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Cannons in 8th edition are brutally effective against monstrous mounts. I experienced this first hand, being on the recieving end of some very lucky dwarf artillery while playing as high elves. Please advise what are some of the ways (besides not taking monstrous mounts in your list) you can protect your very very expensive lord unit from D6 S10 hits that hit both rider and mount?

In my case it was just plain bad pluck, since both my rider and mount got 6 S10 hits each. But in most cases, just ward saves aren't going to cut it. Any thoughts?

I dont suppose you can still do that "flying high" trick where you buy a manticore (or equivalent cheapo riderless beastie) and basically deep strike it onto his artillery?

I suspect that this particular maneouvre has been given the chop, so as an alternative, how about spending a few points on a dedicated anti-artillery unit? I dunno what that might be, but p'raps some artillery of your own?

1. Know the range of the weapon and stay out of range.
2. Use a skirmish unit to take out or occupy the cannons (then send in your expensive character)
3. Magic can neutralize a cannon or make it harder to kill your character.
4. Give them other juicy targets that they should take out before dealing with your lord.

If the cannon goes first, there isnt a lot you can do. As Voss said, trying to stay out of range is a possibility, but there aren't many choices more juicy than a tooled up lord riding a dragon.

Personally I like using Bolt Throwers for anti-battery fire. They get a lot of shots or one powerful one that can do some damage.

bring your own terrain and make some of it big enough to block line of sight. a bit of Terrain makes any table look better... I am not sure you should be taking big dragons if you can't make them a throw away target... the other thing you may keep in mind is Dwarves are not on every game table you will play on.

ok thanks great tips guys.

I don"t know if you can actually stay out of a 48" range though. Bringing your own giant tower wall to every single game is also good idea, or at least something to provide hardcover.

Actually, cannons don't use BS so the -2 penalty from shooting through hard cover doesn't apply to them right?

aaarg the warp is taking me over, I must play fantasy battle!

jus wrote:ok thanks great tips guys.
I don"t know if you can actually stay out of a 48" range though. Bringing your own giant tower wall to every single game is also good idea, or at least something to provide hardcover.
Actually, cannons don't use BS so the -2 penalty from shooting through hard cover doesn't apply to them right?
aaarg the warp is taking me over, I must play fantasy battle!

If you turned up for a game and the sole piece of terrain you were carrying was a huge tower of exactly the right dimensions to hide your dragon behind, some unpleasant words would be spoken. Building terrain for game advantage is naughty.
Plus you would only have a 50/50 chance of having it in your deployment area at the start of the game. The enemy could well set their cannon up on the roof of your awesome tower and have line of sight to everything if they win the roll off.
Bringing your own terrain (ie enough for 1 table) is good though. We cant always rely on Pikey to provide terrain at Joshin.

I don't have the book here with me but I believe some of the new missions let you put your lord into reserve which would be a good cannon dodger.

I guess to me, if you bring such a huge model, you deserve to face the risk. There are smaller mounts such as griffons, war eagles and what not that could also be taken. And while it is weak against cannons, there aren't that many armies that can field them. In other armies, you just have to worry about hissing bolts, giant rocks and crazy goblins with spikes on their heads, if anything at all (beastmen and vamps)

Colonel Voss wrote:I don't have the book here with me but I believe some of the new missions let you put your lord into reserve which would be a good cannon dodger.

I guess to me, if you bring such a huge model, you deserve to face the risk. There are smaller mounts such as griffons, war eagles and what not that could also be taken. And while it is weak against cannons, there aren't that many armies that can field them. In other armies, you just have to worry about hissing bolts, giant rocks and crazy goblins with spikes on their heads, if anything at all (beastmen and vamps)

Well, Beastmen have that rock throwing cyclops dont they? I dont think they're that good though.

me_in_japan wrote:I dont suppose you can still do that "flying high" trick where you buy a manticore (or equivalent cheapo riderless beastie) and basically deep strike it onto his artillery?

You haven't been able to Fly High since ... well, just after you stopped playing Warhammer, and the only riderless monsters I can think of now are Dark Elf Hydras and Hell Pit Abominations.