War Machines in fantasy

Hi All

A post about some misconceptions regarding war machines.  Having fought against a few, many players have their own ideas on what can and cannot be done!

Tonight I fought against dark elves in a 3000 point standard battle.  My opponent had various nasty units such as witches and the like, but he also took along two cauldrons of blood.  My list in all fairness should have dealt with him fairly well but I lost due to several factors and one of the main factors was the fact that I still do not really know the rules that well!

I charged a 40+ strong unit of crypt ghouls into one of his cauldrons.  My opponent then told me that only a certain number of units can attack a war machine very much like fighting inside buildings.  It worked out that 9 of my ghouls could attack the war machine.  I was licking my lips at the prospect of 18 poisoned hits to be dealt out.

Misconception No.1

My opponent told me that after his dark elf warriors have finished slicing and dicing my ghouls (with their many attacks and higher initiative), there would be no rank at the front to fight the cauldron operators.  This is wrong!  The casualties are removed as in usual combat – from the rear and presuming there are enough models left in the unit.  The rear models basically climb over their dead comrades to continue the fight.

Misconception No.2

Only 6 models can attack and no more (of course on the understanding you have at least 6 models in the charging unit!).

Misconception No.3

You strike and attack the war machine itself and therefore use the stats of the war machine.  No this is not the case!  As far as I can see in the rules, you strike against the war machine as a unit but using the operator’s WS, S and T and not the machines stats.  This makes perfect sense when you consider the old days when a cavalry would “charge up the guns”.  They would go for the cannon men and not waste time in denting their sabres against the cannon muzzles!  Shooting at war machines might be different though due to their size.

Now if I knew this, I would have made mincemeat of his cauldron, which would have allowed me to crash my ghouls into the side of one of his nasty witch units.  The battle would have gone vvvvveeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyy differently!

Cheers

Andy