Dread Elves: Dread Reaper!

Welcome back ladies and gentleman to another update to the Dread Elf army!  Today we are going to discuss the only true artillery piece available to us, the Dread Reaper (e.g. Reaper Bolt Thrower). 

Stat-wise the artillery piece has T7 and 2 wounds with 2 crew members that have standard Dread Elf stat-lines comparable with the Legionnaires.  The reaper itself fires as a Bolt Thrower with S6, Multiple Wounds (d3), and has armor piercing (6).  The crew have standard Dread Elf special rules.  The artillery piece can also be upgraded with Repeating Shot, an ability that was auto-included in other games, that grants it an alternative firing option.  It can instead of the normal bolt, fire 6 S4 Armor Piercing (1) shots up to 48".  Ouch.

What a mess?  Nah not really

Defensively the artillery piece suffers the same issues as any other artillery piece so if you are familiar with those weaknesses this won't be news.  If not then you have to watch out for fast moving side line units that are meant to kill the crew.  The crew cannot stand up in a fight (barring some amaaazing die rolls) and so light cavalry/flyers are the big threats to watch out for.  Another downside is that if you are not in a good spot then you might limit your efficacy by not being able to fire, so deployment is key!

Staring to make sense...

Offensively what is there to really say other than the obvious?  The two firing modes offer flexible options for targets and so you have to decide each turn which is the main threat that needs to be dealt with and apply the correct firing solution.  Heavy armor? Bolt.  Light infantry block? Repeating shot.  High tough-ness multi-wound? Bolt.  Angry granny? Repeating shot.  This goes on and on but you get the idea.

Boom, got it.

There really isn't a lot to talk about how to use this unit either since it is pretty self-explanatory.  Depending on the terrain set-up I would be interested in getting them placed on a hill if possible to help mitigate line of sight issues.  Failing that then it would default to finding a good spot to snipe early game some threats or use them as a flank deterrent.  It's not attractive to have your unit of heavy cavalry staring down 2 Reapers with that level of firepower.

All in all a pretty solid but standard artillery piece, but then again it's not like we get a choice in the matter.  Tune in next episode where we start to go into the character options for what I have.  Until then happy gaming!