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Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
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Author:  mr. dude [ Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:09 am ]
Post subject:  Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
This is a combination of thoughts rolled into one.

First is a topic I made a while ago about making Mordor a shooty army, whether something that generally lacks firepower can be used to generate ranged supremacy. I think it's possible, but more likely is the current accepted use for archery, which is that it scares people.

Second, I was experimenting with an army for a pre covid tournament. Basically a giant shieldwall with monsters, nothing out of the ordinary for me. I thought about it and decided that the army is really lacking something. It can deal with any combat threats comfortably, but any army with shooting would control the game. So I added a Catapult as a way of saying "you want to sit back? Go ahead".

Now I'm thinking about it, is this the role of siege weapons in non siege games? Archers won't make their points back by shooting, but they give you a bit of a psychological edge. Siege engines are even more extreme both ways. Sometimes they kill your models because of how the scatter works itself out, and they'll rarely make their points back, but in an army that doesn't want to chase I feel like they can help you play the game on your terms much more.

What armies would you plug a siege weapon in? Siege Bows and Ballistae are always cheaper than getting a separate warband's worth of archers. Catapults are more expensive than an archer-filled warband, Trebuchets are still cheaper. Do you use it to give yourself some kind of ranged threat in an otherwise combat army? Do you use it to really clamp down your status as the dominant ranged army?

The one army I was never able to beat, must have been 12 years ago now. He used Wildmen of Druadan for the bulk of his army. Once you get within 12", you're facing 40ish blowpipe shots that tended to end the game in a turn. To discourage people from hanging back, he had a Trebuchet that never actually did anything, it just looked big and imposing. The Trebuchet's only job was to bring your army to within blowpipe range of the Wildmen.


So yeah, thoughts on siege weapons? When do you use them? I can list the army that got me thinking seriously about this if anyone's interested.
Author:  Salattu [ Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
Yes, these siege weapons are powerful! I would also like to try a mordor army with siege weapons. Especially mordor catapult with troll could be considered because the troll would be useful in melee too. Mordor siege bows are also cheap so 2-4 in a same army wouldn't be impossible instead of a catapult. Stationary siege device would immensely benefit morannon orcs and monsters, forcing the enemy to come to u. Scatter of catapult is huge though, so someone needs to try can it actually hit anything.

Please tell about the army!
Author:  mr. dude [ Thu Jun 04, 2020 6:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
I've only used a Siege Bow in the past, I think I used it with a Great Beast of Gorgoroth and a Morannon shield wall, I don't remember what my heroes were nor what my opponent was using. I had better rolling than usual that game and kept scoring hits with the Siege Bow, this allowed the Great Beast more opportunities to move around and stomp things (and the archers on there were actually quite useful). My opponent did manage to line up the scatter so it has to go through my models a few times, so you have to be careful when using a Siege Bow or Ballista.

The army I was thinking of:
Original idea was that I want spiders. I've used Shelob lots of times, I've used the Spider Queen lots of times, I've never used both together. It doesn't matter what the base of the shield wall is, I've written 600 and 700 point versions of the army with Morannon Orcs, but at 800 points the version I'm most excited to try is:

The Dark Marshall
6 Black Guard of Barad Dur
6 Morannon Orcs - Spears

Ringwraith 1/7/1
6 Black Guard
6 Morannon Orcs - Spears

Catapult - Severed Heads

Shelob

Spider Queen

800 points, 32 models, 6 Might.

The idea is that I'm confident this army can beat just about anything in a pure battle to the death, and the Catapult helps me deal with armies that want to sit back. I'm just waiting for the world to go back to normal so I can try it and see if it works like I imagine it. It does lack in objective-grabbing power, so I'd have to make any army commit to fighting me on my terms. Ways around that are either to drop Severed Heads and give the Ringwraith 2/7/2 so he has more Might to call marches, and I'll have to playtest to see whether I prefer the Might or the Severed Heads. I can also swap the Black Guard for Morannons and get an Orc Drummer (and put the Ringwraiths on Horses so they can keep up).

Yeah, that's the army that got me thinking about it all, you can do similar things with a Gondor wall allied with the monsters of your choosing. Gondor also benefits from having the Bolt Thrower which I think is a terrifying piece of equipment, it's a Middle Earth machine gun.
Author:  Salattu [ Thu Jun 04, 2020 7:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
So, when u have played with or against a catapult, has it done anything useful? Let"s say killed normal enemy warriors, monsters, heroes, anything?
Author:  mr. dude [ Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
I've played against a few Catapults. The first one I faced is a funny story because I didn't know siege weapon rules and my opponent was using Warhammer Fantasy Trebuchet rules, he killed 5-10 of my models a turn with it. It wasn't until much later that I figured out he was using the wrong rules.

Siege weapons follow the same premise as regular shooting. Sure, I can aim it at the big expensive heroes, with a Troll the Catapult has pretty good odds of hitting and not terrible odds of rolling a 6 on the scatter, but it's still much more likely that I'll roll a 2-5 and my opponent will pick something else. It's unlikely to make its points back by killing things.

Having said that, every Catapult and Trebuchet I've ever faced or seen in action has had 2 effects. 1) it forces you to spread out to limit its splash damage. 2) it encourages you to close the distance even if you don't want to. Look at the example that I gave in the first post with the Wildmen, the Trebuchet wasn't the biggest threat in the army, but it was the loudest threat and I got close to my opponent to avoid it, but his main threat was at close range.

So is it going to kill all those expensive heroes and monsters to make its points back? I doubt it. What it does is spread your opponent's army out and make them come to you. If you value that level of board control, it's worth it. If you don't, it's not.
Author:  Salattu [ Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
Btw, is the crew and the troll included in the price of a catapult? I was looking at the army book and to my surprise it seems that both troll and the crew is included, which means the cost of the catapult itself is only about 45 points?

If this 45 points is true, then it is a bargain!

Btw, do trolls get minuses in melee combat due to not having a weapon?

If not, even better. Then u can take a couple catapults and use them until the enemy is nearby and then send trolls into melee?

Btw, does the catapult + troll + 3 crews count as 1 model in the army or as 5 models? And can u pick an engineer orc captain to lead the catapult and other army?
Author:  Dwarves4thewin! [ Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
Salattu wrote:
Btw, is the crew and the troll included in the price of a catapult? I was looking at the army book and to my surprise it seems that both troll and the crew is included, which means the cost of the catapult itself is only about 45 points?

If this 45 points is true, then it is a bargain!

Btw, do trolls get minuses in melee combat due to not having a weapon?

If not, even better. Then u can take a couple catapults and use them until the enemy is nearby and then send trolls into melee?

Btw, does the catapult + troll + 3 crews count as 1 model in the army or as 5 models? And can u pick an engineer orc captain to lead the catapult and other army?


No, the troll is not included. You have to pay extra points for it. I think it's not allowed to say how much. But it wil double the pointcost for a catapult if you have a troll with it. And the crew and troll are considered as individual models. So 3 crew and optional to add extra crew and/or catapult.

And I've used some siege weapons, not much and not often. But I remember one time that I played 1000 points. I had Isengard with 2 ballista's. One in each corner. The bulk of my army on the left, with Saruman and some captains, bunch of uruks and a few berserkers and ferals (it was a few years back, with the old rules, so with good ferals) and the other ballista with just a handfull of models in the other corner. Eomer and Gandalf with a lot of cavalry. Because he had only mounted models he was fast and the battle began quickly. But a small cavalry unit was sended to the other corner. It should be more then enough for the few orcs and uruks I had there. But because he spreaded his army like I did, I could still fire 'crosswise'. So the corners helped eachother.
The ballista's did almost kill their points back, but indeed, it was mostly the boardcontrol. Gandalf vs. Saruman was a nice battle. I ended up winning, mostly because the ballista's.
Author:  mr. dude [ Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
The Troll does come included. In previous editions it was a separate upgrade that you have to pay for, now the price of a Catapult includes the Troll, Siege Veteran, and two crew for a total of 4 models.

A siege weapon is its own warband because you always have a Siege Veteran or Captain leading it, you don't need a separate hero leading that warband. That makes them a really cheap way to add fire support: a Siege Bow or Ballista is always cheaper than a full warband of archers for example.


I'm not sure if the Troll can leave his Catapult. I know crew can't go further than 6" away from their siege weapon, I don't know if the Troll counts as crew. From reading the rule, I think it counts as crew but doesn't go towards the minimum crew limit; so I would say the Troll can't leave the Catapult. It's not unarmed, so no -1.



Dwarves4thewin, did you find that your opponent's Riders being spread out also helped because you weren't facing them all at once? Or was it mostly that them being spread out allowed your Ballistae to keep shooting?
Author:  Dwarves4thewin! [ Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
Sorry, I stand corrected. I didn't user catapults since the new rules.. Buy yes, the troll is included now.

And, yes on both. I could more eadely fight because they spread out and I could fire more shots. We houseruled that there was also a minimal range for ballistas. We couldn't found if that is/was so, but it would be weird if they van fire on a model right before them, even if the ballistas is higher then the model is.
Author:  mr. dude [ Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Siege Weapons and Ranged Supremacy
Yeah, that's really their power. They might kill their points worth, but the real value is that your opponent is spread out and won't fight you all at once. Really interesting matchup that must have been.

I don't think they have a minimum range (Catapults and Trebuchets do for sure), as long as you have a clear path to the target model, you're good.
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