War Wagon

I love it when I hear the enemy yell, “Hold the line!” — War Wagon Driver Jormo Kelkun

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Cavalry
• Template:Construct
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Dual Attack
• Template:Crushing Weight
• Template:Line Breaker
• Template:Reposition 3
• Template:Shooting Gallery

Weapons

Pounder
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		12			1			5			17
Template:Arcing Fire Template:Quake
Scattergun
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		SP 8			1			Template:-			12
Mount
File:Mount icon.jpg		RNG						POW
		0.5						14
Template:Knockdown Template:Trampling Hooves Template:Ton of Bricks

Theme Forces

• Trollbloods
  • Template:Kriel Company
  • Template:Vengeance of Dhunia

• Other Factions
  • Minion players can also use this model in the Vengeance of Dhunia theme.

Thoughts on War Wagon

War Wagon in a nutshell

The War Wagon is a large infantry wrecker - between its big gun and its ability to trample it can pulp infantry like there's no tomorrow. It's also tougher than any Dire Troll and very fast for a Trollblood model.

To demonstrate how powerful the War Wagon is, consider a typical activation:

1. Declares a charge and start moving
2. Contact a model, declares impact attacks against everything within 0.5" of its front arc (thanks to being a Cavalry model)
   • Gets 3d6 for the impact attack rolls (thanks to Line Breaker)
   • The impact attacks auto-knockdown and deal a POW 14 +2d6 damage roll.
3. Continue moving, and make more impact attacks (thanks to Crushing Weight)
4. Repeat step 2 and 3 until you either reach your charge target, or fail to kill something within the charge lane.
5. After finally completing the charge move, you get to make a charge attack with the mount (thanks to Trampling Hooves).
   • You get 3d6 for the charge attack roll (thanks to being a Cavalry model), that auto-knockdowns, auto-slams (thanks to Ton of Bricks), and deals a POW 14 +3d6 damage roll (damage boosted from the charge)
   • Oh, and if you slam the charge target into something else, you can get an extra damage die vs the target and/or do POW 14 +2d6 vs the something else.
6. Then it starts shooting (thanks to Dual Attack), getting +2 to hit anything within 5" (thanks to Shooting Gallery)
7. Finally it repositions into a better position to do it all again next round.

That's what it does every turn, before you start buffing it. With buffs its performance can only go up.

Combos & Synergies

• Krielstone? Krielstone. Krielstone!
  • In fact, any armor buff is likely to put it in the range where unbuffed, unboosted attacks don't do much damage.
• While it mulches most infantry very well, it has problems with Tough, Steady, Shield Wall or Iron Zeal. The Sea King's poisoned vomit and the Hearthgut Hooch Hauler's kegs clear those very well however.
• Anything Grim Angus does does wonders for the War Wagons, too.
• Shooting will often leave it dinged up but alive, so it enjoys the company of Raluk Moorclaw or the Gobber Tinker.
• Pyg Lookouts or solos in Kriel Company can fix its average RAT with Mark Target.
• Grim Angus or a Thumper Crew can set up knocked down targets for it to shoot or run over.
• It’s odd for Madrak1 to play in Kriel Company but his feat heals and weakens retaliation and he doesn’t typically have enough fury to run lots of beasts. Def 9 is awful and although Def 11 no knockdown isn’t much better it’s definitely an improvement. Finally having a Runebearer use guiding hand on the War Wagon lets it reliably hit its first knockdown ready for a follow up with the Scattergun and Pounder.
• Pyre Troll - It's animus adds +2 to melee damage rolls which affects the mount and Impact attack damage of the War Wagon and also will make it so they set everything they hit on fire.
• Storm Troll - Similar to the Pyre Troll above, except he doesn't buff damage, but rather hands out E-leaps on the melee weapons for extra infantry frying.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• It can't boost ranged attack or damage
  • Given that its impact and charge attacks are autoboosted and leave prone targets to shoot at, this is somewhat mitigated.
• The trample can be stopped by one bad roll
• Quake on the Pounder relies on it hitting first. Which can be ... challenging.
• It doesn't break heavy enemies.
• As every other battle engine, it is not part of your battlegroup, thus cannot benefit from spells and feats, which affect your warbeasts.

Counterplay

Crushing Weight makes the Wagon a hard model to stop, but there's a few things you can try:

• A direct debuff against its movement
  • A "soft" debuff with a SPD penalty, that will reduce how far it can charge (such as Crippling Grasp).
  • A "hard" debuff that prevents advances and/or charges, so it can't charge at all (such as Shadowbind).
  • More esoteric debuffs, like using Telekinesis to spin it around so it can't see charge targets.

• You can block it with a model it can't reliably kill.
  • Remember, with boosted attack rolls it can reliably hit DEF 16, and with POW 14 it can reliably roll 20-21 damage.
  • You can't block it with Tough models, since it knocks you down before the damage roll (unless you have some way of ignoring knockdown)
  • So, to block it, you're really looking for a fast light warjack of reasonable durability. Fast so it can jam it quickly, and durable so it's not trivially removed prior to the Carriage's activation.

• The second thing you can try is board positioning. Because every time it pauses to make an impact attack, that has to be a legal position to stop. It can't pause on top of terrain or other models (even if it has a rule that allows it to move over/through that terrain/model.
  • For example, even though the Carriage has Pathfinder and can charge over obstacles, this doesn't let it stop halfway on top of an obstacle to make impact attacks.
  • You can line up your troops behind obstacles, far enough away that it can't attack them in melee, but close enough that there's no room for it to "land" on the other side of the obstacle.
  • If you have Incorporeal models, a few them scattered around in front of it can really eliminate all potential "landing zones".

Tricks & Tips

• When you slam something, it's knocked down. Finally, a target you can hit!
  • Even more appealing if it's near a target that's harder to hit.
  • Note that a failed charge is a bummer if you're saving the Pounder for after you charge, so don't count on any survivors getting knocked more than 3" back.
• If you charge a target and get base-to-base, you can hit it with an impact attack, knock it down (and follow it, if it's small or medium: hopefully you have movement left), and then autohit with your charge attack. It's not the best model to eliminate solos, but two boosted attacks with respectable damage (and some guns to finish the job) will take care of a variety of targets.

Other

Trivia

• Released in Hordes: Domination (2011)