Laying Siege

THE MEHMED SIEGE TANK ENTERS THE DROPZONE

The past weekend saw Adam and myself head up to Cardiff for the Call To Arms II Tournament, an event featuring sixteen players (including four members of the Hawk team and some crew from Orbital Bombardment) playing five games over two days. It wasn't the largest tournament I have attended, but was a big challenge and a lot of fun.

Ultimately I placed thirteenth - as usual, my expertise in the local scene completely fails to translate at the tournament level. I did, however, win the far more important prize of Best Painted! A great feeling no doubt! Included my winnings was a blister of the upcoming release - the Mehmed Siege Tanks. Luckily for me, the rules were also released the day after, allowing me to start fielding them immediately.

The Mehmed Siege Tank is a nasty piece of work at short range, combining the resilience of the Hannibal Battle Tank with the Hammer of Constantine, a Demolisher-4, E11 cannon. Big guns!

A pair of these tanks will be causing significant damage to even a Hardened building - add in the E9 hull-mounted cannons and you could achieve up to twenty points of damage in one round of shooting. Very, very tasty. Even against non-building targets, E11 is sparse in the Resistance arsenal, and these weapons would be useful at cracking enemy armour in the centre of the board

The downside of this ridiculous firepower is short range - even against enemies without counter-measures (like buildings), the weapon only carries a 12" range. They're not going to firing early in the game, and depending on your opponent might not fire until Turn 4 or later

Relatively cheap, the Mehmed weighs in 5pts more than the Hannibal Battle Tank

Given the extreme short range, I feel a Lifthawk is a compulsory addition, bringing a squadron (with AA cannon) to 160pts. Reasonable in certain scenarios, I feel, where their demolition powers will allow them more targets

In my last few games I have been running at least one Barrel Bomber, near unsurpassed for violent building demolition. Will these new tanks take over that role? Do they offer Allied Resistance something extra in this regard?

This Barrel Bomber is another recent addition to my collection, performing well at the recent tournament

The infamous Goliath Bomb is my favourite piece of kit in the entire game - I especially love using it against players who have never faced a Barrel Bomber before!

The Siege Tanks rolls into battle

A valuable new addition to the Resistance, I look forward to using them in the near future

Thanks for reading,

George