Man-o-War Assault Chariot

The iron wheels and steel-shod hooves of Man-O-War chariots pulverize the enemies of Khador while the armored charioteer brings devastation to the battlefield with heavy artillery. Combining the speed of Khador’s toughest breed of warhorses, the Karpathan destrier, with the nigh-impenetrable steam-armor of the Man-O-War, these chariots punch holes in the enemy line, allowing the armies of Khador to march along the bloody paths they create. Whether armed with the armor-cracking heavy gun or the anti-infantry barrage gun, even a single Man-O-War chariot can turn the tide of a desperate battle in the favor of the Motherland. The thunder of its hooves and the roar of its cannons presage victory in the name of the Empire.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Cavalry
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Dual Attack
• Template:Line Breaker
• Template:Repairable
• Template:Reposition 3

Weapons

Barrage Gun
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		10			d3+1			4			12
Template:High-Explosive
Mount
File:Mount icon.jpg		RNG						POW
		0.5						15
Template:Knockdown Template:Trampling Hooves

Theme Forces

• Khador
  • Template:Armored Korps
  • Template:Warriors of the Old Faith

• Other Factions
  • Protectorate players can use this model in the Template:Warriors of the Old Faith theme.

Thoughts on Man-o-War Assault Chariot

Man-o-War Assault Chariot in a Nutshell

Man-o-War Chariots are the epitome of the Khadoran "old meets new" school of design, combining steam-powered armor, medieval war chariots and enormous guns into highly mobile weapons platforms designed to dominate enemy skirmishers and harass their formations either by riding them down or unleashing devastating firepower into their ranks. The Repairable chariots are drawn by massive Karpathan destriers with powerful Line Breaking Trampling Hooves that knock their enemies down with ease. Their advance cannot be slowed by enemy interference or rough terrain and can Reposition after achieving their goals to evade enemy capture. While being able to fight in melee thanks to Dual Attack the chariots are vulnerable when forced to slow down. They are hit and run combatants that typically operate on the flanks of your formation, holding objectives and presenting a mobile threat that your opponents cannot afford to ignore, but are unable to efficiently combat. Sporting two possible loadouts, these chariots hunt vastly different targets:

• Man-o-War Assault Chariots have an enormous howitzer Barrage Gun capable of spewing an enormous High-Explosive volume of fire that aims to obliterate entire infantry divisions.
• Man-o-War Siege Chariots trade volume of fire for absolute power from their Heavy Gun cannon capable of flinging enemy heavies across the battlefield like ragdolls and pack utilitarian Smoke Launchers to obfuscate your troops' movements to the enemy.

The Assault Chariot is a pure anti-warrior machine capable of wiping out an entire unit in an activation. Between its Barrage Gun and its devastating impact attacks there are few non-Tough combatants that can survive a charge. Like the Winter Guard Gun Carriage, the Assault Chariot actually benefits from having a Huge base because it can catch a lot of models with impact attacks and cannot be pushed, knocked down or made stationary thanks to the Massive rule inherent to Battle Engines. Thanks to Dual Attack the chariot can move down whatever is left standing and close by after the charge is resolved and Reposition safely away to do it all again next turn.

The Assault Chariot may seem impressive and it's tempting to try and pull every ounce of value from its 14 point cost, but there are some important caveats to its power. Most obviously, its Barrage Gun sports a random 2-4 shots that, while powerful, rely on opportune enemy positioning to be effective and requires good targets to begin with. No infantry, no fun for the Assault Chariot. Less obviously but perhaps even more importantly is that you don't get to shoot the gun at all if you fail your charge. The dice gods are fickle, and even Line Breaker-boosted attack rolls can whiff, leaving you high and dry with a chariot suddenly knee-deep in enemies. The chariot is reasonably tough but it has less DEF, ARM and HP than your warjacks and its Huge base also makes it impossible to screen. There are cases where you're better off foregoing the charge, or at least being very conservative with it. The latter is also important to avoid putting yourself too far ahead of your army where your opponent cannot only catch the chariot because you left it too close to them, but also leave you unable to countercharge and balance the score. In short: be confident but cautious with your Assault Chariots.

Combos & Synergies

Man-o-War Chariots are best thought of as extremely fast heavy warjacks on Huge bases that don't need a controller. What they lack in damage output they make up for with efficiency and independence and they should be run in forces where you want independent models to take flanking objectives and deny enemy skirmishers. In that sense they're similar to Man-o-War Drakhuns, but trading cost effectiveness for the purpose of holding objectives with very powerful guns. Like Drakhuns, chariots are very self-reliant but if you're going to help them with anything you should emphasize SPD, MAT, RAT & POW buffs and giving them abilities like Parry to safely disengage from unfortunate encounters or move past them to better achieve their goals.

• Butcher1: The Assault Chariot produces a high volume of attacks, all of which are augmented by Orsus' classic feat.
• Cylena-1 (not tournament legal): Assault Chariots lay down an impressive amount of firepower under the effects of Shatter Storm and her feat.
• Vladimir3: Chariots are, in fact, Cavalry models and thus benefit from Vladimir's feat, as well as excelling under the effects of Hand of Fate (although, sadly, not from Dash).

• Battle Mechaniks: All Man-o-War models have the Repairable rule and Mechaniks are easily screened by Huge bases.

• Colbie Sterling/Gobber Tinker/Raluk Moorclaw: These three are Mechanikally Adept, meaning they can Repair Khador models.

• Armored Corps: Man-o-War Chariots are excellent picks for Armored Corps lists. They fulfill an important role in the typically skirmisher-lacking Corps.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Template:BAHI2
• Its absolutely abysmal DEF plus a Huge base is the perfect starting point for effects Chain Lightning, Electro Leaps, spells like Ashes to Ashes, Spine Burst and so on. Keep your squishy support pieces at a distance.
• If the opponent doesn't field a significant amount of warriors its usefulness is greatly diminished.
• Although it can shoot models it is in combat with, it runs some risk of damaging itself with the blasts.

Tricks & Tips

• Being knocked down causes models to lose Tough so make sure to go after Tough targets with impact attacks.
• The combination of Cavalry and Trampling Hooves allows you to make both Impact Attacks and Charge Attacks against the same target.
• After knocking down your charge target it is a sitting duck for Barrage Gun shots. If you target a model surrounded by allies you can saturate them all with successive High-Explosive blasts.

Other

Trivia

• Rules first published in the 2018 Armored Corps CID.
• The horses are anatomically correct. And they're boy horses.
• A "destrier" is a medieval-era war horse.
• The parts to build an Assault Chariot or a Siege Chariot are contained in the same box, so you can use magnets to swap their Profile-specific parts for a two-in-one Battle Engine.