Cannons


Cannons are devastating, if sometimes unpredictable, weapons whose manufacture is limited to few races. When they work, cannons can shatter the most determined enemy, slamming roundshot after roundshot into massed formations. However, cannon can go wrong. the black powder charge can fail to ignite, or explode prematurely. Worse, weaknesses in casting methods can leave minute cracks or other deficiencies, which lead to the cannon exploding when fired.

Cannon, Range 48″, Strength 10, d6 wounds
Great Cannon, Range 60, Strength 10, d6 wounds

Firing A Cannon: uses crews BS

Choose Target: nominate a point within the war machines line of sight and not out of the maximum range. This can be any point on the battle field keeping in mind it will almost always overshoot by 2 to 10″. You are not allowed to shoot in a way that targets friendly models or into hand to hand combat. Place a marker to designate where the shot is intended to land.

Fire: using your tape measure extend the shot line by the number rolled on the artillery’s dice. If you roll a misfire something has gone wrong and you will need to roll on the Black Powder War Machine Misfire chart, regardless of the result the cannon does not fire this turn.

Bounce: roll the artillery dice again, if misfire the cannon ball does not bounce any model under where the cannon ball lands is hit. any number rolled is the distance the ball bounces.

Who’s Been Hit: Hits one model per rank if going through a unit. If bounces into a monstrous infantry/base/cavalry, or monster that model suffers a hit, if the model is not slain then the ball does not travel on. If the cannonball bounces into a wall or other terrain the terrain is destroyed and the cannon ball stops.

Grapeshot: instead as firing as normal the crew loads the cannon with small projectiles creating a large blunderbuss.

Firing Grapeshot: select target. Roll artillery dice to figure out how many shots are fired, if misfire roll on black powder war machine misfire chart. Roll to hit the target the number of shots equal to number rolled on misfire, resolving any successful hits using the grapeshot profile

Black Powder War Machine Misfire roll a d6
1-2 Cannon Destroyed
3-4 Malfunction – does not fire this turn or the controllers players next turn .
5-6 May Not shoot this turn but can attempt to shoot again next turn