Assuming the Forgeworld experimental rules are the same as LoA. I’ve been thinking about the Dreadquake Mortar, how pricey it seems and how to bring it up to scratch. To do that I’d have to see how poorly priced it really is. At almost 200pts naked, it needs to kill a lot of infantry or a few monsters to be worth taking. But how many?
A single hit in a large enough unit can hit 21 models with 20mm bases. That’s 17.5 T3 kills or 14 T4 kills, assuming armour is not better than 4+ (nice strength value!). 25mm units look like you can hit 12 (someone confirm), so 8 kills. 8 hits on cavalry but they are likely to have good armour so 3-5 kills depending. You get an extra 1/6 of the unit if it tries to move.
There is a 50% chance that it will blow itself up during a game, and a 50% chance that it will be not work for at least one turn. Without doing the actual calculations (they get pretty complicated at this point and I don’t have any paper to work through them right now), lets say it will have an average of two-three successful hits per game with an Ogre doing the loading (much nearer to two hits I would guess). So certainly not a reliable machine!
Pointwise, it looks possible to kill enough models as long as you hit two blocks of 20mm infantry worth more than 5 points per model. For 25mm infantry they’d need to cost more than 11pts, and 22pts for cavalry on average. That doesn’t include any extras for difficult terrain tests, and there is likely to be a lot of variation per game but it should even out over the course of several games.
So, it is overpriced against greenskins, good against Chaos Warriors. Anyone is welcome to do more specific calculations than I have, I might have fudged a bit too far on some.
The difficult terrain test is much harder to quantify. Number one is the psychology effect it has on the player choosing between disrupting his battleline or losing even more models. Experienced players will probably take it in their stride, but others might actually consider halting their advance for the sake of a few cheap models.
As a siege weapon it is barely better than a normal stone thrower in taking down castle walls, which is a shame since the model and fluff suggest otherwise, and you don’t really want to spend more than twice as many points to do the same job. If I was going to make any changes, my number one would be in inflicting 2D6 wounds on building-hits due to the quake effect, rather than just D6.
So how would I improve it in other ways? Reliability is a big concern. As an O&G player I am used to crazy unreliable things, but they don’t cost so much and blow up on their own. There is a certain amount of character in it though. Maybe have it kill the Ogre if you roll a 1 on the misfire chart instead of completely destroying the machine. If you don’t have an Ogre then it all goes. The model gave me another idea - make it like an entrenched dwarf war machine, at least then it becomes much tougher for the enemy to attack with troops and shooting. Anyone who has tried climbing onto a train from track level will understand how hard it would be. Finally, a -1 modifer to shooting if a unit is hit by it. Doesn’t make sense that a model can fall over and die if he tries to walk but can still shoot straight. Also makes the smaller, stationary, shooting infantry a more viable target in armies without the big infantry blocks.
My major issue with it isn’t its price per se - it’s always hard to guage how much a war machine with a bad misfire chart (which the Dreadquake essentially has) is worth, because it might just not blow up at all and kill things consistently all game, or it might achieve literally nothing. No, my issue is its price compared to the Hellcannon. For not many more points, you get yourself a stone thrower that’s just as good and is also a Monster. Yeah, Rampage can be an issue (but shouldn’t be too much of one with Ld 9 handlers and a general/BSB close by) but it’s just a no-brainer with me. Like with the Daemonsmith special rule, it sort of reads to me like WF forgot they ought to include the Hellcannon until the last minute. It’s like they’ve gone and done their own thing with Chaos Dwarfs and then realised that there’s already a unit of them in a current Armies book!
The other thing to factor in is if you are planning on taking a daemonsmith and what warmachine you will be putting him within 3" of.
The dreadquake gets pretty decent with the smith around, although it then becomes almost a 300pt machine.
Thommy touched on the main problem with the dreadquake. It is competing in the rare section with destroyers and hellcannons (to a lesser extent wolf riders). I tried a bunch of games with the quake when I first got the book, but I still rather take the other rare options.
It's like they've gone and done their own thing with Chaos Dwarfs and then realised that there's already a unit of them in a current Armies book!
Thommy H
I think its something like that. They seem to have made this armylist in a vacuum that ignored where similar units and concepts had gone since the earliest days of the Ravening Horde booklet. In some ways this armylist is the 6th edition armylist we never had. Obviously the games moved on since 6th edition... but you're right, both the Dreadquake and the Hellcannon were obviouse attempts to modernize the Earthshaker concept and having both is pretty redundant. WF needed to distinguish the Dreadquake and while the fluff does, the rules don't.
Yeah, the Destroyer is a much better choice too. I only bring up the Hellcannon because it fills the exact same role as the Dreadquake and does it much more economically, given the other benefits. The only benefit to the Dreadquake is that you can hook it up to an Iron Daemon…but I haven’t actually seen anyone realistically suggest using that option yet.
The Dreadquake does have one thing going for it, elite units like Chosen do not like having to take dangerous terrain tests when they move to say the least.
The Hellcannon is a good point that I completely forgot about. It’s almost as good at killing (save the armour piercing and dangerous terrain tests) but eventually turns into an enemy killing machine if it misfires rather than just dying. So not only can it handle itself in combat but will actually runoff most enemy.
So we end up with a choice of two S5 stone throwers for around the same cost, same slot. So it definitely needs some rules that define it as a choice you want to take to fulfill a different role to the hellcannon.
Dangerous Terrain test is good, i like that part and in certain situations much better than the panic test. If only it had some other fluffy effect considering how devastating it is in the fluff
Hellcannon can eat enemy wizards also which is a plus haha. (miscast)
Dreadquake is certainly underpowered for it’s pts cost compared with the CD’s other artillery options (magma cannon is ridiculous for it’s price, very overpowered)
No, my issue is its price compared to the Hellcannon. For not many more points, you get yourself a stone thrower that's just as good and is also a Monster. Yeah, Rampage can be an issue (but shouldn't be too much of one with Ld 9 handlers and a general/BSB close by) but it's just a no-brainer with me. Like with the Daemonsmith special rule, it sort of reads to me like WF forgot they ought to include the Hellcannon until the last minute. It's like they've gone and done their own thing with Chaos Dwarfs and then realised that there's already a unit of them in a current Armies book!
Just seems like no one actually sat down and went, "And now I'm going to try writing a variety of army lists and playing some games against other armies before jacking up the points on the already cautious test rules and releasing the book". :|
I mean, the DQM is okay, but its a far cry from any of its competition - Dwarf Grudge Throwers, Empire Mortars, the Hellstrom Rocket Battery is much cheaper and less likely to explode...
Even the Magma Cannon - in our own Special section - is the same strength apart from the hole, can hit more models, negates regen and is less likely to destroy itself. And does D3 wounds under the whole template. And it has a smaller footprint. What incentive is there to take the DQM at all other than 'it looks cool'. Which it does, admittedly.
even though lacking compared to the hc, it wouldn’t care and still take it for fluff and style reasons… my problem is that because our core is so expensive (not to say obviously overpriced, at least the weapon options), i can’t even compensate points elsewhere to field the fluffy units i like, such as the dqm (or ironsworn or fireglaives or whatever, you name it), without risking the armies viability as a whole… for me personally, it all comes down to reducing the points for the ig- the experimental rules (pdf) were perfect imo- then i would have no objection to any option in the book, everything would be more or less nicely balanced (if you don’t compare the dqm to the hc, that is) and absolutely fieldable, competitive but not a powerhouse; points costs like the igs now cause a lot of problems with the other options.
I bought the DQM to convert into a hell cannon into a Hellcannon.
Hellcannon can hold a flank, it’s a stand alone model. The DQM needs too much baby sitting. It’s cool but it’s far too large to warrant a small blast template. It’s payload is nearly the size of it’s blast, which is silly.
"it all comes down to reducing the points for the ig- the experimental rules (pdf) were perfect imo"
I thought they were a bit overpowered so i’m glad the cost has gone up by the 1 pt. Not disagreeing on the weapon option prices though lol.
"It’s cool but it’s far too large to warrant a small blast template. It’s payload is nearly the size of it’s blast, which is silly. "
Agree, it’s ridiculous.
I have only read the experimental rules for the mortar. Were these unchanged in the book.
I guess it is in a way the toughest war machine (Hell Cannon is Monster/Handlers)to kill via shooting given it effectively has 6 wounds including the Ogre. I guess that’s its big advantage, along with the Ogre being able to fight and stomp and warbeasts and the like.
Per the experimental rules, it seems like it’s the whole template that does the d6 wounds, not just the centrepoint? Do i have this wrong?
I guess it’s very useful against a dwarf army (thunderers/quarrellers are both move or fire)… or if you’re playing on a massive playfield
Making a Panic test at -1 isn’t nearly as scary as it used to be. With the BSB and General almost always near the important units, they will rarely fail. Or they will be ItP. Even if they did fail, they would surely rally soon.
I would think the Dangerous Terrain test would be useful against both large units of cheap infantry or units of expensive enemy. It’s the versatility that is nice. A Stone Thrower is only good against low T troops with no armor. The DQM has high S and AP, which means it can hit a lot more units. I would have no problem targeting knights or dwarfs with this while I wouldn’t even bother with a Stone Thrower. I think it’s best to compare to a Hell Cannon and not at all a Stone Thrower as the DQM is far superior to one. I’m a long time Greenskin general and Rock Lobbas have been seriously reduced in the targets they can actually wound these days.
With large units of cheap infantry, you can take out 1 in 6 of the remaining enemy. Let’s say you hit a unit of 50 slaves. You kill 17.5 with the blast and then another 5.5 with the DT test for a total of 23 dead. That’s almost half the unit. It greatly reduces the effectiveness of the unit drastically. I know of people who like to run units of 100 Night Goblins. After the math, I count up 31 dead Goblins. There are a lot of large units these days (marauders, state troopers, Undead, Demons, etc) that would hate to be hit.
What I also like is that the DQM also works against elite and expensive troops, too. 1 in 6 isn’t that many, but when those models are around 20 pts each, it can hurt.
I’ll have to try it out myself, but I think that people are writing it off without thinking about it. I do think that an Ogre and Engineer are must-haves, though.
I think it's best to compare to a Hell Cannon and not at all a Stone Thrower as the DQM is far superior to one.
? We were. Shooting-wise, the DQM is a bit better, true. It isn't a monster though. The Hellcannon is actually more resilient overall too, due to the 5+ 'Dwarf save' that the handlers give it. Having a cannonball hit a Dwarf crewman instead of the Hellcannon 33% of the time is great.
The problem isn't just that the DQM is overpriced, its that its overpriced compared to its fellow Rares and has few selling points in comparison.