Thaumaturge Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I'm a totally new Freeguild player planning for an infantry/handgun style army, and I wanted to get opinions on the artillery available. From what I've learned through searching the forum, any crewed artillery must be kept out of range of enemy ranged units or the crew will simply be gunned down. I also read a lot of comments suggesting things like the Luminark and such are better because they are self contained and have no crew to kill. I'm just curious as a new player if veterans find artillery useful and which they prefer. Also how to best protect them from things that can show up from table edges and rush them. I also noticed in the Order Errata that the Empire Cannon is still a unit (and the Mortar I assume) seperate from the dwarf cannon, and that a Gunmaster within 1" can buff it since they still have the keywords Human and Engineer. Would you recommend this combo at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCharisma Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I have a large artillery force from the old Empire, but I rarely use them in AoS. Why? I play a lot in tournaments and without having the ability to alter my army each battle, it puts me at a significant disadvantage to armies with special deployment tactics. Picking off and disabling the crew from an artillery is a prime target for SCE, Fireslayers, Sylvaneth, Chaos and Death summoning, Seraphon, Beastclaw Raiders or generally who has an ability to snipe at long range. If I take artillery from the Ironweld range, it's the Steam Tank. It packs a punch, is durable, and can hold objectives. It's unpredictability is a risk at 300pts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aezeal Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 3 hours ago, MrCharisma said: I have a large artillery force from the old Empire, but I rarely use them in AoS. Why? I play a lot in tournaments and without having the ability to alter my army each battle, it puts me at a significant disadvantage to armies with special deployment tactics. Picking off and disabling the crew from an artillery is a prime target for SCE, Fireslayers, Sylvaneth, Chaos and Death summoning, Seraphon, Beastclaw Raiders or generally who has an ability to snipe at long range. If I take artillery from the Ironweld range, it's the Steam Tank. It packs a punch, is durable, and can hold objectives. It's unpredictability is a risk at 300pts. If you put them together and bubble wrap them in the backlines they should be able to survive right? THen with some of teh dwarf buffs they should be decent. I think if they can shoot 2 turns at they SHOULD have easily gotten their points back. (Now I don't play empire or dwarves so it's just my theory so if I'm wrong correct me). A few games ago I played against HE, he had2 boltthrowers .. only 4 wounds for my sylvaneth to kill but I didn't actually manage to kill them due to bad rolling on my one unit of Kurnoths, them falling asleep due to the terrain 2 turns in a row, failing the 2+ on my TLA shooting etc. I only got one wound down with a magic missile (yeah terrible roll for MW there too). And they really really put the hurt on me., one of them often being buffed by a lore master. Cannons are not much more expensive and at least have more wounds. I think if you get enough cannons you should be able to make them do decent damage. I know it will not help you much with scenario's so other troops would have to win the points for you there.. Has anyone tried an al order gunline army with like 3-4 cannons, a gryph hound or 2, some buffing hero: loremaster? dwarf hero ? and maybe even a hurricanum next to it? Then you'd need cheap bodies and battleline(maybe that old empire battalion?) and your points would be gone so likely no big monsters for you. The hounds should help against some deployment stuff, if you deploy back you should be save for most shooting and IF they shoot they can only do 3 wounds at a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCharisma Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 39 minutes ago, Aezeal said: If you put them together and bubble wrap them in the backlines they should be able to survive right? THen with some of teh dwarf buffs they should be decent. I think if they can shoot 2 turns at they SHOULD have easily gotten their points back. (Now I don't play empire or dwarves so it's just my theory so if I'm wrong correct me). A few games ago I played against HE, he had2 boltthrowers .. only 4 wounds for my sylvaneth to kill but I didn't actually manage to kill them due to bad rolling on my one unit of Kurnoths, them falling asleep due to the terrain 2 turns in a row, failing the 2+ on my TLA shooting etc. I only got one wound down with a magic missile (yeah terrible roll for MW there too). And they really really put the hurt on me., one of them often being buffed by a lore master. Cannons are not much more expensive and at least have more wounds. I think if you get enough cannons you should be able to make them do decent damage. I know it will not help you much with scenario's so other troops would have to win the points for you there.. Has anyone tried an al order gunline army with like 3-4 cannons, a gryph hound or 2, some buffing hero: loremaster? dwarf hero ? and maybe even a hurricanum next to it? Then you'd need cheap bodies and battleline(maybe that old empire battalion?) and your points would be gone so likely no big monsters for you. The hounds should help against some deployment stuff, if you deploy back you should be save for most shooting and IF they shoot they can only do 3 wounds at a time. Good points. If I'm going to bubble wrap, it'll be a Hurricanum due to the raw power, buffs and magic benefits. I'm yet to run a gunline to the scale you are referring to. The problem with gunlines is that it's hard to win certain scenarios and by the time you wrestle it off your opponent, it's too late. Not all scenarios though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aezeal Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I agree, while I'm playing Sylvaneth now a year a go I tried a few games with my wood elves. No artillery but also lots of shooting and hanging back (at least in WFB)... it's not really compatible with only 5 turns and most objectives. However if you get 2 objectives you might just keep those and go for the tie and then the killpoint win. A hurricanum doesn't really bubblewrap around artillery.. with gryphhounds and a hurricanum its probably best to get 20 handgunners for the wrapping, slightly worse range but they would benefit most from being 20 and from the hurricanum. They should be able to hit most stuff on your side of the table so wouldn't be useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCharisma Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 8 hours ago, Aezeal said: hurricanum doesn't really bubblewrap around artillery.. with gryphhounds and a hurricanum its probably best to get 20 handgunners for the wrapping, slightly worse range but they would benefit most from being 20 and from the hurricanum. They should be able to hit most stuff on your side of the table so wouldn't be useless. Sorry, my reference was to Hurricanum Vs Artillery. If I'm going to make the effort of bubble wrapping units around anything it would be the Hurricanum and not a cannon, mortar, volley gun, etc. The Steam Tank doesn't require bubble wrapping (to my earlier point) which makes it a great asset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaumaturge Posted March 13, 2017 Author Share Posted March 13, 2017 Thank you everyone for the input. I think I might hold off on artillery and stick to basics for the moment after reading this. Although I do see the benefits of the Hurricanum and will probably get one, if such a thing is technically artillery. One question, what is meant by 'bubble wrapping' something? I gather it's a form of protection using cheaper models but it sounds like a very specific technique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDuff Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 Not really. It's a layer of soft things that are cheap but go pop while protecting what's inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCharisma Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 2 hours ago, Thaumaturge said: One question, what is meant by 'bubble wrapping' something? I gather it's a form of protection using cheaper models but it sounds like a very specific technique. Check out the image I posted in the Lets Chat Free People: You'll notice in this example that I've "wrapped" my battleline around the Hurricanum. I was playing a Seraphon army which had some special deployment tactics which can drop from the sky. If I didn't protect the Hurricanum's 360 degree... there is a big chance they would have leveraged my weakness, killed the Hurricanum before my first turn even happened and put me at a significant disadvantage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaumaturge Posted March 13, 2017 Author Share Posted March 13, 2017 Thank you for that, MrCharisma. I'm going to have to read through that entire thread, but thank you for the explanation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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