Indirect fire…

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Has the indirect fire nerf always had the armor save increase for targets since it was first introduced?

 

if not seems like they really screwed artillery for absolutely no reason.

if so, they previously screwed artillery for no good reason.

[Lord_Ikka]

Yes, it was there when they first implemented the indirect fire nerf. 

[Emperor Ming]

So with an order, inf mortars might see some limited use

 

But everything else indirect wise is dead

 

 

[domsto]

Artillery is dead.

Long live Leman Russ spam.

It's sad to see one of our iconic Parts made useless.

Now all indirect Fire Weapon systems are overcosted.

[The Pounder]

Yeah, I’m completely gutted.

 

My Great War theme is now a liability and dead in the water.

 

I really don’t see the need for this nerf it’s not like they were world beaters anyway.

 

Now I have to completely rewrite my list, grrrrr.

 

[sairence]

Mortars are just as good as previously, when you give them the Take Aim order. When you do it with a Castellan, they hit exactly the same as in the old Codex. Except at S5 instead of 4.

 

Everything else needs the spotters doctrine to get their normal hit rate...which is fine, if it weren't for the AP bit.

 

The +1 AP for the target has been part of the indirect rule from the start, but tbh it's a bit much in my view. The hit penalty would be enough for us, I think, because you could work around it, but would have to make extra investments.

But I'm not sure how it would be for other armies, that hit better natively.

Edited January 6, 2023 by sairence
Forgot something

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

59 minutes ago, sairence said:

Mortars are just as good as previously, when you give them the Take Aim order. When you do it with a Castellan, they hit exactly the same as in the old Codex. Except at S5 instead of 4.

 

Everything else needs the spotters doctrine to get their normal hit rate...which is fine, if it weren't for the AP bit.

 

The +1 AP for the target has been part of the indirect rule from the start, but tbh it's a bit much in my view. The hit penalty would be enough for us, I think, because you could work around it, but would have to make extra investments.

But I'm not sure how it would be for other armies, that hit better natively.

That means they’re not as good as they were.

having to give an order to get the same performance out of a unit that we got out that unit the day before yesterday.

 

that’s just not good since the number of orders available to give is kinda limited.

[sairence]

You gave them an order before to reroll 1s as well. No was running a serious mortar pit without an officer. So they're exactly the same with a Castellan, hit on 4s, rerolling 1s. In practical terms, the only thing that really changed for Mortars is that they are now S5 base.

 

PS: The order you give them now and then even has the exact same name.

Edited January 6, 2023 by sairence
Forgot something

[greatcrusade08]

1 hour ago, sairence said:

You gave them an order before to reroll 1s as well. No was running a serious mortar pit without an officer. So they're exactly the same with a Castellan, hit on 4s, rerolling 1s. In practical terms, the only thing that really changed for Mortars is that they are now S5 base.

 

 

I agree with this, i always had an officer nearby in the past, aslong as that doesnt change there is no negative change.

The difference however is if you ever have LOS (outflankers etc) to your target your golden

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, sairence said:

You gave them an order before to reroll 1s as well. No was running a serious mortar pit without an officer. So they're exactly the same with a Castellan, hit on 4s, rerolling 1s. In practical terms, the only thing that really changed for Mortars is that they are now S5 base.

 

PS: The order you give them now and then even has the exact same name.

If you’re using the same order after the nerf as before the nerf, they’re definitionally not just as good as they were.

[Santaclauswitz]

20 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If you’re using the same order after the nerf as before the nerf, they’re definitionally not just as good as they were.

Same order name, different effects, changes from reroll 1's to hit to +1 to hit +1 to AP. There's loads of variables even with a simple mortar and I'm not going to trawl through every blooming one of them! The new codex has better synergies and keywords than the old one. Mortars ARE marginally better in the new codex with easier access to reroll 1's to hit +1 to hit and,  what's not been mentioned,  reroll 1's to wound. Heck you can even get full reroll everything and throw on +1 strength if you really want too. +1 to hit cost cp in the old codex for some regiments. Wound rerolls were few and far between (if any, I'm not going through the old codex!).

 

I'll be taking a squad.  They're not in a bad place. My 2 basilisks, manticore and wyvern will probably be rested for a while because of the indirect fire nerf because it really does affect vehicle indirect fire. Although a direct fire wyvern might find a niche with PTTD. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Santaclauswitz said:

Same order name, different effects, changes from reroll 1's to hit to +1 to hit +1 to AP. There's loads of variables even with a simple mortar and I'm not going to trawl through every blooming one of them! The new codex has better synergies and keywords than the old one. Mortars ARE marginally better in the new codex with easier access to reroll 1's to hit +1 to hit and,  what's not been mentioned,  reroll 1's to wound. Heck you can even get full reroll everything and throw on +1 strength if you really want too. +1 to hit cost cp in the old codex for some regiments. Wound rerolls were few and far between (if any, I'm not going through the old codex!).

 

I'll be taking a squad.  They're not in a bad place. My 2 basilisks, manticore and wyvern will probably be rested for a while because of the indirect fire nerf because it really does affect vehicle indirect fire. Although a direct fire wyvern might find a niche with PTTD. 

Except it’s not as good even with the order

+1 to hit +1 AP just resets the nerf.

 

they’re still worse than pre-nerf because you could use that same exact order pre-nerf and the weapon be better than it is now.

[Santaclauswitz]

17 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Except it’s not as good even with the order

+1 to hit +1 AP just resets the nerf.

 

they’re still worse than pre-nerf because you could use that same exact order pre-nerf and the weapon be better than it is now.

For precisely how many weeks were we able to do this for? Seriously! We and other factions had a patch to make our armies playable before our codex release/arks of omen. Some people wanted the patch and the codex. That's not happened and we now have the same indirect fire rules as everyone else, I wouldn't even call it a nerf.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

58 minutes ago, Santaclauswitz said:

For precisely how many weeks were we able to do this for? Seriously! We and other factions had a patch to make our armies playable before our codex release/arks of omen. Some people wanted the patch and the codex. That's not happened and we now have the same indirect fire rules as everyone else, I wouldn't even call it a nerf.

You wouldn’t call it a nerf, but so far literally everyone else would call it exactly that

[sairence]

It's been stated by GW that the old balance dataslate wasn't meant to apply to the new Codex. So a few weeks of overlap really don't count for anything.

 

The performance you can reasonably compare is 8th ed mortars without indirect nerf and 9th ed mortars with it in effect.

 

In the normal setup, of the mortar pit with an officer to shout at them, this leaves you with exact same 4s to hit, same reroll 1s, same effectively AP0. The only functional difference is that they are now S5.  

 

By all means, don't use them. As you can see no one is arguing that our artillery in general is pretty pants now. Just that mortars are still an alright little backfield fire support, same as before.

Edited January 7, 2023 by sairence
Typo

[Santaclauswitz]

I'm thinking about having a back field infantry squad of infantry with a mortar, melta and box. If you're going to hide in cover most of the game you might as well have a chance to shoot every turn. I fancy running my heavy weapons team mortars literally 5 inches behind the banner of ignoring hit modifiers and over such goodness. These are chip damage units. I'd much prefer to give these units the functional orders like the deep strike 12 order, than give it to a harder hitter such as kasrkin. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

22 hours ago, Santaclauswitz said:

I'm thinking about having a back field infantry squad of infantry with a mortar, melta and box. If you're going to hide in cover most of the game you might as well have a chance to shoot every turn. I fancy running my heavy weapons team mortars literally 5 inches behind the banner of ignoring hit modifiers and over such goodness. These are chip damage units. I'd much prefer to give these units the functional orders like the deep strike 12 order, than give it to a harder hitter such as kasrkin. 

I agree the mortar is the best option if you’re camping a squad out of sight, but it’s undeniably a worse option now than it was a week ago.