Bolt Throwers

Bolt throwers are huge crossbows firing a spear-sized missile, requiring a crew of two or more to wind back their powerful torsion arms.

RangeStrengthSpecial Rules
48"6Multiple Wounds (D3), Armour Piercing (1)
Firing a Bolt Thrower

Choose a target following the normal shooting rules, pivot to face it like any war machine, then roll to hit using the crew's Ballistic Skill exactly as for a normal missile weapon -- every usual To Hit penalty applies (except for firing Multiple Shots), since it's essentially just a massive crossbow. A missed shot simply lands harmlessly; a hit is resolved using the rules below.

Resolving Bolt Thrower Hits

Against a unit of five or more ranked-up models, the bolt always strikes an ordinary trooper in the front rank (if the bolt thrower is in the unit's forward arc) or the rear rank (if in its rear arc) -- if the bolt thrower is in the target's flank, use its files as ranks instead for this purpose.

The shot's mass lets it punch through several ranks in turn: resolve the first hit at the bolt thrower's full Strength 6; if that model is slain, the bolt continues into the rank behind at -1 Strength (Strength 5), then -2 Strength (Strength 4) against the next, and so on, until it either runs out of ranks or fails to slay its target (every hit, whatever its Strength, still carries Multiple Wounds).

Diagram showing up to four models killed by a single bolt thrower shot, with the Strength shown for each rank hit.
Up to four models can be killed by the shot of this bolt thrower. The Strength that each rank is hit at is shown next to it.
Diagram showing a bolt thrower firing into a unit's flank, hitting up to five models along its files.
As the bolt thrower is in their flank arc, up to five models can be killed by its shot.
Diagram showing a bolt thrower firing at a cavalry unit with a hard cover modifier, skewering its flank.
The bolt thrower can see the cavalry unit, and so it can fire against them (with the hard cover modifier). If it hits, it will skewer the flank of the unit, as shown in the diagram, as it is in the knights' flank arc.
Bolt Throwers and Characters

If the rank struck is made up entirely of characters, or the unit has fewer than five rank-and-file models, randomise which model in the rank is actually hit instead.

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