| Weapon Crew | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 5th December 2010 - 05:14 PM (422 Views) | |
| Katla | 5th December 2010 - 05:14 PM Post #1 |
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I was thinking about weapon crews, and whether they are worth their high cost in the glorious skaven warhost. There seems to be a consensus in this edition that ratling guns are not worth its points, usually amounting to not enough damage. Warpfire throwers are expensive, but very dangerous if they hit! The operative word is hit; perhaps it is just my own karma but I either miss with them or they blow up and take a sizable portion of my squad with them. In total I believe I have played 6-8 matches as Skaven, and have never felt they payed themselves back. Most of the time they've blown up, others they have overshot, and the few times where they did hit they caused quite a lot of damage, but not enough to make much of a difference. In my opinion that they seem to be too unreliable for their cost. Poisoned Wind mortars is a bit of an interesting thing. They are relatively accurate, still able to hit big regiments with relative ease. Their misfire is not too bad compared to the warpfire, big range as well as move and fire. They are very maneuverable as well as flexible in their uses, can notch off wounds on big monsters as well as devastate both knights and heavy infantry. I can't comment on the doom flayer or the warp grinder as I have not used them, and would like to know what others feel about them. In general, weapon teams are relatively easy to kill. 60 points that can be easily killed by a well placed cannon/mortar/stone thrower shot or a shooting regiment. For this alone I consider them to be a big risk to take, considering two of them almost make up the cost for an entire clanrat regiment! I can considering taking no more than two mortars, because they can be more easily hidden from shooting than the warpfire can. |
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| bakfire the experimenter | 5th December 2010 - 05:24 PM Post #2 |
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graduate of the school for dangerous inventions
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I like the mortar but the move or shoot of the thrower as left me feeling a little jaded. Havent tried the others but im thinking the known range of the ratling gun maybe usefull |
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| Katla | 5th December 2010 - 05:34 PM Post #3 |
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That it does, but it's a very short range. If it had been 24" or perhaps 30" they would be quite effective! But 18" will put in range of anything worthwhile. The only worthwhile thing I've found with the warpfire thrower is to screen with them. As in, walk with them in front of the squad, and if you get in range start shooting, otherwise just wait for the charge and stand & shoot. |
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| Clanseer Skabrius | 5th December 2010 - 05:39 PM Post #4 |
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Lord of the Undermountain
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You should remember the Ratling gun's range used to be 15" in 6th edition...18" is quite an improvement. The most desructive team is warpfire thrower like you said, but it's easy to kill and if it misfires you lose it in most cases. The mortar is the most reliable, and it works best against large or heavily armoured armies. The blind fire option is a nice perk too. |
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| Katla | 5th December 2010 - 05:57 PM Post #5 |
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I never played with or against the old Skaven, so i can't say I remember that much. Regardless, 15" is short, but I heard it was quite powerful back in the days. The 3" improvement is not enough to cancel out the loss of automatic hits, in my opinion! Speaking of the Mortar, it has some quite weird wording. It says that it can use its parent units LOS, and that if it can't see its target it will fire indirectly with extra scatter. Does this mean that its parents unit will give it LOS, and it can fire indirect fire at ANY time, or will it recieve indirect fire if it uses the parents LOS, and cannot fire indirect in any other way? |
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| tbone | 5th December 2010 - 05:59 PM Post #6 |
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Grey Seer
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I agree with what has been said I've never used a warpgrinder, but I have used the doomflayer The Doomflayer is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes you get 1 impact hit, and other times you can get a total of 13 automatic S4 hits. For 55 points, its cheaper than the rest, but needs to get into close combat to even have a chance of making its points back. What really hurts the doomflayer is its initiative 3. Combine it with only one wound and almost any hero can 'make way' and take it out before its spinning death attack. Fortunately, I play against many low initiative armies, so I just go for units without any sort of combat hero or lord. I would never ever take one against elves |
| Tbone's Nasty Rats | |
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| ratwhowouldbeking | 5th December 2010 - 06:19 PM Post #7 |
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Clanrat
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Any time I think about weapon teams, I consider that for another 15-20 points, I could have a Warp Lightning Cannon. Cannons are the kings of this edition, near-full-table range, does d6 wounds, ignore armor, small template, 3 wounds on the model, T6, and does not have to attach itself to a unit. And the Poison Wind Mortar is just the poor man's Plagueclaw Catapault. Unless you've already filled your Rare allocation with Doomwheels and HPAs, I really just don't care for weapon teams at current. |
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| Clanseer Skabrius | 5th December 2010 - 07:04 PM Post #8 |
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Lord of the Undermountain
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My interpretation of this rule is that when the Mortar is within 3" of the parent unit, you get to use either the parent unit's LOS or the weapon team's LOS. (It's pretty clear according to me) If you choose the former, you scatter double the distance rolled. This has led to some funny situations in my battles where the unit is facing one way while the weapon team looks the other way, for a larger field of vision
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| Scurrilous | 6th December 2010 - 12:20 AM Post #9 |
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Warlord
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Weapon teams have me feeling mixed about them. I find the mortar gets some wounds out there, but the WFT is always getting killed. Because it's move or shoot I have to keep it protected, which usually means it gets no targets. It's very powerful but hard to use, especially against shooty armies. |
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Tournemant results to date: vs Vampire Counts: 1 victory vs Dwarves: 1 victory vs Daemons: 1 Draw vs Brettonians: 1 draw, 1 loss vs Skaven: 1 victory vs Lizardmen: 1 victory vs Dark Elves: 1 loss vs High Elves: 1 loss | |
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| Katla | 6th December 2010 - 03:12 AM Post #10 |
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I looked over the plagueclaw catapult, and find it to be a quite excellent replacement for the weapon crew. It does the same job as the mortar, but with greater range and reliability. Most models will be wounded on 5+, and the rest on 6+. Still, get a good hit will wipe off a lot of heavy infantries or cavalries. I would love to get a center hit on a brettonian knight regiment with that! My biggest problem is always the reliability of the weapon teams, they either just die or end up missing a lot. I'd love to pay 30 points more to remove one of those factors, and lower the other(large template means getting a lot more reliable hits than the small one) |
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| Chitterfitz | 6th December 2010 - 04:37 AM Post #11 |
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Warlord
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Im actually going to try a Skrye Castle Lsit and see if the Weapon teams become more effective with that idea. I do however love the doomflayer, on average you get at least five hits with it and to use it as a support charge it does amazing damage for its points cost, combined with the best Armor save in the army other than Charcters and i feel its def. Worht its points. |
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| desmondkenny | 6th December 2010 - 01:59 PM Post #12 |
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Clanrat
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Certainly the best of the weapons teams are the poison wind mortar and the doomflayer. The Poison wind mortar is accurate, effective, doesn't have that bad a misfire table and above all, can move and shoot, with a decent range. Easily worth the points. The Doomflayer does admittedly have to get into combat, but adds killing power to any clanrat unit. Artillery dice hits hurts! Again, inexpensive. The Warpfire thrower, while not as viable in my opinion as the above for points, does still pack quite a punch. On the advice of another poster to this forum, the best way to use it is with a slave unit. Get the slaves into combat, fire into combat, kill loads, slaves break, kill more. This combo can be deadly. To get the warp fire thrower into range, just keep it behind the slaves, with the clanrat unit nearby for the ward save. Ratling gun is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be. It did get 3" more range, but a drop in strength and - even more detrimental - you now have to roll to hit. Mind you, I still for a while took it to handle fast cavalry, but they can just sit outside it's fire range and still be able to charge it - bye bye weapons team. And all this when your Doomwheel and A-Bomb effectively have a 360 charge arc and a flee reaction can't be declared. So with those beasts on the table, no need for ratling gun. As for the Warp-grinder - it's absolutely useless in combat. But that's not what it's for - it's for tunneling. Only two units can use it - Gutter and Night runners. It's completely pointless for Gutter runners. They have Sneaky infiltrators, which while they only come in on a board edge as opposed to anywhere on the board, the dice roll improves by turn, where it's always a 4+ for the grinder. And the scatter can ruin the best laid plans. And besides, Gutter runners are fast enough for that not to be too detrimental, especially seeing as their main target is artillery anyways. The warp grinder could arguably be very useful for Night runners. I haven't used this unit yet, but a ranked up unit with extra hand weapons popping up behind enemy lines could be glorious. Generally - yes, weapons teams can get taken out by shooting, even with the ward save and the biggest tactical challenge with some of them is getting them in range. The best answer to this isn't hiding the teams - it's getting more of them! A pretty dangerous list is one that has about 5 units of clanrats, all with weapons teams - say 3 PWMs and 2 WFTs. Then you add 2 Warp lightning cannons or maybe a plague claw catapult, a Doomwheel or 2, some poison wind globadiers (possibly with another PWM), then plenty of warlock engineers (one of which has the Doom rocket). Then add jezzails if you have the points and plenty of slaves. I haven't tried this yet completely, I just supplement my list with 2 PWMs, 1 WFT, a Doomflayer, a Warpligtning cannon and a Doomrocket engineer. This works just fine for me, I give my opponent plenty of other targets to worry about (A-Bomb, Furnace, Warlord Litter) |
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| Paricidas | 6th December 2010 - 07:01 PM Post #13 |
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Doomwheel Driver
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While I strongly disagree with much of desmondkennys post, this is imho perhaps one of the most important tactical tipps when using weapon teams. One WFT is arrows bait, a single unit of shooting/flying skirmishers will eat it for breakfast and you can be sure if it survives round 2 it will not be in the right place to get off a good shot. Three WFTs will not be killed that easily and at least one of them will be in a good position to fire by turn 3 and a single good shot will be worth the loss of 3 WFTs. The other options are rather mew. The PWM is nearly immune to enemy fire (+2 hard cover from your own unit) and you can not make any mistakes during deployment/movement, as it has a good firing range and can move&shoot, but the damn thing is so random... Ratling guns are good for taking out skirmishers and flyers, but thats all that is left for them. Warpgrinders are funny but extremely expensive (if you count in the 40 nightrunners it needs to work well) Doomflayers are at ini 3 and more or less completly useless against anything that is not "cheapest-bottom-crap", 4 PCBs will cost roughly the same, can take much more of a beating and will add a much bigger punch to a charge. On a sidenote: if you want your weapon teams to get more ressistant to s3 and s4 shooting, you can put an engineer with them, then all that shots have to be divided between the weapon team and the character (granted, that only works for small scale fire, it will not be very usefull against 40 repeater xbow-bolts) |
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