Take your best shot - tales of eerily accurate artillery...

[Mr Mystery]

Evening all.

So there's some reminiscing going on in the rumours thread about fun with artillery, and I want to hear more, and this is the appropriate thread!

For me, I'll run it down by the different toys I've used.

Bolt Thrower. Best shot here is easy for me! Very first shot of the game, loosed a single bolt from a Reaper at the Orc Warlord on Wyverns. Was hoping to knock off some big woundage off the beasty, in the hope of wearing it down enough for my Repeater Crossbows to polish it off. Hit on a 6, and managed to hit the rider - who promptly took three wounds, and became brown bread. Not quite the result I was after.....until the Monster Reaction rendered the Wyvern stupid for the game, and it promptly spent the rest of the game wandering around, looking at the daisies. Opponents face was a picture!

Stone Thrower. Screaming Skull Catapult shot to be precise. Aimed for big block of Saurus, and missed horribly. Template scattered 10".....landing square on a Skink Shaman who had all the re-rolls via Mark of the Old Ones and Second Sign of Amul. Poor little thing went *squish* big time.....

Helblaster Volley Gun. First barrel misfired, leading to 30 hits (this was before you had to roll to hit as well), reducing a full block of Gor to a rather sorry looking BSB, left on a single wound....who got polished off by an Engineer's repeater pistol :p Opponent as not happy!

Helstorm Rocket Battery. First version of its rules....template slap bang in the middle of some Iron Breakers......none survived!

Right, over to you!

[Morgrim]

I don't know if it counts as 'eeriely accurate' but I've seen a goblin doom diver scatter completely off the table. It was promptly dubbed 'Ikarus'.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Not Fantasy, but I was using Bullgryns with a Priest and a Master of Ordnance in a 10K Apocalypse game.

Bullgryns were pinned down by a Fex, but they were steadily grinding it down. The Master of Ordnance fires indiscriminately into the horde of 'Nids, and the round scatters 3D6 to squarely hit the Carnifex and Bullgryns. Carnifex drops dead as it only had one Wound, but the Bullgryns are left unwounded as my opponent rolls 1s to Wound them, (we take it where the opponent rolls Wounds against creatures hit by explosions/friendly fire.) Thus the Bullgryns stumble out of combat and proceed to beat a unit of Hive Guard to death. My friend was both amused and annoyed that the abhumans survived. :)

Said Bullgryns then went on to be MVPs of that game, racking up a kill count that makes me love them despite what the internet says about them!

[Wildeybeast]

Only the other week, my rock lobber landed on the head of my opponents Killy high elf lord on dragon in the first turn of the game, stripping 6 wounds off the dragon. I then hit it again in the 2nd turn, hitting the dragon and gleefully picked up the the to wound die, all ready to rob the pointy ear of his precious steed, only to roll a 1. Gork giveth and Mork taketh away. Or possibly the other way round.

[Kirsten]

back in the heady days of 5th edition I was playing a big game, Empire and Dwarfs vs Lizardmen. my cannon were happily ploughing through units, ignoring the Stegadon closing on them turn by turn. the Lizardman player couldn't understand why I was ignoring his monster (mainly because he could only really threaten the warmachines with it, and by the time it got there, they wouldn't be much use anymore anyway). he got within charge range, I casually turn one cannon to fire at it point blank, hit, wound, six wounds, dead stegadon. carry on shooting units, make it seem like that was the plan all along :p

I did also once had a wood elf lord on dragon charge a cannon with a hero attached, stand and shoot reaction from the hero's pistol. hit the lord who had one wound left, killed him, monster reaction test, dragon flies away.

[Mr Mystery]

Although not artillery related, I too have a similar tale of woe from a Dragon....

Tooled up my Dark Elf Dreadlord to be a close combat challenge monster, riding a Black Dragon. Including the Black Gem. Taunted a Treeman Ancient into a fight, and issued a challenge. To my surprise, and my opponent's dismay, Black Gem saves all three wounds, causing the Treeman to biff itself in the face three times, which was enough to kill it after my Dreadlord had done a little strategic pruning.

Then what happens? Some little Herbert of a Waywatcher scuttles out of the trees, and Killing Blows my Dreadlord with an arrow. Black Dragon promptly runs for the hills, costing me a game.

Much hilarity ensued. Especially the Waywatcher getting run over by a Chariot out of sheer spite!

[Robert Schofield]

Mine would have to be with an empire great cannon. I shot it at the unit that had the enemy general in it.
Killed the general and made every unit but the storm vermin run off the table in the 1st turn of the game...

[Psychosplodge]

I think I once wiped out my terminator squad due to a catastrophic misfire on the cyclone missile launcher. 1/2" radius per unfired missile on a full load? :eek:

And in a demo game of fantasy, empire versus skaven, my gracious opponent bounced a cannon ball into my character/general whatever it was first shot first turn....

[Nol]

In a 30K vs 40K battle, called Perturabo's one-shot bombardment down on Belial in the middle of a unit of terminators - failed 3 of his "Look out sir" rolls, then fluffed one of the 3++ invuln saves. Ripperino in pepperino.

[Thornblood]

The dark elf book had just been released and it was the first time Malus Darkblade had been given rules. To push the new dark elf range the local gw store had replaced the orcs on the demo board with dark elves.

Malus Darkblade took a cannonball to the face on turn 1.

Following week eek he got stuffed down a Giant's trousers, Spite as well!

[gregtheslacker]

At the most recent GT I played in my Screaming Skull Catapult scored a direct hit every time I targeted whatever big scary monster, war machine, other large model that caused me concern over the course of five games. The only time it scattered was when targeting units of infantry. Of all the direct hits I scored that weekend, five or six at least, I rolled a 1 to wound on all but one of them.

[HellBane]

I play Space Orks a lot. I cannot emphasis how frequently a Shokk Attack Gun makes an appearance in my lists. My personal favorite was a few weeks ago I played an Eldar Wave Serpent spammer. It was going poorly for my Speed Skullz tribe, due to invisibility preventing me from targeting his Serpents. As I had no other targets, I had aimed at the one thing I could target (a 5 man squad of Guardians in cover,) but they were 8 inches away from a grouping of three serpents, angling to wipe out a nob squad with a warboss in it. Lo, and behold, from 50" away my Mek scattered a full 12" (-2 for bs,) and onto the wave serpent group. It turned into a vortex grenade, and ruined half his army in one go. Amazing change of fortune for me :-)

[ExLibrisMortis]

Final round of a tournament. Playing for first place. Mech guard vs mech guard. Literally comes down to who wins first turn. I get first turn.

Manticore goes first. Opponent has all his vehicles lined up next to eachother. Manticores fires, gets 3 rockets. All rockets are a hit. So I place all templates off the first.

Total casualties:

2 chimeras explode, killing 6/10 and 7/10 veterans in each.
2 leman Russ explode, their blast radius take out the remaining veterans that didn't die.
His manticore and gryphon explode as well.

50% of the army dead in one salvo. He gives up.

GG

[bunji]

I'v recently had a game with a pair of hellcannon that owned the battle at 2000 points vs skaven.
1st shot of the game, hits plague furnace in a big blob of plaguemonks, turned it to matchsticks and killed the general. KABOOM.
Second one shoots a unit of stormvermin, scatters off onto a stone Thrower type device and turns it to rubble. The bombardment continued for much of the game until a doomwheel charged one of the beasts. Needless to say that the hellcannon took said charge like a boss and broke the doomwheel which disappeared with its tail between its legs. The funny part was that instead of chasing it i elected to shoot it while it ran. Misfired, rolled a 6 on the table,hits resolved at S10..... Doomwheel promptly gets crushed.

[tanfew]

Dropped rocks on a star dragon, hoping to knock some wounds off before it ate my army, only to wound and kill the rider instead. The star dragon then failed it's monster reaction test and spent the rest of the game standing still in the middle of the board