend to always fit one or two in my army, even if they have poor warscrolls... I'm not competitive.

It's possible that GW doesn't want to give space to warmachines, in fact the models we have come almost exclusively from Fantasy... But I agree, they would need some love!

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5 minutes ago, EntMan said:

Aesthetically I love artillery and therefore I will always have a place for it in my collection.

Lore wise, however, I see the Mortal Realms as a place dominated by magic and where technology has failed to keep up, sadly. (The exception being the dwarfs in their airships)

In that case, I think there is some opportunity here to give the few armies that actually use technologically advanced artillery some more character. A good half of the existing artillery in the game is kinda magical, anyway, though.

 

6 minutes ago, EntMan said:

I think the Dawnbringer Crusades, whatever they turn out to be, could be a great opportunity for new artillery and war machines ( I live in hope).

I collect more than I play, so please educate me on the issues with the WARMACHINE keyword.

It used to be that the only thing the keyword did was make it so that you can't benefit from cover, but I just checked again that actually seems to be gone from the newest core rules. So that means being a WARMACHINE now just doesn't give any benefits instead of being a downside in itself. It is now only a downside in comparison to being a MONSTER.

 

2 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Call me old fashioned but I'm happier with minimal shooting/artillery. There's 40k if you want endless shooting.

That's my point, though, that putting most of the good ranged attacks on artillery units would make the shooting in AoS less endless over time. Shooting units that need to get within 18" or so of the opponent are always at the risk of being charged and are way more managable for melee armies. Long range shooting currently already exists in AoS, but it mostly comes without any of the downsides that being on artillery would bring.

I recognize that artillery units have a tendency of being kinda boring to play against, given their role. Nobody wants the game to be dominated by units that just sit in your deployment zone and take opposing units off the board without counter play. But the question is: Since we have artillery in AoS already, should it not at least do something instead of nothing?

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1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

What do you think? Do you agree with this idea of confining long range shooting mostly to artillery units? It will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle with Longstrikes, Sentinels and Blood Stalkers, but how would you feel about all shooting with more than, let's say, 18" reach being off limits to regular troops as a rule? Would that make the game more enjoyable to you? How would you feel about buffs to artillery in general?

For me this would be the way to go as well. You summed the main problem with artillery, lots of downsides and with profiles that are worst than other normal ranged units in the same faction. If I'm not mistaken only Ossiarch don't have a regular ranged unit outside of the artillery and for all of them the regular unit tend to have better range and a better attack profile while also filling roles of battleline and been more mobile. Nerfing the range of those units and leaving the long range to artillery only would be a good start, at least would give then a particular role to fill. I would also suggest to make their attack stronger in some way, but without been something ultra oppressive. I would suggest either making their damage higher but reducing the number of attacks/rend to make them a little less "point click kill the 5 wounds hero" (something like 1 attack, +2/+2/-1/d3+3 damage) or reduce their damage but give them more attacks with high rend, which would give them a role has a little counter to the save staking problems we have nowadays (maybe 3 attacks, +3/+3/-3/2 damage).

P.S.: I didn't check the math in the examples, they are more to illustrate the ideas.

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3 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

For me this would be the way to go as well. You summed the main problem with artillery, lots of downsides and with profiles that are worst than other normal ranged units in the same faction. If I'm not mistaken only Ossiarch don't have a regular ranged unit outside of the artillery and for all of them the regular unit tend to have better range and a better attack profile while also filling roles of battleline and been more mobile. Nerfing the range of those units and leaving the long range to artillery only would be a good start, at least would give then a particular role to fill. I would also suggest to make their attack stronger in some way, but without been something ultra oppressive. I would suggest either making their damage higher but reducing the number of attacks/rend to make them a little less "point click kill the 5 wounds hero" (something like 1 attack, +2/+2/-1/d3+3 damage) or reduce their damage but give them more attacks with high rend, which would give them a role has a little counter to the save staking problems we have nowadays (maybe 3 attacks, +3/+3/-3/2 damage).

P.S.: I didn't check the math in the examples, they are more to illustrate the ideas.

I think the Kruleboyz Beastskewer Killbow is actually a good example of a well-done artillery unit in that way, with its damage scaling up the more wounds the target has. It is actually one of the few artillery units where you feel good about just taking one in a list, and even though it deals good damage against its intended targets, it doesn't have the foot hero sniping potential everyone dislikes so much.

In general it could be an option to put most of an artillery units damage potential behind special rules, such as with the Killbow where it only really deals good damage against monsters. The Skaven Plagueclaw Catapult has a rule where it gets double damage and +1 to hit against units with more than 10 models as another good example. I think making one of the ballistas or the Helblaster an anti-flying unit could be another potential niche for a future update.

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I’ve tried to look to other games/systems to see why AoS has different feeling when you use some Artillery, and I think it’s because they don’t have a role on the table.

They are just “worst" ranged units. So, I decided to look for other roles that have a similar problem and I find that Cavalry and  Heavy/Monstrous Cavalry had a similar problem. But lot's of them have similar abilities that we can group into two groups:

Spoiler

[Example of a Monster Charging]
Murderous ChargeAfter a model in this unit makes a charge move, you can pick 1 enemy unit within 1" of that model and roll a dice. On a 2+ that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound. If this unit has more than 1 model, roll to determine if mortal wounds are inflicted after each model completes its charge move, but do not allocate the mortal wounds until after all of the models in the unit have moved. If this unit has 6 or more models when it makes a charge move, change the mortal wounds inflicted by this ability from 1 to D3.

[Example of Cavalry Charging]
Lances of the BounderzAdd 1 to wound rolls for attacks made with this unit’s Pokin’ Lances if this unit made a charge move in the same turn.

So, big cavalry/monsters can do mortal wounds and skilled riders have a bonus to their weapon profiles after a charge. Some of them can be really bad (stats, points, etc...) or out of the meta, but at least, they are different from other units. That's what I'm looking for. Let’s move to Artillery.

We can group all Artillery units into 4 groups:

  • Catapults/Trebuchets Maybe blob-killers.
  • Bolt-Throwers/Axe Throwers Maybe high-wounds killers (Beast-skewer Killbow)
  • Cannons/Gunpowder Generalists (high rend, damage, range, etc... but without a specialist bonus)
  • Lightning/Lasers High risk-high reward?

I'm not sure what abilities they need, but their role should be clear. Numbers can be tweaked to make them more viable, so it's all about giving them a purpose on the table.

Edited by Beliman
Grammar
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We're already so far past the point where AoS could be considered a low shooting game I do not think it is even worth worrying about if this adds more shooting to the game. It is already here and denying X and Y faction theirs is what also contributes to faction imbalance. That's not to say every faction needs artillery cause there are other ways to compensate for a lack of shooting or having access to ranged attacks through other means.

Most factions with artillery are already limited in number so it isn't like they'd be everywhere just because we make them useful options. Plus it is plain weird to see Duardin somehow having forgot entirely about how to make and use war machines. Gets even weirder since the lore can't shut up about Duardin and their war machines either.

Also, give me back my Flame Cannon and Organ Gun. NOW! *grumbles*

 

Edited by pnkdth
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2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

At the same time, regular units often do long-range shooting much better than artillery does.

It will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle with Longstrikes, Sentinels and Blood Stalkers, but how would you feel about all shooting with more than, let's say, 18" reach being off limits to regular troops as a rule?

A radical suggestion: let some infantry units retain their long-range shooting ability, but change their role to Artillery. (Rename the role if you can't reconcile infantry-portable weapons with the term "Artillery" - we're really talking about a "Long-Range Support" role but you can call it whatever.) Change rule 25.5.1 so that the unit retains its previous role, so it still counts against the Artillery (or Monster) limit while counting towards the Battleline requirement.

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4 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

A radical suggestion: let some infantry units retain their long-range shooting ability, but change their role to Artillery. (Rename the role if you can't reconcile infantry-portable weapons with the term "Artillery" - we're really talking about a "Long-Range Support" role but you can call it whatever.) Change rule 25.5.1 so that the unit retains its previous role, so it still counts against the Artillery (or Monster) limit while counting towards the Battleline requirement.

I think Warplock Jezzails already work like this. Makes sense for Longstrikes as well.

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I agree that artillery is in a weird place. Taking SCE as an example, the Celestar Ballista being one of the weakest and cheapest shooting options in faction seems bizarre. I would have expected it to be more like what Longstrikes are now, and Longstrikes having some other role. I would definitely be in favour of reducing long range shooting on non-artillery but I think that would take a lot of warscroll rewriting and I don't think that's really on the cards.

I would really like to see more artillery with specific roles, like what Beliman said. I think the Beast Skewer Killbow is a good example of that, specialised for dealing with high-wound monsters with a cool special rule to determine damage output, and still not totally useless against regular troops. It seems to me that if you're going to have special rules for shooting, and there are quite a lot out there (MWs on 6s to hit are the big ones, but also all the dragon breath 4+ is d3 MWs, or pick a point, deal MWs in a radius around it), then they should really primarily be on the limited centrepiece-type models, i.e. artillery.

I think giving some of the long-range high power shooting models like Longstrikes the artillery keyword is a neat idea because it does really reflect their role, but if it were the only change, the only thing I think it would do is ironically make them better by putting them into the artillery slot in a Battle Regiment, allowing for the option to have one extra troop and remain a 1-drop.

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My personal opinion is AoS artillery should continue to be about mobility rather than pure firepower so it’s never a “sit back and gunline/castle” build which are usually boring especially in dynamic magic & melee games like this. 
 

Mobile and more active artillery very accurate to the lore too between the crazy magic in the Realms making static positions an Endless Spell death-trap and just the constant changing and shifting nature of the realmscapes meaning you have to be ready to move at all times.

All the modern artillery accommodates this trait with the Kharadron airships, Ossiarch crawler legs, the various monster-back weaponry and the Stormcast, Lumineth and Kruleboyz ballistas all being noted as light and easy to disassemble & reassemble quickly as shown with their high movement values of 5 and 6(only the Stormcast being slow at 3 despite it’s lore of being easy to break into two parts for fast travel because it’s still very slow heavy armored Stormcast carrying the parts. But now have the Knight-Judicator and his enormous longbow as mobile artillery at 6 movement to compensate).

I support this design philosophy and would be more than okay with unique artillery pieces that are monster-back firing platforms that also charge, heroes with massive ranged weapons & large-moving warmachines like Cogforts and steam-crawlers that carry the hybrid roles of artillery and monster units to keep pace with melee-centric game and how the Mortal Realms armies have to adapt to eldritch battlefields that are unstable at the best of times. :) 

 

Edited by Baron Klatz
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I miss the days of dragging 4 Magma Cannons around with 4 Skullcracker Engines in Legion of Azgorh.  And before that I had 4 Chaos Hellcannons.  That was AWESOME!  Until the dwarves got sniped and the cannons went crazy and ate people.

Artillery is a playstyle, and it limits the other stuff you can take in the army.  Just like if you take all monsters for battleline you'll lack the model count for objectives potentially (aside from the Gargants).  I think many of the artillery pieces now are quite good and usable (the Warp Lightning Cannon for example, and the Ogor Ironblaster CAN both do stuff with decent hero support as can most others....but the Cities artillery stinks).

Edited by Lord Krungharr
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1 hour ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I miss the days of dragging 4 Magma Cannons around with 4 Skullcracker Engines in Legion of Azgorh.  And before that I had 4 Chaos Hellcannons.  That was AWESOME!  Until the dwarves got sniped and the cannons went crazy and ate people.

Artillery is a playstyle, and it limits the other stuff you can take in the army.  Just like if you take all monsters for battleline you'll lack the model count for objectives potentially (aside from the Gargants).  I think many of the artillery pieces now are quite good and usable (the Warp Lightning Cannon for example, and the Ogor Ironblaster CAN both do stuff with decent hero support as can most others....but the Cities artillery stinks).

Well the warplightning cannon is a very fun unit but very unreliable, not that that would bother any true skaven player.

 

personally I do believe that making artillery units the more range heavy unit, would at least give them somewhat of a rule.

how about we decrease the range of lumineth bowman down to 18”, and increase the range of any artillery to at least 36”

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I like Warmachines and Artillery pieces but in my opinion there is little to no motivation to pick most of them. Some, like the OBR Catapult and the Beastskewer are just awesome concepts, but others like the Ironblaster or the Skull Cannon are just wasted potential having only a weird shooting attack. Especially the Skull cannon warscroll is painfull to look at, because it is a model that basically exists to shoot out of combat, but simply lacks the rule to do so.

Lorewise I love the competition of magic vs might vs engineering. Greywater Fastness shows how the motif of big cannons and industrialisation is opportunity for progress and conflict. 

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Artillery need scaling to hit/damage values based on the number of models in the units they target (this would have been very good against the 2nd ed blob battleline lists) and more shots so they can't whiff their single cannonball/projectile loads (or do what OBR did right and give them a choice of shot to utilize in a given turn with different advantages/disadvantages to each).

 

Also they should never have given projectile units range on par with artillery in the first place, artillery should have been king of high ranges and units been limited to 12" with 18 being exceptional or something.  - This is unlikely to ever change as it would require overhauling every single warscroll out there.

Not sure if they will ever be particularly viable in 3rd ed the way its developing. They would have to put out immense ranged damage to compete with current ranged units and frankly I'd prefer they toned the whole ranged mortals/high rend down a lot to begin with. 

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5 hours ago, Charleston said:

I like Warmachines and Artillery pieces but in my opinion there is little to no motivation to pick most of them. Some, like the OBR Catapult and the Beastskewer are just awesome concepts, but others like the Ironblaster or the Skull Cannon are just wasted potential having only a weird shooting attack. Especially the Skull cannon warscroll is painfull to look at, because it is a model that basically exists to shoot out of combat, but simply lacks the rule to do so.

Lorewise I love the competition of magic vs might vs engineering. Greywater Fastness shows how the motif of big cannons and industrialisation is opportunity for progress and conflict. 

Yet the city of grey water fastness has no cannons to be used.

a very sad thought😭

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3 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Ive only had a bit of experience with the Cities and Sigmarine ones and they are wildly undergunned, they need to get with the times and mount them on dinosaurs so the artillery can delete units (albeit of skaven, not too high a bar) like the olde days of cannon sniping :D

You mean like the old days when every kind of artillery could blow itself up, unlike only the skaven stuff currently😉

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I'd say artillery needs to be qualitatively different from other ranged units, not just quantitatively. Some ideas:

- artillery is stronger but can't shoot into melee combat /has minimum range

- artillery can't be look out sir'd - no dodging a cannonball

- artillery is way stronger but has 'setup time', and can't shoot right away

- more artillery like the Kruleboyz; the wound characteristic is very interesting 

- artillery is stronger, but shooting it into units in combat means also hitting your own units in that combat - signifying the lesser accuracy or artillery. 

All simple, but it might make artillery feel different from ranged units, which it seems to lack right now (other than the beastskewer, that's nice) give me a call, GW.

 

Edited by Abstract_duck
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