Scorpion (Ballista)

[FireHorse]

So I am designing a certain kind of maritime encounter (coming soon to a theater near you), and it requires some elements that In The Labyrinth does not cover.

In the absence of reliable gunpowder weapons, naval battles begin with a hail of arrows and bolts. Well… more likely, it begins with some really long-range Magic. But setting Magic aside, the best non-magical, non-gunpowder, long-range weapons that I can imagine being carried on a sailing vessel (since they were, in the Real World) are Scorpions.

The principle can be scaled to any size… IMAGE ONE …from small javelin-chuckers made for picking off single targets, all the way up to crew-served siege weapons that shoot bolts bigger than lances.

But on the decks of a sailing ship, I imagine you'd want something closer to the bottom end of that spectrum. Something like one of these… IMAGE TWO …small enough to be operated by just one person (although two might speed up reload time), while still shooting a big enough bolt, at long enough range, to justify assigning crew to the Scorpion instead of just handing them another bow.

So what sort of stats might such a Scorpion have?

[hcobb]

ITL 115: small ballista 5d damage. Blow through is 3d for human size, 2d for small, 4d/hex for larger. 450 pounds, $2000 (Reload time is 24 turns divided by crew size (max two)) Roll 3/ST for each minute cranking or lose one fatigue.

It is both braced and on a ship, so these cancel out in calm waters.

Treat bolts as Javelins that weigh five pounds and cost $50 each.

Ships have 2 * sqrt(empty weight in pounds) hit points. Wooden planks have a blow through of 2d and armor that stops 2 hits. Apply this to each bulkhead along the flight path.

[FireHorse]

Ah — Danke!

I had checked the index, but it does not list "ballista" at all, and the only references for "scorpion" are not the right kind. (And I stupidly didn't think to just use "Find" and search the PDF.)

That reload rate absolutely sucks (and sounds to me like it may be a bit too long), but even so, that's some pretty nasty damage. That could not only kill you in one shot, but splatter you all across the deck.

I wonder what it would do to sails and rigging… or if you could use "torch" bolts to give your opponents something else to worry about…

[larsdangly]

Yes, this is fortunately one house rule we can find tucked away in the main text! In any event, carry on with integrating them into play - they are cool devices. If you've gone through the LE boxed set, we even have some markers suitable for 4-5d size scorpions.

[JLV]

Just as an aside, I might recommend getting a copy of Ramspeed (the old Metagaming microgame on "Bronze Age" naval combat) and looking it over. If memory serves you can still get pristine copies for a reasonable price from Excalibre Games (yes, that's the actual spelling).

In addition to providing some useful "macro" rules for naval combat, the way the author handled units of marines, archers, and individual siege weapons seems like it might be transferable to a large-scale "grand tactical" battle simulator for TFT in general. I sincerely hope the author of the game (Colin Keizer) someday gets HIS copyright back and then gets together with Steve Jackson Games -- I could see a very cool synergy there...

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by JLV

Just as an aside, I might recommend getting a copy of Ramspeed …

Thanks very much for the tip! I have many of those old Metagaming titles, but not that one — yet. I shall correct that immediately…

[RVA_Grandpa]

I did a quick search in Death Test 2 which has counters for a ballista, or in that case an arbalest. The stats were basically 12 turns to crank and load. The bolt does 4d damage and the character gets to roll 4d vs DX to avoid the hit.

[mark hill]

exactly what I was thinking of! great counter too

that scorpion sized ballista was also a thing in my games that giants could cock and fire every second turn, no save to dodge it in this case (dangerously inaccurately for their friends lol)

arbalest I always thot was just an alternate name for a crossbow

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Ah — Danke!

I had checked the index, but it does not list "ballista" at all, and the only references for "scorpion" are not the right kind. (And I stupidly didn't think to just use "Find" and search the PDF.)

That reload rate absolutely sucks (and sounds to me like it may be a bit too long), but even so, that's some pretty nasty damage. That could not only kill you in one shot, but splatter you all across the deck.

I wonder what it would do to sails and rigging… or if you could use "torch" bolts to give your opponents something else to worry about…

Maybe if you had an Engineer aboard. With a little GM license, I'm sure he could bring that reload rate down, or perhaps he has made a row of Scorpions. When Scorpion #1 gets fired, the crew moves to Scorpion #2 and a Reload Crew starts the cranking. Continue on to the next, etc. If the Engineer is also a Sailor (talent), I would have him compensate the rolling decks by putting his "Siege Engines" on gimbals.

And while you are at it, have that Sailor Engineer work with a Chemist to make Greek Fire, an ancient napalm of sorts. Sorry, I didn't make any stats for it. But if your not using canons, then I would use a huge iron ballista.