Nicodemus:
Week 10 Double-header: Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher
Welcome to the tenth chapter in the Daemonsmith’s Handbook! Please post your tips and tactics for the Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher here.
Some suggested topics for discussion:
- Deployment
- Tactics
- Upgrade options
- Usability and effectiveness vs. other choices for the army.
Groznit Goregut:
Is it ever worth upgrading to demonic?
Singleton Mosby:
The Death Shrieker Rocket Launcher is my favorite Chaos Dwarf warmachine for several reasons. First of all it is rather cheap and can versatile. In combination with an engineer this warmachine can truly excel.
Most of my armylists have two Death Shriekers and either a Magma cannon or a Hellcannon. Against most armies they are really effective, exceptions are probably Ogres, Chaos and Bretonnian because of their high touchness or armoursave. Against all others they are huge fun.
With two of the machines besides one another and an engineer in support you are certain of a hit with underneath the large template. Big blocks of infantry feel the pain. They will not die in droves because of the low Strength but die they will as 20+ hits is a very common thing to occur.
But the DSRL is not only an infantry killer but also usable against monsters. Because of the scatter the chance of hitting is not very high but when you fire with two and have a re-roll that chance is all of a sudden a whole lot better. Most of the time you need a hit or 2" so that’s 33% chance, two times and a reroll make the odds favorable.
A S8 hit with d6 wounds and you will be able to see them kill a monster many times their own points-worth.
Yep, I love’em :hat off
Bolg:
Singleton kinda says it all.
Remember its flaming attacks and units that suffer a wound must take a panic test.
propervillanz:
The only things i can think to add is how well this thing works in conjunction with Ruby Sword of Rhuin. +1 to hit will have you wounding most infantry on 3+/4+ which will definitely help you take a bite out of many thing.
The main reason to make them hellbound is to have them take out ethereal units so your other artillery pieces can hammer advancing enemies, avoid the affects of the that Skaven Banner that can shut down shooting phases, and the occasional failed fear test by enemy scouts/ambushers/fast cav that come gunning for your war machines.
Gmaleron:
At first I was all about the Magma Cannon, however after playing with these awesome war machines I dont create a list without at least one (often two) of them in my Army. Some tactics:
-Against high toughness armies (especially Ogres) this thing will not be as good I agree…which is why you give it some help. I ran two of these and was able to get the spell “Ash Storm” off on my opponents massive bull horde making them flammable. Needless to say the few wounds I did roll did more then enough damage. The same can be done for both Brets and Chaos Warriors.
-Another thing not mentioned is how useful this thing is against opponents warmachines! I played a shooting heavy O&G list and both my Deathshriekers sniped his stone throwers in the first turn! This is huge considering how opponents warmachines can hurt our army (killing our K’daai and infantry blocks for example) very quickly.
Also (already mentioned) it helps balance the game out against horde armies and I have yet to take it without hellbound. For 25pts. You also get an additional wound and an even tougher warmachine along with magical attacks. This I feel is always worth it. :cheers
Silver:
The wounds on the war machine are ignored, it does not add a crew, so when you lose 3 wounds, you remove the machine anyway.
The extra wound is used for the Iron Daemon though. shooting removes crew on normal war machines, not wounds on the machine itself.
Gmaleron:
Incorrect and I only say this for the High Elf Bolt Thrower. The stats of the bolt thrower says it has 3 wounds however it comes with only 2 crew, I was told that it is based of the Warmachine not the number of crew and the crew are no more then counters for the warmachine in regards to wound. The crew is used if the Warmachine is attacked in CC, so it does have 4 wounds.
St3v3:
Hey guys,
new here and sorry about the threadomancy but I have a question and decided to search before starting a new thread.
Here goes:
As per the rules in the Tamurkhan the deathshrieker is aimed using only a small marker, instead of one of the templates.
While this can not be placed on a unit that is in combat it can be placed directly behind (or next to) such a unit as the marker is very small.
Keeping the above in mind, can the Deathshrieker’s special rule (rolling the arti dice again and scatter the template towards the nearest unit) allow it to hit a unit in combat (albeit with using the small template but still)?
Normal rules for scattering allow this, but since this is a special type of scatter…
Bolg:
You should never target a unit in combat, nor should you want to or try to use a rule interpretation to make it possible…
St3v3:
Hey Bolg,
I appreciate what you are saying, but the Basic rulebook actually allows a shot to scatter and hit units locked into close combat.
All I am asking is if the Deathshrieker’s special rule that allows it to “scatter” again would be OK with that rulee in the BRB or not.
Bolg:
A scatter can direct a template onto a unit in combat, thus as per DS scatter, just take nearest units (as in the DS rules) in combat or not.
St3v3:
Thanks for the clarification.
That solves it 