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I might face an Hellcannon soon, but I have no idea how to handle it as I understood it easily kills the normal warmachine hunters like dark riders, shades and harpies. Even Pegasus masters seem to struggle against it. I also have no idea what to expect concerning its missile damage, what to protect etc.

Please share your experiences and tips concerning the Hellcannon.

Just played against one last weekend. I used Pit of Shades to deal with it. I put my sorceress with a unit of warlocks for protection and speed. The cannon was gone turn 2 and I pulled out my opponents dispel scroll turn 1.

I usually just attack it with warlocks. Usually win aswell with the poisen ad the wardsaves

You could try whittling it down with magic and shooting and then try charging it with a Peg Lord/Master or a unit of Warlocks.

A Medusa shooting at it is also likely to take a Wound or two off it too.

Read on here in a post on Medusa that she is good v the Hellcannon.
Shooting is no AS and replace T with I which I think is 1 !!!

I tried Warlocks on Thu and they tied it down for 2/3 turns but eventually lost and my last one ran off the board but by then I'd won the game. My tactic was to kill it or tie it up to avoid it murdering my troops before combat which worked.

Dark magic was good v Chaos.

Look into Medusa I'd say, I'm going to

I failed to tie it down for 3 rounds of combat and it hurted (killing 7 sisters and 5 darkshards) !
Warlocks were blocked, Manticore finished it up eventually. It ate my shades for lunch (as expected)

The medusa only has movement 7, range 12 and is not allowed to march and shoot. You could reach the hellcannon with her in turn 2 in theory but only if you raced there in a straight line. More realistically, you would have to wait till turn 3 or 4 at least. In addition, once she is in she will want to charge the cannon unless the general is nearby or the path is blocked somehow. I believe it can be orchestrated and she could act as a cannon-killer but it is something you can hardly expect to pull off in every battle.

Vallers wrote:Dark magic was good v Chaos.

What units did the Chaos player bring? Dark magic seems suboptimal against the usual build consisting of skullcrushers, demon princes, disc heroes, chimeras and chariots.

The obvious de word of pain is golden against woc, lowering their i below our executioners, lowering ws and s can make them wiff and loose combat (and thus frenzy, or even run with their lack of ranks).

(Boosted) doombolt is the only way i ever killed the nurgle deamon prince (twice haha).

Extra dice and +1s is alway good vs WoC, however your caster in cc isnt.

No general ld or bsb rerolls vs chimeras works cool.

And there are plenty multiwounds s4 in WoC list, so black horror can do some badstuff to them.

Boosted doombolt is quite risky even on 6 dice. I kill demon princes with bolt throwers and pegasus lords usually; if you want to magic them away spirit leach should achieve a similar effect for far less dice thrown. Or searing doom. Unboosted doombolt is not even able to destroy a chariot outright.

Chimeras without BSB and general are nice, sure, but how are you going to subject them to Ld checks? It should be possible for your opponent to place them more than six inches apart from anything that might get destroyed. Are you going to beat them in combat? I do not claim it is impossible but it would require quite a special scenario. Besides, shroud has only 12 inches range. That is dangerously close.

Black horror can be nice I suppose but I am not sure how many models you can hit. I would expect the toll for one casting to be something like one skullcrusher and one chariot at maximum which is not bad but not that spectacular either.

Word of pain is the one single spell that has to be stopped. In the first round of combat it will get scrolled. If there is a second round you might get a soulblight through because all dice will fly on the word of pain but this might be too late.

Soul stealer, bladewind and chillwind are unlikely to do any significant damage.

No not take it wrongly, dark magic is nice. I just thing it is better against undead for example and WoC is rather a worse matchup for it.

No not take it wrongly, dark magic is nice.

Just not as nice as most of the other lores out there. But that's a total tangent

Regarding the Medusa. Shes a bit tricky to use. Need to shield her from shooting on the way. And you need to turn her back to the opponent so she doesen`t have to teset for frenzy. But if you get her in place I think she`s a viable option for hurting the skillcannon. Personally I only use her against dwarfs. She`s good at taking out those pesky copters.

So, I will probably face two of these monstrousities in the near future, with my infantry list! My list includes 3 bolters, which is something at least. Guess I need to get into combat ASAP. Anyone played against 2?

Mikael.k wrote:So, I will probably face two of these monstrousities in the near future, with my infantry list! My list includes 3 bolters, which is something at least. Guess I need to get into combat ASAP. Anyone played against 2?

Well you are screwed mister! just get them into combat FAST

Mikael.k wrote:So, I will probably face two of these monstrousities in the near future, with my infantry list! My list includes 3 bolters, which is something at least. Guess I need to get into combat ASAP. Anyone played against 2?

A Pegasus-riding Death or Shadows Sorceress might be an option. Unfortunately they are monsters, not war machines, so the usual trick of forcing an attribute test doesn't automatically work. Still, Initiative 1 will fail 5 times out of 6...

Purple Sun is lethal against Hellcannons, and with a fair bit of luck you might even be able to roll one through both Hellcannons on the same cast. Bear in mind, though, that there is a 1 in 6 chance of the spell not going where you want it to. You could also use Doom And Darkness against them, so as to force Ld checks on a value of 6 rather than 9. A Hellcannon can't shoot if it moves, which gives you an extra turn to deal with it, and this compulsory random move may mess with your opponent's movements as well.

Pit of Shades, as has been pointed out, can be a semi-reliable Hellcannon killer too, and it does not include the risk of misfiring and potentially killing your caster (only 1 in 36, though). Shadow also has the Penumbral Pendulum, which can be used to target multiple Hellcannons. Purple Sun might still be a better option, if only because of the prospect of taking out both with one cast and getting power dice back from doing so. Also, I don't have the book in front of me, but I'm not sure if the Pendulum continues through models that it doesn't kill - in which case, it's unlikely to be much use against multiple Hellcannons other than as a "Plan B" spell.

Luckily it looks like im up against just one hellcannon, but still my army has huge problems in killing in

Really good, insightful post people. I too face the same drama on Tuesday. He is only bringing 1 Hcannon also, last time I ayed him he didn't do much shooting with it as I tied it down in turn two BG and warlocks, but I got charge from all angles and fell apart.

My lore selection for that game was metal, reason being my core was pretty much Darkshards. I have mainly an infantry list fort next match up and wondering would shadow serve me better rather than metal?

Well if you have that mucj shooting Shadow isnt a bad choice as you can debuff T with it to make our S3 shooting more effective. tho i can understand that the +1 to hit from Metal sounds nice you miss out on half the spell since our shooting already has AP. yet with all the heavy armor he has Metal wil still hurt him
personally i prefer Shadow tho, as it is still dangetous to him even later into the game

Searinox Nagharha wrote:Well if you have that mucj shooting Shadow isnt a bad choice as you can debuff T with it to make our S3 shooting more effective. tho i can understand that the +1 to hit from Metal sounds nice you miss out on half the spell since our shooting already has AP. yet with all the heavy armor he has Metal wil still hurt him
personally i prefer Shadow tho, as it is still dangetous to him even later into the game

Getting Hellcannon into RXB range and getting withering off is highly situational, and you need to roll well too for the debuff. Usually HCs are deployed in the backline, since they dont need much baby sitting. Once in a while they move forward though

I must share my latest encounter with a hellcannon. It killed:

CoB
Level 2
Level 2
Level 1
28 corsairs
18 Sisters
= 1238 out of the total 1501 my opponent got

This was in addition to his DP cascading turn 1... really dont know what to do when it doesnt do that!

For a question like this, you need something more then just a mere magical spell solution.
Because magic can backfire/stopped

If the hellcannon doenst blow itself up, you need the following:


-Dreadlord on Pegasus, giantblade, OTS and some protecion.
You deploy him on the flank of your army, and fly over troops. You usually hit the cannon on turn 2. And destroy in two turns.

- Also the pegasus cloackmaster with a lance, can hurt the hellcannon.

Don't forget to reform your dreadlord, when it killed the demoncannon.

Part of the problem with elves is that our models bases are small (20 mm), low T, and expensive. So a big template will vaporize alot of points in one go. If you want to mitigate this from an "all comers" point of view, take alot of cavalry and monsters/characters. Min core in DR a few monsters and some very nasty pegmasters/lords will reduce the "juicyness" of the targets he has to choose from. Give it an immediate and existential threat and your opponent will target that model (SS with CoT and death or shadow or ...).

But, this requires a complete re-think of your army style and composition.

I play an all cav list and hellcannons are not a major problem. Most of the time they scatter off and don't do anything. They will misfire and fail their rampage check (can't remember what they call it) occasionally. In my last three games, that I can remember, the hell cannon only hit its target once which was wardsaved. The rest of the time it scattered off, misfired. I only lost a few models in total.

Also, because it is a monster it cannot pivot and shoot. So if you are out of the arc, you won't get hit as it will have to pivot to catch you and so can't shoot.

5 warlocks kill hellcannon in 3-4 rounds. 10 warlocks might kill it in 1 round. just soften it with doomblot and keep soulblight.
5 dark riders in the flank hold it long enough to win the game.

Does light atttribute work on the Hellcannon (or DP) as they are 'demons'

I found it in the official FAQ ! Yes it does !
This makes Light also a very good answer to the Hellcannon