Usefulness of higher tier dwarf artillary

[GlobalExtremePotato]

After playing dwarfs (a lot) before patch I came back to them today and am wondering if the higher tier arti (excluding anti-large irondrakes) are useful now after the patch. Is it still a race dominated by crossbows thunderers and grudgethrower ? Or are the gyrocopters now viable?

[Saint Landwalker]

I haven't played the Dwarfs post-patch, but even pre-patch I found their cannons and gyrocopters to be handy. Gyrocopters are great for artillery-hunting if the filthy greenskins bring a Rock Lobber or Doom Diver (although being effectively a Tier 5 unit is a pain in the butt). Cannons are just great times in general (although Grudgethrowers are also very nice).

Would be curious to hear if patch changes made other Dwarf artillery (like the Flame Cannon or Organ Gun) very useful, though.

[GlobalExtremePotato]

Originally posted by Landwalker04:

I haven't played the Dwarfs post-patch, but even pre-patch I found their cannons and gyrocopters to be handy. Gyrocopters are great for artillery-hunting if the filthy greenskins bring a Rock Lobber or Doom Diver (although being effectively a Tier 5 unit is a pain in the butt). Cannons are just great times in general (although Grudgethrowers are also very nice).

Would be curious to hear if patch changes made other Dwarf artillery (like the Flame Cannon or Organ Gun) very useful, though.

Been playing a bit of custom battles and the organ guns plus a engineer seem to be a solid duo. Havent tried it in campaign though.

[Kaia]

Organ Guns are absolutely devastating in the right circumstances, its essentially four low-powered cannons strapped together and it tears through anything smaller than a giant with lots of AP damage. Get some side-on shots of manuevering infantry and you'll enjoy them. The problem is positioning.

Armies are too mobile, so artillery rarely has time to pay for itself over the course of a battle and a single peice is usually enough to persuade an army that might otherwise prefer a skirmishing game to come and fight. It probably needs a considerable reload buff to be worth taking in place of equivilent value in thunderers across the whole of the battle.

So artillery is almost always a +1 game. As long as you have more of it than your enemy, it is strategically useful. But if you take more than three peices, you're gimping the rest of your army and you'd have been better of letting them have all the artillery and just rushing them.

[Boink]

The Vampires Counts spams Large units now. So yeah they are useful.

[DJ]

Originally posted by GlobalExtremePotato:

Usefulness of higher tier dwarf artillary?

Gives my Greenskins something to aim at

[Glorious Comrade]

I found the cannon in flat ground, put in front of the army. with infantry overlapping it, so just the cannon tip stick out. When this happens, cannon always out perform in kill vs grudge thrower. they even fire point blank from time to time. but grudge thrower is more consistent in kills regardless of terrain or battle situation. Cannon get end up doing very little if starting position is bad. because you dont have time to reposition before enemy army reach you.

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by Glorious Comrade:

I found the cannon in flat ground, put in front of the army. with infantry overlapping it, so just the cannon tip stick out. When this happens, cannon always out perform in kill vs grudge thrower. they even fire point blank from time to time. but grudge thrower is more consistent in kills regardless of terrain or battle situation. Cannon get end up doing very little if starting position is bad. because you dont have time to reposition before enemy army reach you.

This is true. While cannons can be crazy useful, especially if you have somewhere you can put them to elevate them above the rest of your army (which, thankfully, seemed to be available fairly often), you can really get bitten by a bad map.

However, you can also work around that somewhat. Rather than putting the cannons behind my army, I've tried putting them on one of the flanks with a couple of "guard units" just to be safe. The AI may decide to plow into your main line, in which case you can casually wheel them around and get some murderous enfilade fire.

Not recommending that as a standard operating procedure, but you're rolling with cannons and can't get a good position in the back, it's something to consider taking a flyer on.