9 replies to this topic

[TrueDawi]

Some say Dawi Zharr's Dreadquake motar, or Orge's Ironblaser is the best. Dawi Zharr is the best warmachine faction. I haven't had a chance to play with these factions.

 

So I have read some battle report to figure out what is the best warmachine? Which faction is the best warmachine faction?(Of course I think dwarfs is the best, trying to prove it) there are no plenty of battle reports.

So I want to hear you long beard's opinions.

[Kallstrom]

The main armies that could field War Machines (in the traditional sense, so not counting something like a machine daemon cannon, or a monster slinging rocks around, etc.) in 8th edition was:

Dwarfs
Empire
Bretonnia
High Elves
Tomb Kings
Ogre Kingdoms
Chaos Dwarfs
Orcs and Goblins
Dark Elves
Skaven

Out of those I'd say that Bretonnia, Dark Elves, High Elves, and Tomb Kings are inferior mainly because they cannot field more than 1 type of War Machine.
Then there are the Ogre Kingdoms who only can field two kinds if I remember correctly, a scrap launcher and a giant chariot cannon.

The Orcs and Goblins and the Skavens various War Machines are hardly superior to the other more civilized races, but they sure can bring some spectacular displays when launching goblins into the air or firing giant green laser beams respectively. The Skaven has loads of nice Weapon Teams, but they do not count as regular War Machines.

But if those above are removed then we get these factions left standing:
Dwarfs
Empire
Chaos Dwarfs

Out of those I'd say that at least dwarfs win out over the Empire when it comes to artillery. Both armies have similar artillery pieces, but the unique rocket propelling machine that the empire has are equalled in design by the sturdy catapult from the dwarfs - and then the dwarfs still has the flame spewing cannon to boot! The Empire has the Steam Tank, but the dwarfs have Gyrocopters. 
Chaos Dwarfs have some nifty War Machines as well, and some of them has some nasty special rules, so depending on what kind of War Machines you want you'd might say that Chaos Dwarfs are the superior War Machine army. 

...however, I'd say that since the Dwarf army can inscribe their War Machines with various potent runes the Dwarf army still comes out on top. We can field Cannons, Organ Guns, Grudge Throwers, Ballistas, and Flame Cannons - runed up and ready to rumble! That makes us the best army when it comes to laying down a barrage of artillery, at least in my opinion.

 

Edited by Kallstrom, 02 May 2020 - 11:42 AM.

[Luigi]

As Kallastrom said, Dwarfs definitely have the best artillery in the fluff and arguably (in theory at least) in the game.

We’re the only army who’s able to field all the basic types of war machines plus some of our own. We can also tune and rune them up as we need.


One of my dreams is to have a huge siege game where I can field all of my painted miniatures (maybe around 5/6 thousand points) and defend against a huge (10/15 thousands points) painted army of O&G it Skaven.

My artillery, around 20 pieces, would have a great day.

[Yvain]

Runed organ gun is love, runed organ gun is life

 

 

[Luigi]

The organ gun is indeed a sight to reckon with, especially when runed and tuned.

But I still like the idea of the flame cannon more. The idea of pretty much Greek fire melting flesh off of some grobis is very appealing.
To bad the actual model in game is pretty underwhelming

[Lord Alisk]

Hello again everybody after what seems an impossibly long hiatus.

 

in terms of the fluff, indubitably dwarfs have the 'best' artillery, and being able to re-roll misfires and the like is certainly very powerful. Again, in terms of fluff, I'd say the Empire might pip the dwarfs in terms of sheer wrecking power (the impression I got was the Empire can outproduce the dwarfs very considerably), and the Skaven have the highest damage potential. 

 

However, in game terms, I'd actually go for none of these as my top picks. I'd say there are 4 stand-out artillery pieces. All four are for armies which, in the fluff, are meant to be non-shooty (so this is problematic from a fluff point of view), and I do think the rules were poorly written or they were otherwise problematic from a rules mechanics point of view, or (in 3/4 of cases) their rules fundamentally change the way artillery works to avoid the key weaknesses/vulnerabilities of artillery, making them ridiculously good (in my view). 

 

So dwarf artillery does have the advantage of re-rolling misfires (at considerable cost) and stubborn crew, they don't overcome the fundamental weaknesses of being unable to move and fire, being very vulnerable in hand-to-hand combat, and only having 3 wounds. 

 

I'd nominate these four:

 

1 - the Chaos Hell Cannon. Because it's technically a daemon and a monster, as well as unbreakable (rather than unstable) this means it's basically invulnerable to war machine hunters. It has 5 wounds and a ward save, so it's relatively safe in terms of counter-battery fire (and the chaos dwarf crew count as ablative wounds I believe, as 1/3 of shots from missile weapons  hit them). Another major strength lies in hand-to-hand combat - being a fairly decent fighter itself, as well as using its own high toughness (not that of the squishy crew), and being unbreakable and able to thunderstomp means it can beat fast cavalry and absolutely mash infantry. I've seen  one used very well as a blocking unit advancing as part of the main battleline as it's very hard indeed to shift in combat. Essentially, this beast of a 'warmachine' avoids many of the key weaknesses of artillery (squishy crew and vulnerability to other war machines,  and has a pretty impressive damage potential to boot too. It has the strengths of war machines & monsters, and very little of the weaknesses of either. 

 

2 - The Ogre iron blaster. I'd nominate this because it can move and shoot (this for me is the clincher), has 5 wounds, at T6 it's no more vulnerable to small arms fire than a 'normal' war machine and significantly tougher in  hand-to-hand, is pretty powerful in a fight (it's a chariot, after all!), and rolls twice for a bounce and picking the highest - so it's damage potential for shooting is considerably above the average for cannons. Yes, it's 25 points more than a dwarf cannon with forging, but it's much tougher, on average inflicts more damage, and can move and shoot - I know which one I'd choose - every time. the fact that it's a shorter ranged cannon has never mattered in any game I've seen as it can move and shoot and has a longer average bounce, and playing on seriously large tables rarely happens.

 

3 - The daemon skull cannon. Like the iron blaster it can move and shoot and is a chariot. It also is pretty dangerous in a fight. Having a ward save makes it less vulnerable to counter-battery fire. I don't like facing them. Thematically, if felt like a Warhammer 40,000 kit was shoe-horned into a Warhammer Fantasy list...

 

4 - the Bretonnian trebuchet. This piece has its power through rules changes between editions. In 6th ed, when the book was published, the trebuchet was pretty balanced. Fast forward to 8th ed, stone throwers are vastly more accurate (no more range guessing),and all partial hits from templates auto-hit. Also, most stone throwers now have S3 - whereas the trebuchet was still S5. The devastation this thing could do to T3 infantry was extreme, particularly as it was so cheap. Also, having 4 wounds made it less vulnerable to counter-batter fire (on average one wounding cannon hit won't kill it, when it would kill most war machines).

 

The Bretonnian trebuchet was least problematic in game as the Bretonnian book as a whole was fairly weak by 8th ed, and traditional tactics against the trebuchet still worked (war machine hunters, getting into hand-to-hand, etc). Also, this one rankled less in game as the trebuchet was so powerful because of rules changes between editions, not because of (in my view) questionable rules writing for 8th edition army books. 

 

Most of the niggles for the first three on the list could be easily addressed. Making the Hell Cannon unstable or  just less dangerous in a fight would redress the issues (it's the same for daemon princes in Warriors of Chaos armies - I've no idea why these daemon princes could take common magic items and were unbreakable rather than unstable, whereas neither applied to daemon princes in daemon armies), and making the Iron Blaster & Skull Cannon into move-or-shoot weapons would address a lot of the niggles (also, making the Iron Blaster T5, not T6, would have helped a lot - I've no idea why it was T6). 

 

Anyway, I'd respectfully say that the dwarfs don't have the 'best' artillery in Warhammer 8th, at least not point-for-point. The most fearsome option available to dwarfs is probably an organ gun with forging and accuracy - but at 170 points it's still very vulnerable to shooting and in hand-to-hand, and cannot move-and-shoot (so, unlike the Iron Blaster or Skull Cannon, couldn't hide behind a house and then pop out to shoot in Turn 1). 

 

However, dwarfs did have the option of going gunline, which none of the armies to which the four 'best' war machines on my list could do. But I'd strongly say that point-for-point the dwarf artillery was significantly less good than any of the four on my list. 

[TrueDawi]

Thank you for interesting opinions guys.

Lord Alisk, if there's not point-for-point, what would you pick?

[Lord Alisk]

Lord Alisk, if there's not point-for-point, what would you pick?

 

If I were playing dwarfs (which I nearly always do!), the Hellcannon would be the one I'd be most concerned about facing.

 

That's because the only realistic way of dealing with it would be using my own cannons to kill it, but due to its resilience it'd likely take up a lot of shots to kill (given it has 5 wounds, 1/3 of hits kill crew instead of the cannon itself, and it has a 5+ ward), so it'd either flatten lots of my army or my cannons would concentrate on it and ignore the rest of the Chaos army. I don't think I could kill it easily with miners or rangers - or I'd need such a huge unit that it'd be more points than the cannon. Gyrocopters couldn't do it (as they cannot be stomped they could tie it up to stop it shooting though). 

 

Realistically, I don't think there's an effective way of killing the hellcannon except by sending a lot of cannon balls its way (which is  only an option for some armies - and ties up a lot of ordnance one needs for other things), or hitting it with very expensive and very powerful heavy cavalry or flying monsters, or the like. 

 

The skull cannon has fewer wounds  & lower toughness and has daemonic instability, so it's more vulnerable (I've killed them fairly easily with flank charging gyrocopters or miners and the like, and GW dwarfs can chop them up in combat easily enough). 

 

The iron blaster is very vulnerable to flank charging gyrocopters too. The rhinox is the main threat in combat, but that cannot fight to the side/rear as it's a chariot, so if you flank charged it with a gyrocopter you've got a static combat resolution of +2, and the leadership on an ironblaster is pants, so you'll likely chase it off. 

 

I've seen the trebuchet lay waste to my infantry in the past (I played a game where it killed 30 longbeards in 2 shots - which given it's under 100 points is a horrendous damage output), but the rest of the Bretonnian army is fairly underpowered by 8th edition standards, and the trebuchet is very vulnerable to gyrocopters (especially as you *always*  get the 1st turn against Bretonnians). 

 

So if I had to choose, it'd be the Hellcannnon due to it takes such a massive investment of points to take it down - but the ability to move and shoot of the skull cannon and ironblaster are very problematic, and does make them immune to counter-battery fire in the first turn. If I played a more static dwarf army they'd be more of a headache to deal with. 

 

However, technically the Hellcannon is a monster and the Skullcannon and ironblaster are chariots - so if you were going for something which is technically a war machine, the trebuchet would win by default. 

 

Now, if I were going in terms  of the model, I'd go for either the 4th ed or the 6th ed dwarf flame cannon, or the 4th ed Empire great cannon (the crew models for this are beautiful). I'm very torn between these models - they're all rather wonderful. But them I'm rather old fashioned

[Thorfar Salokin]

Lord Alisk - totally agree on the Hell Cannon. On top of all the close combat, monster and demon weirdness when it shoots it hits so hard. It can run wild if the crew are killed or eaten I seem to remember but otherwise it is literally hell on wheels.

A rune weapon toting demon slayer would probably work but you're taking an expensive character and then relying on getting him into combat with the damn thing .... all a bit unlikely.

Trebuchet merely makes up for the appalling treatment the Bretonnian army got in rules and fluff. Still not sure whether it was down to seething hatred or bumbling incompetence on the part of GWS

[Thorgrimmir]

The best warmachine in 8th ed? Wizards, off course. They can deleat whole units with a good dice throw!
In all seriousness, any warmachine that allows you to use templates is a good one due to the size of units in 8th. Id say the flamme cannon is a good one since it also causes panic; excellent against armies that can field cheap hordes like skaven