first game observations

Some back story. Having spent some time between reading rules, various army books, and so on, I came to like particular aspects of the game. Namely artillery and magic. Yet I feel like my preconceived notions of such have now been put in question after actually playing a game. I took myself a lv 4 heavens and a lv 1 to pay the tax, and lastly a lv 1 fire belly. Got the heaven spells I wanted and the +1 toughness from maw spell.  But it seemed like the mvp was the begrudgingly taken maw butcher.
I know my experience is a whole whopping one game, but is magic as a whole a love or not experience or OK just like the augments more.
additionally, is that the same in cannons? Had the one cannon and did so little. Could it be just my utilization, army I faced, or a love it or not. I did fine on the guessing and got three rounds of firing off but doesnt seem so devestating to even take them as a pair.
I realize this is a bit of a vague post but doing it off my phone, but thank you in advance.

I guess more details could help. It was 2k game vs empire. Magic wasnt shut down, and my cannon did exactly what I hoped. Its that I loved the idea of heavens and thought cannons were really good and both left me underwhelmed. I did pull out the win so its not even a post game boo hoo for losing. I guess it comes down to this. Are my expectations to high, too little experience, or since im not impressed in those bits, invest the points in what I did like.

+1 toughness is a great spell, anything that reduces the amount of wounds taken by 20% or more is a good thing. However, you just as easily could have wound up with the stubborn buff - useful but not as effective. Heaven's has a lot of great spells in it (...and some losers, hi wind blast) so don't give up on it. Did you have any shooting other than the cannon?


Cannons are really strong in this edition - against specific things (single models and high armor targets, more or less). Did the empire player have a steam tank, demigryphs or one of the buffwagons? Going counter artillery is okay, but dropping one of those outside of combat is a great boon to us and only reliably done with the ironblaster.

He ran two blocks of swordsmen and two groups of knights. No steam or other toys besides two cannons. Couldnt reach them so targeted the infantry. Got the knights once too. I had two groups of 4 leadies and just saw them doing soo much more that I could add 4 more for the cost of the cannon. But idk.

How were the cannons deployed such that you couldn't reach them? 36'' range, plus 6 inches of movement, plus 10'' of bounce should be able to cover most of the table unless you're doing battle for the pass (or they were hiding behind terrain, which is also possible but still managable with a mobile cannon)

Large infantry blocks are one of the poorest targets for cannons, unless you can manage a flank shot. Then its a great target for cannons

One came from reserve after mine die before it appeared. The other was because of a mix of terrain and hidding behind the swordsmen block.

Cannons are awesome because they savage monsters, Steam Tanks, other war machines, and certain single models. In that situation you sounded like you weren't staring at much it was very effective against.

On the upside, our cannon can go charge into combat if it's got nothing else to do.


As for magic, Heavens is a very curious lore. Most people who like using it tend to have rather unusual lists where it provides more of an advantage. Most Ogre Lists tend to benefit most from Maw and Beasts. Death is like Heavens too - bit of an oddball.

Ah, do remember that infantry can't actually stop a cannonball (Monstrous Infantry can, go fat guys) and aiming only requires you be able to see what you're aiming at. I've heard True Line of Site interpreted different, but my group plays it as you can aim at the swordsman in the 3rd rank 4 guys from the edge of the unit (who happens to be 10'' in a straight line to the cannon) and have it sail past him into the cannon.

Terrain, on the other hand, totally can, as does not being on the board.


In any case, his list isn't exactly filled with good cannon targets, see how it all works out against different lists and you'll see why 2 ironblasters is fairly common (or you won't, and can go try something else)

Magic is really a love or hate part of the game and even if you love the magic... magic can make it tough love.

From my experience the Maw lore suits ogres very well and the buff gives the ogre unit what they need to shine in a combat army. Choosing the Heaven lore is tricky and requires a different tactic than beat'em up. Also heaven spells are mostly magic missiles or hexes so they depend situational on the opponent tactic and army, so although you get the spells you thought you wanted before the game it may all change when you see the opponent army.

The lead belchers are a tough unit to figure out. Just as often as people praise them, they end up doing nothing. This can be because they shoot at the wrong target : ) There is heck of a difference if you use a 4 guy unit to shoot at 5 knights or a horde of swordsmen: )

For heavens magic I would have a block of 6-8 lead blechers and maybe a support unit of 3-4 and be very defensive with iron blasters and smaller combat blocks

Oh, and close to nothing that happens in just one game of warhammer will ever be statistically significant… so don’t over think it and dont panic : )
You can of course try to identify areas where you got surprised and see how you could have done differently and monitor all dice rolls in the game that felt game changing and evaluate if/how you could have positively affected that situation… or if they were truly just bad luck. Failing rerollable Ld9 tests happen more often than you want them to.

I did fine on the guessing and got three rounds of firing off

I'm a little stunned nobody picked up on this yet. Were you guessing cannon ranges? That's an old rule from 7th edition and before. If you were guessing here's what you do next time:
Get down and see as best you can what your cannon can see
Measure to see if your target is in range, if so good, proceed, if not pick again
Try and pick a spot on the battlefield 8-10 inches from the back of the target (assuming its a large base target) that the cannon can see as well
Place the marker and roll your artillery die as you would've had you "guessed" that the ball would land on the spot you picked.

Heavens is a primarily offensive lore for defensive ogres
LoTGM is a primarily defensive lore for offensive ogres
Beasts fits in more with the Maw paradigm since you are likely never taking it on a slaughtemaster
Death is an oddball
Fire is good either way, Firebellies cannot be underrated

Good luck in game 2

Sorry with the guessing confusion. I meant to say basicley what you said. Took the 6-8 roll of artillery dice in consideration and hit my marks. Yall are helping me loads. Think ill give a lv 4 maw and a beasts a go next. Give the cannon a go again. As its been said, was only my first game lots to learn but giving me hope that magic and cannons could still be loved.

Generally speaking, for a single models 10'' from the back is a good call. No reason to give yourself a 1/3 miss chance on the first dice roll, we get to reroll the bounce so you are even more likely to hit 10

And remember, if all else fails charge it in to support a combat! T6 is pretty swell.

I like my lvl1-2 butchers to have Heavens instead of Beasts. I was on the Beast wagon for a while but Wildform is a little tough for a low level wizard to cast with 2 dice.

Iceshard on the other hand has a low casting value and is a pretty swell debuff, especially when you start stacking multiple Iceshards(multiple butchers casting it) on a unit. -1ld means Fear tests just got that much more likely and -1 to hit evens the playing field.

Not to mention all the other heaven spells are awesome too. Beasts is ok but its more situational.

You haven't lived till you get a comet or 2 off on the table. Its a ticking time bomb for your opponent, great at killing warmachines and dinking up units. Harmonic Convergence is also great, its basically another Dragonhide Banner. And Chain Lightning isn't horrible either, you get some bounces going and it can do some damage, especially if the enemy has a lot of units lined up. its great at killing chaff.