So I have been known to run Alarielle, bolt-thrower, Karl Franz, and Hellblaster, and I was thinking about a new siege-range gunline. How about the following:

Queen Helga (34)

Runic Cannon (12)

Master Engineer (8)

Master Engineer (8)

Venerable Runesmith (6)

Karl Franz (33)

Hellblaster (10)

Swordsmen x3 (15)

Greatswords (8)

Cards:

Rally

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???

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Nothing revolutionary here, as the Helga regiment is exactly what is suggested in the preview, but mixing it with an empire list could make it crazy. So basically, the runic cannon with Rally, Karl Franz, and engineer support can shoot five times per round. The Hellblaster can chip in a further three attacks per round. That is a LOT of siege-range hurt being thrown at the opposing army each turn. Of course, you would have to do some serious damage before they closed with you or you would most likely be in pretty big trouble. That said, it’s probable that you would land some serious hits, especially with the potential scatter-tastic area damage thrown by the cannon.

Alternatively, would it be viable to just essentially double up the above regiment with a different dwarf hero and go for two cannons shooting four times each? This would sacrifice most of the already limited CC capabilities being provided by the empire.

Problems:

The Hellblaster will blow itself up, and Alarielle isn’t there to heal it. Also, you would have to work the activation tokens correctly to get the most out of it, and reinforcing disks the first round is a poor use of those tokens, but you need to get them in so Karl Franz can do his thing. Maybe you would need to take three of the 4x activation cards to get you the maximum amount of leeway with activation. This army will also suffer in close combat, and Queen Helga is mostly wasted in this build. Cover will hurt this list in a big way—but imagine it rolling with rain of arrows!

Thoughts?

Your build won't work. It will look scary, but with how deployment works, it won't work until the second complete round of game play starts at best, at worst, third, at which point that much firepower is useless. The Runic Cannon can't move, so it cannot be reinforced. Same with the Volleygun. Karl Franz has to start deployed as does Queen Helga.

With a two card wide deployment zone, you won't be able to have a medium, two large, and three small disks start the game deployed unless you get lucky and get an Advance deployment, or you overlap. Overlapped disks have to move off to either allow Karl Franz, the Engineers, or the artillery to start firing. Even then you can't reinforce and then use Karl Franz to have the engineers act again, since something is going to be pinning the disks you want to activate.

Then you are bogged down for a second turn moving your reinforcements around to allow disks to move or Karl Franz to play with activation tokens.

Your gun line looks scary on paper, but it relies on you getting an Advance Deployment, having Rally and Garrison in your command hand, and the terrain favoring you to either limit the cover they get, or to stall the opponent when they try getting to your cannons. Not to mention the enemy staying grouped up for Runic Cannon to reach peak effectiveness, and looking for the Rain of Arrows battlefield effect.

Anything that allows for fast movement, or that has scout or flank would tear your gunline apart.

Edit: A couple disks with Flank activated second to last command card via Garrison, move into place on the last command card, then take the gamble on the start of the next turn to try to get the first move, they rush in and pin everything you have overlapping on Round 2. They just stopped a good chunk of your battleforce right there to let them move in freely.

All good criticisms, many of which I have been thinking about myself. A few thoughts in response.

Your build won't work. It will look scary, but with how deployment works, it won't work until the second complete round of game play starts at best, at worst, third, at which point that much firepower is useless. The Runic Cannon can't move, so it cannot be reinforced. Same with the Volleygun. Karl Franz has to start deployed as does Queen Helga.

With a two card wide deployment zone, you won't be able to have a medium, two large, and three small disks start the game deployed unless you get lucky and get an Advance deployment, or you overlap. Overlapped disks have to move off to either allow Karl Franz, the Engineers, or the artillery to start firing. Even then you can't reinforce and then use Karl Franz to have the engineers act again, since something is going to be pinning the disks you want to activate.

Agreed. Deployment is a problem. However, it isn't as big a problem as you say. First of all, odds are you will get at least one deployment card to help (i.e. overlapping, long range, scout etc.). Not that you can take that to the bank, but the odds actually aren't bad. You will likely have to give up a few shots the first round no matter what, but I don't think it is impossible to have everything going in round two. Eight shots may not happen in round one, it may never happen, but even if it is only five or six, that is still pretty good considering the enemy isn't hitting back at all.

Additionally, a first round shot or two on enemy stacks in their own deployment zone will effectively pin them for a round and buy you a free set-up round if you so choose. They will also be cramped at first, and if you pin any of them with tokens, they are slowed down for more killing later, and anything they reinforce will be no closer to you on the next round than it already was on round one.

Your gun line looks scary on paper, but it relies on you getting an Advance Deployment, having Rally and Garrison in your command hand, and the terrain favoring you to either limit the cover they get, or to stall the opponent when they try getting to your cannons. Not to mention the enemy staying grouped up for Runic Cannon to reach peak effectiveness, and looking for the Rain of Arrows battlefield effect.

Anything that allows for fast movement, or that has scout or flank would tear your gunline apart.

Edit: A couple disks with Flank activated second to last command card via Garrison, move into place on the last command card, then take the gamble on the start of the next turn to try to get the first move, they rush in and pin everything you have overlapping on Round 2. They just stopped a good chunk of your battleforce right there to let them move in freely.

As mentioned above, the enemy has to start out grouped, so no problem there, and even if they scatter, I can shoot separate targets. If they come in waves, I have my own troops/heroes to screen for them a bit. Additionally, scout units aren't that scary in general, nor are they the most popular units taken, and flank takes time to get in to combat as well since they come in with an activation token. Also, these units tend to be overpriced, and will most likely be picked off the top of the units the are pinning with no losses from my defenders, so that is an okay points trade in itself.

Your final edit is also a specific build to counter this, and may or may not be present in my opponent's hand. Every build has a weakness that can be exploited in this way (so you took a Bloodthirster? Well, I can just pin it with a Knights Panther ). Additionally, I do have other combat units to screen for my guns, so I don't think it is quite as helpless as you are making it out to be.

Finally, when they are in range, it isn't always bad; now my hits count as well, and not just my crits!

In sum: I agree, it has many weaknesses, but I don't think it is quite as bad as you say here. Maybe not competitive, but I will try it out at least once for fun either way! Just throwing some theory around...

My main concern is terrain: you must get a piece of High Ground terrain to deploy on, because if you don't I'll slap a large woods straight in front of your deployment zone.

As noted, fitting two artillery pieces is going to be a problem, meaning you'll take a turn to clear the firing area - the siege pieces will shoot turn one, but probably only once each.

That said, it's once the enemy enters long range and you can actually roll normal hits that you're likely to do most of your damage, anyway.

Ran a little test today, and it went pretty well. My opponent ran orcs and took a few things designed to mess with my plans. They had two wolf riders, eager troops, and made sure to snag as much cover and so on as possible in deployment zones and terrain. Scenario was all heroes lose one wound.

Zones/Terrain/Deployment:

I dropped a lake in their deployment zone and the tower in mine. They put rocks in between us and got stuck with the hill, which did nothing for them. Fortunately no cave came up. I got the card that allowed me to deploy overlapping in my zone, so I split up the siege weapons, getting a corner just overlapping the tower, and screened for them with other troops/heroes. They were able to deploy some disks at long range, and scouted with their wolf riders.

Round 1:

First turn, they pinned everything they could (3 disks) with the two wolf riders, both of whom had scouted out toward my army. I brought in some reserves and pinned the riders. Their army moved up as fast as possible, of course, and had Grimgor, Boar Boyz, a troll, and Grom all within striking distance. Helga pinned the troll and Grom in one go with support of the venerable runesmith, and I pulled some more reserves in. In combat, both riders went down, and Helga and Grom died, and at round’s end they were poised to strike my main line.

Round 2 and beyond:

I was able to activate my disks first, so I shot and wounded Grimgor, then pinned him with my greatswords. I then shot the boar boyz and pinned them with the hellblaster. From there, it was really all mop-up, as the troll was effectively alone and his back-up was deploying back on the other side of the board. Long story short, my heroes and other troops continued screening for the siege weapons, which poured in the ranged fire. I never reached the full output of eight shots per round (though I could have in one round, but chose to use Karl Franz elsewhere), but I kept up a steady volume of fire from round two on. The ranged fire was pretty amazing. It wounded Grimgor, three units of boyz, a black orc, and the boar boyz. It helped finish off the troll as well.

It seemed to me that this build works out alright because the enemy has to make a very tough choice: to charge in waves each round, or to hang back and wait for everyone to deploy so they can charge together. Hanging back is obviously horrible for them, as the scatter results can be brutal, and they are taking shots to which they cannot respond. Most will elect to charge. When they do, though, the enemy comes in waves as they deploy and move out. Cover helps them, of course, but only so much—every round there is usually at least one or two units outside of cover, and there are often more. I just shoot at what isn’t in cover, and whittle down each wave as it moves out.

Another benefit is that the enemy is in all-out charge mode, and I think they lose sight of the fact that some of my units (greatswords and swordsmen) are no slouches in combat, and even if they reach my lines with a few key units they aren’t guaranteed a victory. Karl was especially valuable for his flexibility. He could support the ranged weapons or throw down in combat as necessary.

That said, the strategy remains vulnerable. The game could have gone either way a number of times. I was rolling pretty well all game long, and I also had to take some hair-raising shots into my own troops engaged with enemies on several occasions, none of which hit me, but always damaged them. The fickle dice-gods could devastate a gunline like this by withholding their blessing, though the sheer output of fire is meant to minimize this impact.

All in all, the build was more competitive than I thought, but I think it is too fickle to be consistent. I will play it more, however, and maybe tweak it to find out! My instinct though, would be to drop the hellblaster and maybe one of the engineers and mix things up for some more combat units. The cannon alone would provide some heavy fire, and added diversity would give me more options, at which point it is no longer a gun-line at all. The build was gimmicky and fun, but anything that one-dimensional is always a risk.

The Runic Cannon can't move, so it cannot be reinforced. Same with the Volleygun.

How that? Rulebook page 19 quotes: "a disc with no movement can be reinforced"

Or has this been faqed?