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Another idea from me today, I must be on a roll!

I was thinking about how the variety in war machines we have isn't great...  a Bolt Thrower and effectively 2 ‘stone throwers’, 3 if you include the hellcannon.  Having a cannon of some sort would really help…

In my list I'm doing there’s two ‘stone throwers’ (a smoke mortar and a bombard, upgradeable to Hellcannon).  I also have rules for a variant bolt thrower, but I’ve been considering whether its unoriginal simply to copy the Dwarfs?  Even a techno bolt thrower is inferior technology compared to what the CD are capable of, it could be seen as a missed opportunity.  In my list the Death Rocket is replaced by Rocketeers, a Special missile unit.

Anyway, what I was considering today was something similar to the Squat Mole Mortar in principle but based more on magical mechanics than actually firing anything.  Like it fires a pulse of some description that causes the earth to shake far away.  It would conveniently be in a dead straight line from the warmachine.

What I was considering was this

The Earthshaker is basically treated as a cannon, having the earth shake effect over a line rather than a template.  It would make the Earthshaker unique and original in the warhammer world.  I know the current earthshaker is anyway because of its effect, but its still basically a siege gun (which is itself unoriginal).

Align the Earthshaker on the target and declare the distance you are aiming.  Roll the artillery dice and add the score to the distance aimed.  Place a marker at this point, the Earth Shake effect will begin from here.  If a misfire is rolled refer to the misfire chart (needed).  Roll the artillery dice to establish the distance the Earth Shake effect will travel, all models within this path are hit.  If you roll a misfire with this second throw of the artillery dice, centre the small template over the marker.  Any model under the template will suffer a Strength 5 hit on a D6 roll of 4+, instead of damage caused from the Earth Shake effect.  Work out if models are under the template as for a Stone Thrower from the Warhammer Rulebook.

Earth Shake
Any troops on the path of the Earth Shake will suffer D3 Strength 7 hits.  They are treated as moving through Difficult Terrain in the following movement phase and may not shoot missile weapons in the following shooting phase. Artillery based weapons hit by the war machine may only shoot on a 4+. Flyers are not affected as long as they do not use their ground movement.

This would be a Special choice warmachine

Note:  I have a warmachine upgrade that increases the Strength of a warmachine by 1…  The Earthshaker would obviously not have that high a points allowance to have loads of upgrades, but you could still increase it to S8.

I rely like that Idea also maybe have It affect spell casters since casting a spell is a lot harder then shooting a bow.

I'll need to draw a line somewhere on what it can and cannot affect.  If I add too many things it will become unbalanced for a special choice...

I seem to be very good at designing rare warmachines, most of the ones I design start as special and become rare!     

Warmachines wouldn't effect concentration/ spell casting as such, only if a psychology rule takes effect (like fear or panic).

However, disruption in the magic phase would be something I would be keen to do somewhere if possible.  I may well consider this with another warmachine.  So it's a good idea, but a shame to combine everything within one warmachine.

EDIT
Found a solution!  I have a rare warmachine called the Soul Reaper.  It fires similar to a banshee.

I added a bit on the bottom of the rules that for each wound caused to a magic user, they are -1Ld and -1 Power Dice.  The power dice is only for the following enemy magic phase.