A simple question on Basilisks

[kingperson]

I just got the rules from the GW site, and have a qestion about Basilisks. (several questions actually)

1. Do they fire a blast template? (my 40k thoughts are making me wonder)
2. Does it fire indirectly?
3. Is the Artillery Company of 9 basilisks at all useful?
4. How does it compare to the other IG artillery peices?

Thank you in advance

[Shadow_Hunter]

I haven't yet used the Imperial Guard list as I dont have enough models.

The Basilisk should have in the notes section of its rule box some abilities. IIRC they are called artillery.

If you then look under the rules for artillery it will state that the weapon maybe fired indirectly (doubles range) and that you use the artillery table to work out damage. You do use a template (or you did in the version of rules I looked through.) its under the rules for bombardment. You either use three templates or can converge them into one which is more powerful.

I'm going from memory though. In the rules look under artillery, its all there much better than I can describe.

As for comparing to other artillery, again I haven't tried out the artillery that much as I've mainly used marines versus Eldar.

[Karandras]

As far as I can see, you can fire either as artillery(indirectly with one or three blast templates) or directly as just a nasty weapon.
The fact that it CAN fire directly would probably be the thing making it valuable. As artilery the other pieces would prob be better. (griffon, short range, heavy art. Manticore, Long range.)

[Paul "TuffSkull" T.]

Basilisks can bombard, meaning they can fire indirectly at up to double distance but with a inimum range of 30cm.

Normal fire is 3 Barrage templates for any number of barrage weapons, then look up pn the table for the power of hits dependant on number of units.

I've found the best combination to be 6 Basilisk with 3 Griffon. The basilisk do the ong range job, putting down heft firepower until the enemy get closer.

At mid range the Griffon are obscene - heavy barrage mean they count as 3 units EACH on the bombardment table and can decimate enemy formations.

Then when the enemy get closer still, revert back to the basilisk for direct fire. Of course, with a screen of infantry, they should never get beyond mid range