Mortars

[135th Armenian Rifles]

I was thinking of adding a squad of mortars to my army, then i looked at the stats for mortars and said range: G48? can anyone explain.

[BrainDeleted]

It means Guess.

They ca lob shells over terrain or anything that blocks line of sight but in turn the shots from the mortar scatter D6. Just place the marker where you want it to hit then roll the scatter die and a D6.

[hairyyahoo]

yeah basically what he said-------^

mortars can be very handy against hoard armies as not only can you stick them behind some tasty cover and still punish the enemy with out them getting shot up in the process but the miltiple templates and pinning effects can really mess the enemy up.

i'd suggest more than one squad of you want to do some damage though. you can get 2 from the command platoon, but for maximum effect take a heavy weapons platoon of 3 squad and a command section with another mortar for 290 pts and aim for the densist concentration of enemy troops .

[Sir_Servo]

to further elaberate on what has already been mentioned this is the scoop. In old rules G48" ment that you had to actually guess the distance from your mortar crew to the intended target. So lets say you are playing on a 4'x6' board and you deploy in the center of your deployment zone. An enemy squad is half the board away so you would guess 24" measure the distance, place the template and then roll scatter.

With the new rules (and it looks as if they will stay the same in 5th ed.) they work like this.

Pic an enemy unit and place your template. Once that is done measure range, if the center of the template is with in the range (in this case 48") than you get to roll the scatter dice and A) 1 d6 if you have line of sight to target or B) 2 d6 and pick highest if you can't draw line of sight to target. Therefore the Guess in Guess range weaponery means nothing in the new rules.

I love Mortars, reguardless if they are in your comand squad or a Heavey Weapons Platoon. I personally only take them in Comand Squads, I don't have room in my doctrines to spend on a heavy weapons spot.

That is my two cents,
Servo

[hairyyahoo]

that's the joys of playing with a doctrine free list...no such ristrictions

[Sir_Servo]

Originally Posted by hairyyahoo

that's the joys of playing with a doctrine free list...no such ristrictions

But that means no sharpshooters and if you ever see me roll dice you know that I can't play with out that.

For instance in the last tournament I played in 2 weeks ago. I was tied for 1st place so in the 3rd round we faced off unbeaten Tzeentch (me) vs. unbeaten Templars (him, boo!) I failed every single armour/cover/invunerable save I was required to make in the first 3 turns. I am not exagerating here I mean every single one. On top of that both units of Daemons failed there reserves rolls two turns in a row. It just went down hill from there. *grumbles something about all 4 melta guns missing in first turn as well*

My two cents,
Servo

[lynxrpken]

also important to mention that you can not use targeters before using a guess range weapon. that is because people like me would park my stormtroopers in front of the squad then shoot them at the target and use the targeters to properly establish the range.
sadly you can not do this. I think this is bull though because our military uses targeters all the time to get the range and angle when firing arc weapons

[phil]

^agreed

but in a way it doesn't matter at all if you are playing on a 4"x4" board

if you really want to rain death from the skies take 4 thudd guns for 280pts

16 blast templates!

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by phil

^agreed

but in a way it doesn't matter at all if you are playing on a 4"x4" board

if you really want to rain death from the skies take 4 thudd guns for 280pts

16 blast templates!

too bad most tournies don't allow the use of forgeworld lists/rules though!

cheers!

[lynxrpken]

thudd guns OMG lol

[Timber-WoIf]

Ive had mortars work well against orks, but they've never sone anything for me fighting meqs, so they rarely end up in my lists.

[Sir_Servo]

I think of them as Flamer templates, just with a much longer range. You just need to cause as many armour saves as possible and people will start failing them eventually.

I know that most people don't like them now, but next edition they will be deadly. No rolling for partials any more. Anything even partially covered will be hit! that is to say assuming that the rumers are true about the new edition.

Servo

[phil]

Originally Posted by experiment 626

too bad most tournies don't allow the use of forgeworld lists/rules though!

cheers!

now that's unfair

are they banned in the school league?

[Rhaalidor]

Thudd guns used to rock. I had 4 of them in my IG army around 1997. Then 3rd edition took them away, and I put them on eBay. I wish I'd kept them.

BTW, anyone got any ideas about a super heavy mortar? The kind you might find on a super heavy war machine based on the 1/35 scale model of the WW2 model of the Karl German mortar. I believe the shell was as big as a Volkswagen. Well, maybe not that big, but heavier, 21 1/4" in diameter, weighing about 4,000 lbs, with a range of about 10,400 m (6240 feet). I was a field artilleryman, in the distant past, but our largest round was 200mm, which went out 17,000 m (10200 feet), but only weighed 200 lbs. Big difference.

[Sir_Servo]

well the end result of this tut is pretty sweet! check it out for a BIG Mortar if that is what you are looking for:

TUT: Creating your own Apoc Datasheets

Hope that helps,
Servo

[Chaos Lord Horus]

yeap they well worth it

[Rhaalidor]

Templar, how did you come up with 212"