Recently I made two purchases – 50 small magnets, and about half a dozen MDF bases. What was significant about these is that they’re last pieces of such equipment required for my Roman army – the end is finally in sight! Just 2 small units and 6 regular ones to paint now…
So anyway, I have recently completed these two scorpions – taken from Warlord’s plastic box of three (I painted the other one years ago and it has since broken). It’s a pretty nice kit, and some of the parts for the crew could easily be used by regular legionaries.
Scorpions are small bolt throwers, relatively quick to fire and accurate. A commonly found ‘fact’ states that scorpions could snipe at enemy commanders, but I presume this is just boasting by Roman sources. A legion was equipped with 1 per century, so in theory had 60 at its disposal (though I doubt all of them would be in working order at any one time). Whether the scorpions were typically grouped together during battles or spread out amongst the centuries, I don’t know. In Hail Caesar, scorpions are given the Drilled ability, which I guess means they’re supposed to be moving up with the Infantry (Drilled gives a unit a free move if they fail their orders roll, and also allows different Drilled units to move through each other without risk of disorder).
I’m not sure what they will be used for in Kings of War, as there is no direct bolt thrower analogue in the Kingdoms of Men list. The three options are:
- Use as an allied Elf or Goblin bolt thrower. This would necessitate using a solid unit from either army, but could work
- Use as a cannon. It’s the only Kingdoms of Men ‘direct fire’ artillery weapon, though its rules don’t really work well to simulate the lower-powered shot of a bolt thrower
- Use as rockets. Rockets are an indirect weapon, but physically the bolt does look like a rocket (minus the payload)
The fourth option is to stop being lazy and finish the rewrite of my Roman list for Kings of War!
Challenge Tally: 312/365