Shooting Phase Warmachines vs Archers

[Th3_5had0w_K1ng]

My biggest issue with the shooting phase is the speed at which cannons, trebuchets and other warmachines can shoot. Every turn they have the ability to load, aim, and fire and if anyone has watched mythbusters or movies that involve cannon fire they take quite a bit of time to recover from the last shot and aim effectively.

Archers also get to shoot every turn but still get only one single shot per archer. Even in a regimented unit with a Hawkeye calling out targets, I am willing to bet that archers (not even Elves, men too!) could shoot at least 2X faster than a cannon crew can load and fire.

Let's look at a realistic comparison of the two.

Cannon:
1. Crew identifies target.
2. Cleans bore from previous shot.
3. Loads Gunpowder cartridge
4. Loads cannon ball or grapeshot
5. Places fuse
6. Aims at target
7. Fires!

Archers:
1. Hawkeye identifies target
2. Orders to nock arrows
3. Orders to aim
4. Archers fire

It's a pet peeve of mine and think it should be addressed in the rulebook.

Possible resolutions:

Archers should get 2 shots against the same target
or
Cannons should have to wait a turn to load their weapons.

[BorkBork]

ha you got a point there. And cannons allready pee-ed me off big time.

Although it all is represented by a single shot perhaps you should consider it more like the damage output per turn instead of single shots.
But it is weird, especially since most wh cannons are kinda inspired on late medieval/rainesance (spelled horribly wrong) technology
archers should be more efffectife.

[AiEthimar]

I disagree; granted WHFB seems to favor medieval/renaissance the cannon of the fantasy universe seem fairly advanced actually. During the Civil War (granted its a slightly more advanced) and while not common, cannon could be fired as quickly as one round every 40 seconds; this was happening even earlier during the Napoleonic era on Royal Navy ships of the line. So while I do think that yes, archers could clearly load and fire more quickly don't think that a trained cannon crew was a bunch of slouches either as these guys were highly specialized units and received specific training.

AE

[Larose]

I disagree; granted WHFB seems to favor medieval/renaissance the cannon of the fantasy universe seem fairly advanced actually. During the Civil War (granted its a slightly more advanced) and while not common, cannon could be fired as quickly as one round every 40 seconds; this was happening even earlier during the Napoleonic era on Royal Navy ships of the line. So while I do think that yes, archers could clearly load and fire more quickly don't think that a trained cannon crew was a bunch of slouches either as these guys were highly specialized units and received specific training.

AE

+1

[Th3_5had0w_K1ng]

I don't doubt the effectiveness of the cannon crew... but how many arrows can a unit of archers fire in 40 seconds?

[DoubleSkulls]

I disagree; granted WHFB seems to favor medieval/renaissance the cannon of the fantasy universe seem fairly advanced actually. During the Civil War (granted its a slightly more advanced) and while not common, cannon could be fired as quickly as one round every 40 seconds; this was happening even earlier during the Napoleonic era on Royal Navy ships of the line. So while I do think that yes, archers could clearly load and fire more quickly don't think that a trained cannon crew was a bunch of slouches either as these guys were highly specialized units and received specific training.

AE

Most of them would have been what 2lb? 4lb? So nothing like as powerful as the siege cannons that fired a few times a day. If they were say S6 then I could believe it

[Tengal Krakenbane]

Sounds reasonable to me. Would make RBTs and other ballistas more competitive in a sort of a natural way (ie., instead of buffing them up to match 8ed's warmachines).

[AiEthimar]

[/quote]
Most of them would have been what 2lb? 4lb? So nothing like as powerful as the siege cannons that fired a few times a day. If they were say S6 then I could believe it [/quote]

Actually no, with a bit of research the most common cannon "ball" ammunition-particularly in the case of the Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars- was the Napoleon 12 pounder; these were even carried on the quarterdecks of British ships of the line, with their main guns being 24-36 pound guns. So again, I am not saying that a cannon will out shoot a group of archers, I am merely attempting to point out what seems to be a misconception concerning the remarkable capabilities and functionality of the much maligned cannon. Oh, and for succinct way to remember all of this; artillery has been responsible for the most casualties caused during wartime for perhaps the last 250 years, even reaching as high as 75% during WWI.

As for your OP, I really like the firing twice option of bows-kinda impinges on the Dark Elf repeater crossbow thing a bit, but drops the armour piercing. Would that be for all archers or just HE ones?

AE

[Tengal Krakenbane]

The repeater crossbow has an odd statline anyway, S3 and armour piercing? S2 and ap would be fine, the bolts are small but have some power to penetrate armour. That or make longbows ap.

[DoubleSkulls]

Actually no, with a bit of research the most common cannon "ball" ammunition-particularly in the case of the Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars- was the Napoleon 12 pounder; these were even carried on the quarterdecks of British ships of the line, with their main guns being 24-36 pound guns.

Cannon on ships are a completely different thing to cannon in land armies. Something that weighs 3 tons is very hard to move In Napoleonic times most foot artillery was 6-12lb, 100 years before it was more like 4lb~6lb. Even a 6lb cannon ball is going to hurt a lot, but I don't think it was S10 D6 wounds....

16th-17th century cannon were used on the battlefield, but they just weren't very good because they were either very small - so massed archery/musketry was better - or they were very slow. The OP is correct. Its only really in the 18th century/Napoleonic era that cannon became a major battlefield influence.

[Oberon]

Given that warhammer cannons are definitely not 18th and 19th century weapon systems, we can not use those professional artillery crews as an example. I think the OP has a good point. I would note that adding engineers for the empire or a specific rune of smokeless powder for dwarves in order to fire each turn would be great improvements over their current power.

[Larose]

Lol well as long as its not the skaven cannon with a blast, I'm ok with them lmao stupid rats..

[Grenic]

While I can see the logic and merits of the every other turn firing, it may prove to be too much of a penalty game wise.

Instead I would just revise the war machine rules to require that the player has to roll the artillery dice twice, when no “misfire” appears, the player has to use the lowest result for cannons (including volley guns. rocket battery, etc) and the highest result for stone throwers. If either result is a misfire, the model has misfired.

If they have an engineer and applying his ability to the war machine's shooting attempt, the model can ignore a misfire on the first result, but must then accept the second result. If no misfire occurs on on either roll, they can choose either distance result.

Right now, there just isn't enough risk associated with cannon and stone thrower shooting in the game and far too much benefit. That is why these war machines tend to be 1+ selections in the competitive lists.