Basilisk's Weapon Effects

[ortron]

G'day all,

Just wondering if anyone here has had experience with altering the effects of an earthshaker cannon.

The background says the weapon fires twice in quick succession and therefore you roll to hit twice and get two shots. Now i don't have a problem with that rule wise but model wise i can't see it happening.

Hence to make it more WYSIWYG i'd like to try the following:

either:
1. 1 shot only and a points reduction to compensate
2. 1 shot with 3" blast template
3. 1 shot with new profile.

of these i favour number 2, and will be trialing it next time i can get a game in.

If anyone has experimented with similar changes or has any other ideas please let me know.

Thanks
Geoff

[zippysguitar]

WYSIWYG <----

[El Capitan]

I always assumed it was a 3" template with one shot until I got the IG Codex.

This one interesting, Brown you've used real artillery....what do you think?

[LukeG]

zippysguitar said:

WYSIWYG <----

What You See Is What You Get.

I had to think for a second ;D

[tturen]

Any time I needed to break open heavy tanks I rolled out the Earth Shaker. Effective too! Those two rounds just about always grant at least one hit that auto penetrates. Just nasty.

In realistic terms arty like this should not fire faster than say an autocannon. If I had to pick from the above list I would go with the 3" template to replace the two shots. That would allow you to pretty much leave the rest of the Earth Shakers rules and points cost alone.

[ortron]

Woops.. sorry zippy.. Thats: What You See Is What You Get.

Simply i mean that the model doesn't look like it could bang off two rounds that fast.

I've had minimal experience with real arty but for those things to be firing at their peak does require a substantial crew. Not to mention the fact they have to build their "shot" with a projectile, charge bags, casing and fuse etc. but I'm sure there could be other options in the 41st millennium.

Thanks for the responses. I'll go with the 3" template in future games. If it works out to be too powerful, I could try reducing the "D3 damage even on a failed penetrate" to targets that are directly hit, ie under the center point/hole. That would probably be the most realistic since vehicles/buildings not hit directly on would only cop the blast rather than the massive kinetic energy hit as well.

I've read stories about US troops using SP arty in WW2 to direct fire on German bunkers. They would drive up, rip open the breach, look down the barrel to sight it, then load up and fire away. Being so close they were pretty accurate. The bunker either got smashed to pieces or the bunker would still be standing but those inside were in no condition to fight.

anyhow cheers again!

Geoff

[Yarlen Fireblade]

We changed most weapon stats for our version of the rules. The Earthshaker in our game has a 2" blast, causes a Strength 10 hit with a -7 save modifier and causes 2D10 damage.

More than enough to crack open any armoured vehicle without resorting to convoluted special rules and tables.

And yeah... it only fires 1 shot a turn, because 2 shots never made sense.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Well im not sure how well it works in the game mechanics, but in real life that is fairly accurate.

The way real arty works is you spend an hour or two setting everything up, preping all the ammo and charges, then when you get you target you open up, and quickly, roughly from memory we were letting off about 1 shot every 10 seconds.. and doing so constantly for about 2 mins, so about 10 arty shells in 2 mins.. its very fast. I think thats why they call it 'bombardment'

A single army peice (in the british army anyway) has a crew of 5.. with jobs::

One crew man sits on it, with the targeter, he also pitches the barrel and turns the gun.
One man picks up charges and then shell (in turn) and passes them to guy next to him
guy next to him then passes them to guy stood between the legs (forgotten what they are called). This guy puts the charge and shell in the breach, and is also responsible for opening and closing the breach.
The 5th final guy stand on the other side of the gun and has the rod that he rams with shell and charges far enough up the breach with.. he is also respobnsible for catching the smoldering shell (he wears gloves lol) and throwing it out the way.. if he didnt, the team would soon bury itself in empty shells lol.

Everyone in the team (appart from the aimer guy) are all moving constantly in one smooth motion, even when the gun is being fired there is already another shell waiting in the 3rd guys hands ready to get rammed up the breach 2 seconds later.

They obviously knew somthing about arty when making the rules, becasue thats the point of arty.. batter you opponent quickly, then stop firing and pack up the arty within mins and move it before you get arty'd (or possible air threat) yourself.

Appart from all that.. time mechanics in 40k do not match any kind of real engagement what so ever. Real engagemnts take several hours.. if not days. If you had arty available to you, you would certainly call upon them to deploy, fire, move redeploy and fire again many times within a day

[Yarlen Fireblade]

That's all good and nice but the Basilisk isn't an artillery piece, it's an Assault gun.

Artillery is used pretty much exclusively for indirect fire, miles or more accuractely tens of miles behind the front line, if you're using artillery for direct fire purposes you're in deep shit.

It makes no sense that an assault gun can get 2 shots a turn when an infantryman with an automatic or semiautomatic rifle can only get 1 shot, or enough rounds to cause a maximum of 1 hit per turn.
The overall effectiveness of the Earthshaker is such that it doesn't need 2 shots a turn, it will quite comfortably eliminate any armoured vehicle in the 40k universe in a single shot, giving it 2 shots a turn is just a kick in the teeth.

[James 40K Champ ***]

he basilisk is an artillery peice is it not? but being fired directly rather than indirect.

Im not thinking about game terms here, id agree that its prob better having one shot. Just saying I know where the game designers were comming from when they put that in.

As anyone who has any knowlege of combat will know, infanty men at range are very unlikely to kill targets from a distance, people dont stand out in the open, they hide in heavy cover, or at least lie flat on the ground, to take people out you need to suppress them with fire support, and advance on them with an assault unit.. So realistically, to take out one man a turn is prob right.

[tturen]

The Basilisk is an artillery piece designed to be used in mass hundred gun barrages. As Yarlen mentions though in game terms it is used mainly as an assualt gun firing through open gun sites.

I think in game terms the Basilisk balances out well in terms of cost and lethality even though those two shots at a time are not particularly realistic.

Excellent point on lethality too.

[El Capitan]

In terms of comparing time in the game to reality, a soldier can blat off 10,000 rounds whilst the position he/she/it is firing at could have a group of enemies enjoying a game of cards and not really care about whats happening. An big explosion from artillery however will always have them at least diving for cover. In essence, the one shot an infantry man has generally represents the engagement, maybe he hits maybe he does nothing, wheras in terms of the artillery firing, its bound to always do literally what the games effect is, which is the template weapon, whence the justification for the basilisks 2 shots.

At least thats as best as I can understand it, time is of course a difficult thing to understand in the context of a 40k battlefield, and is generally best left unmapped for the sake of narration. ie troops shooting as each other over a distance of 20" could represent an all day firefight wheras a 4 turns of close assault could represent a zoomed in 20 minute mad melee during the battle.

The basilisk really is interesting as the discussion has shown. In ym use of them i've found that in my typically atrocious luck the 1st shot generally does nothing and i need the second one. That said with equivalent of BS 4 and so many chances to roll the Hit / Misfie dice my basilisk usually destroys itself by turn 3.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Its very true to say time and 40k dont map very well to each other, its just a game system.

In the reality of a 4 turn game, an infantry man will fire off much more than 4 shots, thats just the way the game mechanic works.