"Giant crossbows in Dragon Rampant." Topic

I was just given 2 giant crossbows. These are 3d printed siege weapons that look exactly like those used by Saruman at Helm's Deep.

As it happens, I now have a Half-orc army. It was easy to cut the weapons off of some spare Half-Orc pikemen for crew. I am now painting crew & bolt-shooters. They should look good.

However, I'm at a loss to fit them into "Dragon Rampant" – our rules of choice.

They could be placed as 'Heavy Missiles' but these then have some inappropriate factors – notably attack & maybe move. I guess I could add a troll to show how they could be moved but these machines are *not* going to charge anyone.

Leave this out? That would make sense but in a game system where there's a tight balance of points, why would I take a unit that can't use all the factors that presumably come with the point cost?

Should I lower the unit point cost to '3' (from '4') or just suck it up? Any other ideas?

There isn't really a close fit for artillery in the "Dragon Rampant" rules. Heavy Missiles is your best fit – I wouldn't worry about the Attack capability, since (a) they would need to pass a 7+ activation to do so and (b) even if they succeed they'd need 6s to hit. Under those circumstances it's highly unlikely they'll charge anybody – but if they do, visualize it as a desperate sortie by the artillerists, leaving the engines behind to be brought forward in case of victory or (more likely) retreated to in case of repulse. As for the movement, didn't the Romans have carts to transport their ballistae about?

If you feel OK leaving the book categories, I've had game success with treating various types of artillery as Light Missiles with no Attack activation, 24" range, but only 6 Strength Points.

Interesting. I'll mull over your suggestions. Many thanks.

My house rules.

1) crew of 4

2) missile attack as 12 with full crew 6 with half crew.

3) defend at 6 dice.

I also have one unit made up of 2 trolls with much better hand to hand options.

Fully agree the crew may charge not the weapon.

I'm going to suggest that you reach out to the author of the rules system. Artillery (Ballista, Catapult, Trebuchet) are all common in both ancient and medieval weapons of history. Read up on the RW historical Greek engineer, Archimedes, and his final battle against the Romans, for a good laugh, and a good eye-opening experience.

Artillery should be covered in every pseudo-ancient and pseudo-medieval fantasy set of rules. Perhaps the author forgot to include them in the final version released? Cheers!

@ Slag. Thanks but I think the response would be – & rightly so – tweak it to suit yourself.

@ Col Durnford. So you pretty much follow the 'Heavy Missiles' stats? I think it might be best to have a few games doing this & see if it's a problem before changing anything.

I don't have the book in front of me, however, I believe it's call ponderous weapons.

In my collection, I have two catapult and one ballista with 4 hobgoblins each. I also have a ballista crewed by two trolls.

I can't recall, but I believe some giants can toss rocks and I would expect a similar effect.

Sorry – I don't want to p#ss on your camp-fire, but:

Trolls live in caves under low-light conditions. Assuming that that is their natural milieu then you might assume they would be blinded by the sun when outside:

-2 on chance to hit under occluded skies
-3 on chance to hit under sunshine

I thought the historical records said they live under bridges and fear goats!

Saruman has bred trolls that wear sunglasses & can operate in daylight (it *is* fantasy after all).

Apparently Mersey wrote up some rules on artillery. They are quoted on this guy's set of siege rules on page six at the link here- PDF link

Many thanks. The artillery unit can't move but I guess, like everything else in the "dragon' rules, it can fire @ 360 degrees.