Why Skullcannons should be restricted - a Sam Campbell tale! 

So why restrict Skullcannons you might ask…

To put this article into perspective, my good friend Sam and I have been having a running “discussion/debate” over the last few months about why Skullcannon's should be restricted to 0-1 and last week Overlord Ratty Pete Dunn posted an interesting blog about the Warmachine Caps in our current tournament environment... so with these 2 things in mind I thought I’d put my rational on paper.

Quickly I’d like to say to Pete, I personally think you've hit the sweet spot for all artillery restrictions in the current competitive environment with the exception of the S.Cannon while preserving the overall player enjoyment level!  

So let’s start this with a comparison of the Skullcannon to his restricted cousin the Ironblaster… But before we do you might ask yourself why did the Ironblaster actually get restricted and I'll tell you why  

1)      Its ridiculous mobility means you an virtually always find LoS to any target you want… having 2 means there is literally almost never a place to hide or way to move that would allow a player to hide monsters or lone characters given our current “true line of sight rules”…

2)      Its killing power both in combat and shooting is ridiculous from a points perspective when compare to other army options that the likes of Empire, Dwarfs and others have access too.

3)      (an extension of 1) It allows an Orge general to pick points where ever he wants, back up with impunity and ultimately steal games in unfavourable match-ups. Double Ironblaster basically restricts an opposing general’s movement and to a degree physiologically causes some players to dble think themselves and their tactics... as they say if you control your opponents movement phase you've won 1/2 the battle. 

4)      These issues coupled with Orges other strengths; long charge ability etc greatly reduced the overall player enjoyment level as a result.

There are I’m sure many many other reasons for its restriction but these are the one I personal see as being the major issue.

So onto our comparison and I'll try to be objective as possible (try!!!)   

	Iron.Bl	IB crew		S.Cannon	SC crew
Cost	170	-		135	-	W
Movement	6	-		7	-	W
Weapons Skill	-	3		5	5	W
Ballistics Skill	-	3		-	5	W
Strength	5	4		5	4	W	+1 Str on charge
Toughness	6	-	W	5	-
Wounds	5	-	W	4	-
Initative	2	2		2	4	W
Attacks	3	4	W	3	2
Leadership	-	7	draw	-	7	draw
Armour	4+	-		3+	-	W
Ward Save	N/A	-		5+	-	W
Range	36	-		48	-	W
Str of Shoot	10	-	draw	10	-	draw
Shoot Wounds	D6	-	draw	D6	-	draw
Grapeshot Str	10	-	W	5	-

As you can see from a purely cost and stat basis the Skull Cannon wins hands down taking out 9 categories of the 16 on offer while only losing 4 and drawing the remaining 3... that alone should be enough to restrict it but lets keep going...

So what about the special rules I hear you say, well lets start with the Ironblaster first since it must do something insane to warrant its restriction when the Skullcannon isn't.

Ironblaster rules: Chariot, Large Target, Fear, Move and Fire, Massive Grapeshot and Volley of Cannonballs.

Chariot - D6 impact hits @ str 5 but again the Skullcannon wins out doing D6 Str6 impact hits.

Large Target – Pretty irrelevant since we use true line of sight and the Skullcannon is similar in actual size (model wise) to the Ironblaster. 1 or 2 minor rules impact here but they have very very minimal impact...

Fear - Irrelevant and Skullcannon has it too.

Move and Fire - This is what makes this unit insane since it allows you to alter your firing arc's minimising the chance of any target your opponent has hiding...but the Skullcannon has it to and again it does it better moving 7" vs the Ironblasters 6"...

Massive grapeshot -  Str 10 grapeshot still at 12" or less hitting on 5+  due to the poor Orge BS (as 60%+ of the time your at long range)... This is only marginally better than the Skullcannons Str5 with Ar piercing but the SC hits on 3+ so is going to hit 66% of the time vs 33% time, the Ironblaster wounds most of the time on 2's while the S.Cannon normally wounds on 2’s, 3's or 4's against everything but toughness 6+.

So I’ll give the Iron Blaster a little win here.

Volley of Cannonballs - When determining the bounce, roll the artillery dice twice and pick the longest bounce. This is a reasonable ability but 2 obvious issue stand out firstly you now have twice the chance of misfire and the added bounce range still doesn't make up for the range differential the Skullcannon has over it... 36” + up to 20 vs 48” + up to 20”

Now for our friend the Skullcannon...

It's rules: Chariot, Fear, Immune to Psychology, Flaming Attacks, Demonic Instability, Demonic Attacks, Daemon Engine, Daemons of Khorne, Gorefeast, Hellblades

Chariot - as above

Fear - as above

Immune to Psychology - never hurts... better to have it than not in general... and in all the games I’ve had vs orges at tournaments I’ve only ever seen an Ironblaster flee intentionally once… and I still cut it down!

Gorefeast - umm you have a chance at recovering wounds when you inflict wounds from impact hits... downside…none! All I have to say is sign me up!

Flaming Attacks - I see this as one of the most debated issues but in my opinion its actually one of the best abilities the cannon offers... Firstly you get to negate regeneration, this is pretty huge since some of the most devastating units have this ability and you simple negate it entirely. You’ll basically never fear Abombs, Chimera's, Hydras, opposing Nurgle Beasts, Trolls etc... The only really back draw to this is vs Characters with either the Dragonsbane Gem and Dragon's Helm (or similar ability) since they have a 2+ ward vs flaming attacks... To those ppl I say who cares 90% of generals in our competitive environment hide their characters in bunker units since there to costly or critical to risk having them shoot off or magic'ed away. Of the models that can actually operate successfully outside of a unit alone there is only a handful that you actually need to fear and the rest are pretty crap because their generally terrible. These are units like the Empire Peg Captain etc… As for mounted lords you can simple shot out the mount from under the rider (yes you don’t get the points but you've now significantly limited that models impact on the game and allowed for it to be easily picked off by other means ie magic/combat etc. Of those that can survive in the current competitive environment only 3 come to my mind that actually concern me and 2 of those are in the WoC army. The Daemon Prince or the 3 + reroll 1's disc Lord or Exalted (who’s nigh unkillable anyway without combat res),  the third is the DE Peg D.lord with pendant which like our Disk lord is nigh unkillable with a cannon either way... of those 3 the “flaming” special rule only hurts you against one of them and that's vs the  Daemon Prince...who still has a Charmed shield (virtually always)and a 5+ natural ward. Eeither way it's not a total lose since vs WoC you need to pick off their Skullcrushers, Chimera, Hellcannon and Chariots anyway… hardly a major concern either way since you can tie up the Deamon Prince with beasts or a block of Plague bearers with steadfast.

Demonic Attacks - magical attacks, these are great, no ethereal can tie you up or stop your attacks, you can now kill a Slann and magical attacks punches though special saves that units like Dryad's have or alternatively it allows you to attack through so special items in other army books. The only back draw I can think of to this is vs a unit with the Banner of the World Dragon and like all Bus unit your going to simply divert it out of the game and take all their other points anyway... so no lose here.

Demonic Instability – the rule that makes daemons ridiculous, you don’t run when crushed in combat, you can’t take more than 10 wounds off a unit even if you beat it by 50 combat res… win/win I say. In a traditional army like Empire, Orges or Orc’s if you break you have about a 55-60% chance of being court and destroyed outright when you’re both rolling 2D6 or 3D6 for flee and pursuit.

Daemon Engine – totally irrelevant.

Hellblades - KB, backdraw- none, not quiet as good as poison but it can mean sometimes you get a random kill against a multiple wound character.

So after all's said and done its pretty clear the Skullcannon is better than the Ironblaster so I'm not sure how anyone can justify it not being restricting to 0-1. Maybe so of the reasons outlined above is why every major event pack I've seen outside of Swedish comp restricts both Ironblasters and Skullcannons to 0-1...

The only possible reasons I can see right now for not restricting Skullcannons is that only a handful of ppl can actually field the current competitive version of DoC. So with only 1 or 2 ppl fielding Skullcannons per tourney it's "yet" to have any significant impact on the NZ tournament scene. One other possible factor is the prohibitive cost of GW models in NZ thus very few ppl are in the market for buying a new army outright or alternatively the fact that WoC and HE have also had new books recently and both these armies have always been more popular than the DoC so they’ve been more readily overlooked...

However after CtA's next weekend I think ppl will learn to appreciate the ridiculous power of fielding an army that can have 2 Skullcannons backed up by 12 beasts, Epidemius, Plague Drones, Furies and Plague Bearers… If Sam can’t top 3 with his filthy (Hamish approved) list he should quit or as I told him the other night put the daemons under the front wheel of his car…  J