One of the advantages the Imperial fleet has over its many enemies is the Nova cannon - a uniquely devastating weapon, capable of crippling a cruiser with a single shot. While the Eldar have their Pulsars, the Necrons their Lightning Arcs and the Orks their Big Gunz, the Imperials have the Nova Cannon.
A complaint I've heard recently, from a couple of Chaos players especially, is that the Nova cannon is too powerful for its points cost. This complaint has mainly come up in games involving the trial Nova cannon rules, as seen in the 2002 Annual. Prior to these trial rules coming out, the fact that you had to fire the Nova cannon first and guess range to the target made it more difficult to get a direct hit. However, this disadvantage is lessened with practise, the same as with artillery fire in Warhammer.
With the trial rules, the chance of a direct hit increases to a minimum of 1 shot in 3. Why do I say a minimum of one shot in three? Well, for a Nova cannon to do D6 hits, the hole in the center of the template must touch the flying base - ie, be in close proximity. Even if you don't get a "hit" on the scatter dice, a low roll on the scatter distance can still result in a partial or direct hit - within 60cm, it is almost impossible to miss completely.
Looking at this sort of detail, I can certainly see the Chaos players' point of view - a weapon that powerful should surely be limited in the fleet list, shouldn't it? Well, looking at the Imperial fleet list the answer is both yes and no. In the core, unupgraded ships, there are two classes of ship that come with a Nova cannon - the Mars-class battlecruiser and the Dominator-class cruiser. At first glance, this doesn't appear too bad, but when you look at the upgrades available to the Imperial fleets cruisers, you see that the Nova cannon is more widely available that first appears - both the Lunar-class and the Tyrant-class cruisers can be upgraded to have Nova cannon as their prow armament, replacing their torpedoes. While in both cases the resulting cruiser is more expensive than a Dominator-clss (200pts & 205pts vs 180pts), the ships it can be added to add more flexibility to the Imperial fleet.
When taken in small numbers, the Nova cannon is not a problem. I generally only take one in a 1500pt fleet, mounted on my Mars-class flagship. Unless I'm lucky with the scatter or number of hits, it tends only to take shields down. However, a victory in one game in November can be directly attributed to the Mars crippling two Chaos cruisers in three shots.
It is when the fleet selection is, to my mind, abused that problems come up. I know one local player who regularly employs three or four Nova cannon in his fleet, and another who has fielded a squadron of six Nova cannon armed vessels on occasion. This sort of firepower can easily kill or cripple two or three enemy vessels a turn, with the exception of if they are facing Eldar.
So, do I feel the Nova cannon is over-powered? No, I do not.
Do I feel the Nova cannon is over-available? Yes, I'm afraid I do. |
