Kislev war wagon rules

[empireaddict]

Hi,
I’ve just brought my Ostermark/Kislev painting to a conclusion.  Will get some pictures done and uploaded at some point soon.  But I’m wrestling a bit with the war wagon rules.  Please can I check my understanding with the experts ...

1) A war wagon is in column and gets hit in the front by a charging unit.

2) The wagon stand ‘can shoot all round and can draw a line of sight from any exposed edge and even over the top of the horse team stand’.  So the chargers get shot at by the wagon stand.

3) Assuming the shooting doesn’t kill the chargers, the combat is between the chargers and the horse team stand, which has zero attacks.  But ‘the war wagon has an armour rating of 4+ so long as the wagon stand is present’. 

4) Then, taking into account any shooting hits, ‘if a wagon column is engaged in combat ... it is destroyed if forced to retreat’ because it’s classed as artillery.

So, in summary, if caught out before deployment into laager, they shoot, get no fight back, but it is difficult for chargers to inflict any hits.

So, a sensible thing to do might be to brigade two war wagons in column with two horse archers on either side in line abreast.  This should give up to 8 shots (at minus 1 armour save) and another 6 ordinary shots on any chargers before up to 18 attacks (from the horse archers). 

But there is then a risk that the chargers inflict lots of hits on the horse archers (6+ armour) and so win the combat overall and thus kill off the war wagons anyway.

Any thoughts on either the rules interpretations or the tactics?

[Lex]

Nope, that is a pretty decent summary

[fracas]

Or laager them in deployment as an "anchor?"

[empireaddict]

Lex,
Many thanks.  I was worried that I’d missed something really obvious!

fracas,
Yes, I think I might try that but I also like the idea of getting them pushed forward (unless an opponent has artillery) in order to use their own shooting range to dominate the ground in front.  Bit like a steam tank, I suppose.

[Getlord]

The "simplest" solution is to move them facing rear. No penalties at all - only benefits. The disadvantage is that it looks stupid. But this is more the problem of the rules than a player.

[empireaddict]

Getlord,
I agree that the relevant rules (which I've pasted in below) don't specifically prohibit a backward-facing war wagon formation.  But it does say horses in front of wagons which, in my book, implies horses at front in the direction of travel.  Therefore it would not be in the spirit of the rules and so I will not be doing it.

'The unit must always be in one of two formations: a wagon column with the horse team in front of the
wagon, and a wagon laager with the horse team placed beside the wagon edge to edge.  When a war wagon moves it must always finish its move in a wagon column.'

[Getlord]

Hi just to be clear. You are right from the spirit of the game perspective, but you are at the same time over-interpreting as per the rules. Let's imagine you want to move back your battle line (incl. WW) 18cm away from the enemy lines.

Then you will not have a problem to move all the units backwards and use your nearly full pace move. I'm sure about it. Because it looks quite "normal", it is strictly according to the rules and moreover according to the "spirit".

So play as you wish, the more in the spirit the better, but in Warmaster the letter of the rules have not much to the topic if front of the unit is actually the side you are going "forward" with. In fact is just opposite.