Artillery Heavy Guard List

[artillerywinswars]

Hey all. I have been thinking about starting a new army and have fallen for the idea of an artillery heavy guard list. My plan is to take an 'Emperor's Wrath' Artillery Battery with Wyverns, Basilisks and Manticores along side a good amount of infantry (probably a platoon with some mortars, autocannons, and lascannons and a Chimera with some meltagun veterans) to maximise the effectiveness of the Target Sighted special rule (as far as I can tell only infantry can have vox-casters). How viable do you all think this would be and how would you recommend getting Vox-caster units within 18 inches of the enemy? Should they be in transports, scouting/outflanking, should they be behind Aegis Defence Lines waiting for the enemy to come to them or some/all of the above?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[nutty]

Hello and welcome to the IGMB

Your plan sounds like a good one: the artillery formation is great, and you should be able to build a list around it.

When it comes to getting the vox-casters in range of the enemy you have a couple of options:

- Tempestus scions: they can deepstrike and bring a Vox.

- infantry squads/veterans in chimera's/valkrie/taurox: you might get into a discussion as to wether or not the vox-caster has LoS from inside the vehicle though.

Alternatively you can just let the enemy come to you: the big guns might not be twin-linked the first few turns... But there aren't a lot of armies that can afford to sit still whilst being pounded by IG artillery. Especially when it ignores cover thanks to orders. Regardless of your list the enemy will likely move up in order to rapid-fire or use meltas, flamers and such, and as they get closer your artillery will get more accurate.

Adding a primaris and/or some wyrdvanes might help to: you can use prescience on the artillery in the first turns to get twin-linked. Once the enemy gets close you can use the powers on the infantry to boost their shooting, and use the vox casters to twin link the artillery.

[solidog]

I have run this formation many times and I love it, the only problem with this formation is that you have a lot of points at the back of the board all in the same place to take full advantage of the orders they can receive from the Ccs. This means you need to invest a lot more points in bodies to keep this all safe as a deepstiking units like a drednaught in a drop pod or a tau battle suit squad will rip through all of this on turn one if its in a drop pod. So unless you are playing a game over 2000 points nearly all of your army will be sitting back and in 7th this will not win you anything.