Which allied ordinance for my iron warriors ?

[howardmonsoonmoon]

Hi

 

Working my way through a Iron warriors gunline project at the moment. Just feels right to get some extra big guns in ( plus reading storm of iron helped inspired me).

 

I look, obviously, to guard and specifically what are people experiences of BASILISK, COLLOSUS or MEDUSA. I was looking at something like one squadron of two( of any one of the aformentioned). I will take a hq section with a lascannon for a cheap BS4 lascannon, and a barebones vet squad to man my quadgun. Both of those squads and 2 BASSYs for example seem reasonable at a shade under 400 points, as it removes my need for back field cultist support, but I have little experinece playing with guard, So some advice would be gratefully recieved.

 

 

Ta in advance

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Basilisks for the heavy shower of pain or Medusas to come at you like a northern bullet.

[Argun]

Well, it all depends on this: Do you want long-range, barrage capablities, or a medium-range cannon that can instakill toughness 5 enemies?

Personally, I usually run the medusa, even though it's more expensive than the basilisk since I go up against several players at my local game store that run thunderwolves or obliterators w/mark of nurgle.

from memory: Basilisk cannon- St. 9 AP. 3, range from model to next county...

                      Medusa cannon- St. 10, AP 2, range is 36 in. (the basilisk's min. range on bombardment)

Just remember: when you run these, make sure to keep some guys in the back to protect them. They're kinda fragile.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Basilisks, IIRC, have a minimum range of 36" which can really restrict your deployment options with them.

[Argun]

Basilisk's, IIRC, have a minimum range of 36" which can really restrict your deployment options with them.

If they're doing their barrage. 

Also: play your arty enough with the guys, they'll remember to target the big guns first...

[howardmonsoonmoon]

Firstly, Northern bullets - good work sir, good work !

 

So with Basiliks,I could be looking a two line type deployment, Touching the rear of the board with 2 bassys and a goalkeeper unit, to keep them in play for as long as possible, then a second forward line of preds, oblits, forgefiends etc probably on a defense line with a couple of csm squads reday for objective grabbing. Makes me lean towards medusa..... a little.

[Argun]

Hmm... big question here: what armies do you usually play against?

[Hellios]

Is it the fact that you want an artillery gun the reason why you are not considering the manticore?

[minigun762]

Is it the fact that you want an artillery gun the reason why you are not considering the manticore?

That's the first thing I considered too. Saves you enough points to give your Vets some weapons or maybe a Chimera.

[howardmonsoonmoon]

Well My regular opponent is my brother who is a blood angel player, but i do attend a tournaments a couple of times a year (TOS) so I like at least a hint of take on all comers. I am not massively competative, but I like a fighting chance !

 

I ... I just dont like the manticore, I dont like the model. I think a big gun or two is a little bit more fluffy ( seige like if you will..). I dont think manticores are availible as squadron choice either, thats not a deal breaker but it would help with saturation on what are all av12 vehicles. I appreciate that those might seem a little frivolous as reasons.

[minigun762]

If you're heart is set on the imagery of a gun, I'd go with a medusa. To me, the bassie isn't enough of an upgrade compared to the basic battlecannon, where as S10 and AP2 provides more concrete advantages. The shorter range isn't much of an issue in my mind, it's still enough to hit your targets. Give it a camo cloak and camp it behind an ADL.

[Nehekhare]

if you're up against infantry, the colossus trumps them all - but heldrakes do the same for you. Bad thing about the medusa is its lack of barrage, which means no sniping, no way of circumventing cover and no hiding behing buildings. so if you're up against BA, I'd vote for the good old basilisk, against non-marines, I'd consider the griffon, too (so cheap)!

[*Furyou Miko]

:D Always include a Gryphon in any multi-hull artillery squadron. Fire it first and you'll find that your giant templates are significantly more likely to go where you want them to, because instead of scattering they just lay down adjacent to the Gryphon's accurate small blast template. All of a sudden, your minimum range issues just... go away.

[totgeboren]

 

 

Basilisk's, IIRC, have a minimum range of 36" which can really restrict your deployment options with them.

If they're doing their barrage.

Also: play your arty enough with the guys, they'll remember to target the big guns first...

It is actually the other way around. You only use the minimum range of the guns when firing directly. If you choose to shoot a barrage shot, you can fire within your minimum range all you want, meaning the Basilisk isn't all that restricted. Well, unless you really really want to fire directly.

 

It's sort of funny, for example the Collossus has a minimum range of 24" and a rule that says it can never fire directly. So why the minimum range? An artefact of 5ed maybe...

[Ammonius]

 

 

 

Basilisk's, IIRC, have a minimum range of 36" which can really restrict your deployment options with them.

If they're doing their barrage.

Also: play your arty enough with the guys, they'll remember to target the big guns first...

It is actually the other way around. You only use the minimum range of the guns when firing directly. If you choose to shoot a barrage shot, you can fire within your minimum range all you want, meaning the Basilisk isn't all that restricted. Well, unless you really really want to fire directly.

 

It's sort of funny, for example the Collossus has a minimum range of 24" and a rule that says it can never fire directly. So why the minimum range? An artefact of 5ed maybe...

Yeah, the IG FAQ removes the minimum fire language in favor of the 6th ed rules.

 

To the OP:

I am building a squadron of basilisks, but I expect that eventually I will have Medusas and Colossi. As with everything, which is better depends on what you are shooting at. I'm going with Basilisks first because I want a barrage gun (remember the Medusa can't indirect fire) that can penetrate AV14. I have considered doing a squadron of 2 Basilisks and a Colossus to sweep the battlements of Fortresses of redemption and then go on to shoot the building itself. Anyway, your Ally detachment sounds like a winner to me, please let us know what happens in-game.

[Dar'kir]

I play IW aswell and was planning on running three Griffons. The idea was a HQ w/ mortar, 2 INF PLTs each w/ 2 squads w/mortars and one HVY Weapon Squad w/mortars, it came out to about 400pts. The concept behind it was use the mass squad rule to make 20 man units and have them camp on objectives. All the mortars would cause a boat load of pinning checks. Thats my two cents.

[minigun762]

Griffons are nice little units. I'd consider them a worthwhile option if you have enough heavy AT weapons to handle big targets.

[Spear of Achilles]

Colossus by a mile. They take care of those annoying bike Dark Angels and their silly 'vs Chaos' bonus's....

[howardmonsoonmoon]

Hmmmmm

 

Now I hadnt considered the griffin...... 3 griffons are less than 2 bassys. Sure they lose there duality, ie. it anti infantry only as opposed too both anit tank, infantry. With the spare change after some jiggery I could get them a 'body guard' unit say a autocannon hellbrute.

 

Griffins will rob cover wont they ? ( dont have guard codex to hand) or rather limit it with the barrage rule.

 

Though as people say Medusa S10......

[minigun762]

Three might be overkill, remember they are more accurate than normal so you can expect more hits.

S6 is enough to stack wounds and threaten light armor. They get the ordnance bonus for armor pen so they have value against AV10 &11.

 

Also, if you fight lots of flyers, consider the advisor who lowers enemy reserve rolls to help keep them off the table longer. Or the ordnance advisor for an extra pie plate.

[jerryrich]

i used Orc artillery to good effect, you could model the stuff as "dark mech" servitors or something. Cheap, efficient and you can get some fun troops too. i did a mech w/ shock gun, 3 kannons and some boys. was super cheap and a big mob of shotta boys is GREAT. But since you are want barage, lobbas may work for you if you have good anit AV 13/14 in the rest of the army. Lobbas are suprisingly accurate if you get some of the upgades.

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

So you're suggesting 1 Griffon with 2 Basilisks would make a good heavy support choice for IG allies? Do they fire as a Barrage then? How does the Griffon have a more accurate chance to hit? I don't have the guard rules yet.

[Xenith]

 

It is actually the other way around. You only use the minimum range of the guns when firing directly. 

 

Is that right? I'd always thought that the minimum range was for firing indirectly, and direct fire had no minimum range as...you know...it's direct.

 

The min range on indirect represents the shadow zone when arcing a shell over cover.

[Nehekhare]

brb, p.14: "Barrage weapons can fire indirectly. This means they can fire at a target that they do not have line of sight to and/or a target that is within the weapn's minimum range (if it has one)."

of course, this is somehow clusterfracked up by the brb FAQ:

Q: When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds
from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not within
range any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e.
half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half
are not)? (p15)
A: No.

so you can fire (indirectly) at targets within minimum range, but not allocate wounds to them.

p.s.: I guess that's why all the artillery tanks get a heavy bolter (no minimum range)

[totgeboren]

Interesting, and it's a bit of the same situation as scattering blasts. They can hit and wound models outside of LOS, but those wounds are still allocated using normal rules. So if your blast scatters and hit a unit you can't see, you should by the book roll to wound as normal, but all the wounds in your wound pool would then be lost as none of the models are eligible for wound allocation.

 

Makes hiding behind rhinos and such a bit easier, as the enemy can't place blasts so that the models behind are also killed (unless they are big enough too be seen over the vehicle).

 

Even if it does feel like the idea behind barrage is that Wound Allocation from the would pool would not abide to either LOS rules nor Range rules, as the Barrage Rule specifically allows the weapon to ignore them. Not RAW though....