Ok, here's the deal: A number of us have been talking about the elves needing something more than magic when fighting siege games.
This thread is for discussing how that should be worked out. If enough people think the end result works well, we may even submit it to White Dwarf as an 'official' house rule.
Here's what we have so far:
<table bgcolor ="#CC9966" width = "80%" align = "center">
<tr>
<td>
<b>Elven Siege Bow...................20 points</b>

While the elves are not prone to the building of large, ungainly machines of war, they will have tools to help them assault the fortresses of the Enemy.

___________Strength____Defense___Batter Points
Siege Bow____(6)________(*)__________(*)
_____________________F___S___D___A__W___C_________
Elven Siege Crewman__5/3+_3___3___1___1___5

Crew
An Elven Siege Bow consists of a Siege bow and one Elven crewman armed with a sword (hand weapon). He may purchase additional items at the following cost:
Armor.................................1 pt
Heavy armor........................2 pt
Elven cloak.........................10 pt
Flaming Ammunition..............5 pt
Piercing Arrows...................20 pt
Siege Veteran.....................10 pt
Elven Engineer Captain.........65 pt

Piercing Arrows. Piercing Arrows allows the Siege bow to use the Piercing Shot (short) rule for the Dwarven Ballista. They also allow the Siege bow to kill outright if it wounds its target.

Special Rules
Light. An Elven Siege bow is not much larger than the standard bow the immortal race bears to war. To reflect this, only one crewman is needed in order to move the bow 6”/14cm during the move phase and to fire the bow. The bow may be moved through difficult terrain and cross barriers, but the elven crew will not gain the usual benefit of the Woodland Creature rule. They may also be deployed at the same time as the rest of the Good force.

Heavy Bow. In addition, since the Elven Siege bow is still a bow used by one individual, they are not counted against the Siege Engine limitations, but are included in the Good army's 33% bow armed warriors talley. However, even though they are treated mostly as bows, a Siege bow crewman must still give up his full move and not be engaged in combat in order to fire the Siege bow.

*Small. Because the Elven Siege bow is so much smaller than other siege weapons, it does not have batter points. Instead, if the elven crewman using it is killed, the Siege bow is automaticallly lost in the fury of battle.

Built For Siege. The Elven Siege bow is specifically designed for assaulting fortifications. As a result, it is not as effective on the open battlefield. To reflect this, the Siege bow has a minimum direct-fire range of 8”/18cm.

Wall Assault. The Elven Siege bow may use the Volley Fire rule, no matter how many models are in base contact together. However, all models in base contact – whether Siege bow or not – must volley fire if any do.

</td>
</tr>
</table>
What do you think? Suggestions?
_________________________________________
edit: I don't have the War Of The Ring rulebook, so I'm afraid you'll have to come up with the rules for that side of the game without me.

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

For the Wall Assault rule, will it be like the Gondor Trebuchet in that it still needs only needs a 4+? or will it need a 6?

With only one crew member and having the siege bow defence 5, wouldn't it be easy to take out?

Other than that it looks pretty good. I like the idea of it not being very good in a normal game.

I hadn't thought of that... Probably a 6, because of the answer to the next point. And because there is no area effect for a single arrowhead.
I figured on many (say, 8 or so?) being fielded at once. This is, after all, a glorified elf bow. Still, maybe we should forgo the destruction of the bow itself and say that once the elf using it is killed, the Siege bow cannot be picked up by another (potentially untrained) warrior?

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

So, is this essentially a bow with a high strength value? Does it kill outright? Does it scatter as other siege weapons do? What is the maximum range?

Finally, what are you using to represent it?

I would not make it capable of destroying stone walls as the dwarf ballista and mordor siege bow, both bigger, cannot even harm stone walls. I would also give it similar rules to crossbows, ie. giving the full move and other equipment, as it would still be a rather large bow.
Was this your inspiration? Link

_________________
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

@emperor_thompson: Yes, it is a siege weapon. Unless you can think of a reason it should not kill outright, that rule remains.
However, I did forget to specify a maximum range for direct fire. I had been thinking maybe 24", the same as a crossbow?

@Dwarf Lord of Ered Luin: It has a strength of 6. As per the rules, it already lacks the ability to destroy stone walls. And, as I put into the rules there, it already requires the model to give up his move to shoot.
And what other equipment? I'm never going to agree to that portable shield-wall thing GW gave to Umbar, so forget it. I did include the option to add a few things to each warrior and the bow itself, but I don't think much extra kit is a good idea. I'd love to hear explanations to the contrary, though.

As to the inspiration, I was thinking something like the Assymetrical bows of feudal Japan, with a bracing pole coming down below the handgrip. I thought that might make it easier to assault fortified walls effectively.

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

I have no idea how to create a balanced points cost for that. On one hand it can kill an enemy hero/troll outright, but it scatters. Then if the elf dies you may (or may not) lose the weapon. If you removed its ability to kill outright you would be able to reduce the points cost of the weapon considerably, allowing more to be fielded. However, this may not be appropriate if the weapon is particularly large. What you do should really depend on how you envisage the weapon.

That's a good point on the trolls, although I don't think it should be less than 20 pt in any case.
So, how does this sound: Piercing Arrowhead allows it to use the Piercing Shot (short) rule and to kill outright. Otherwise, it does not.
Raise the cost of P.A. by 5 points, then?
+
Point #2: No, if it has siege engine batter points, the elf being killed has nothing to do with whether the thing is lost in the storm of battle. I was just asking whether we should change to that instead (remove the batter points and make it automatically lost). At present, it would fall under the disabling siege engines rules, and the 'in the way' shooting rule.
Now that I walk that through, that sounds a little more complicated than I like...
Ok, how's this sound:
Small. Because the Elven Siege bow is so much smaller than other siege weapons, it does not have batter points. Instead, if the elven crewman using it is killed, the Siege bow is automaticallly lost in the fury of battle.

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

The Gondor Avenger bolt thrower doesn't kill it's target outright, and it seems similar to your Elven Siege Bow. Thus I don't think your Siege Bow should kill targets outright either, although I like the Piercing Arrowhead idea. I would, however, raise it to 20pts.

Have you tried the Elven Siege Bow in a game yet?

_________________
"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

That sounds reasonable. The rules are now updated with the new input.
Keep it up, guys!
__________________
edit: I just remembered a point I had wanted to make from the start. I've added it into the rules under 'Heavy Bow'.

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

i've got a couple of questions about this. nice idea but:

the engineer captain? does this make it effectively a piece of equipement for a captain since its only one crew? and i presume that it has the same stats as a normal elf captain?

also, elven cloak does look a little bit good for it. Put it in the second rank of a load of archers and give it piercing arrows. it cant be shot at as it is partially concealed by the archers in front yet, you are in a bowline area so if they try to mob you just shoot a load doewn with normal archers and if heroes/trolls etc come for your squishier archers they just get shot down by the siege bow. or deploy him in woods so he is still concealed and cant be shot but still give out good shooting. no other artillery can be invisible and still shoot.

maybe i'm just being a bit paranoid but a 50 point effectively invisible archer who can shoot down monsters and heroes with one shot seems slightly too good to me.

it sounds like a slightly mad idea to me. the reason bows arent as powerful as ballistas is because you simply cant pull them as far back because you have a limit to the length of your arm. Putting the strength up means you are pulling it back even further which doesnt really make sense to me. Maybe i am just imagining it slightly different to you.

Another thing i forgot to mention is that did you mean to make it 'Accurate' so it only scatters 3" instead of the normal 6"? a bow or ballista would normally get that eg dwarf ballista/avenger bolt thrower and i suspect an elf wound be even better and more accurate with it than them.

No, I thought about making it more accurate, but decided that would not reflect the actual thing realistically. There are real, personal sized siege bows, and they are not nearly as accurate as standard bows because of the ways they compensate for the heavier draw.

I also think you're being a bit overly dramatic. An elven cloak does not make one invisible (at least not in SBG, I don't know about WotR) but only harder to see. And I don't remember anything about elves being exempt from in-the-way rolls when they are in woods.

However, I do think you make a good point about the points cost. I wanted to leave them cheap enough to field several, since they are far less powerful than other siege weapons, but I also don't want them to punk the Evil player.
Do you think I should raise the base unit's price, the piercing arrowhead, or both?

I've got some new drill bits coming in soon, so I hope to be able to put up a few pictures of what I have in mind for the model. I think that will satisfy your argument about believability. What I thought of is built on the Japanese asymmertic Yumi Bow. It allows a much greater draw weight than other bows do.

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page

looking good so far.


yes, but standard bows don't scatter at all, so it would still be more accurate than them. it should definitely be more accurate than the trebuchet or mordor catapult.



im a bit confused as to whether the bow is going to be a huge hand-held bow or on a seperate base like the dwarf ballista. if it is seperate, personally i think that a pavise would be a good idea.


i think it would benefit from an improved range as well, maybe 36"? elven bows would always be superior to those of other races, and the short range of the avenger bolt thrower probably has something to do with the strange spikey box thing it uses as ammo. an arrow would go much further. i am not to keen on the minimum range rule, but i suppose it reflects what it would be like inreal life.

otherwise, some brilliant ideas! you should definitely submit it to WD

_________________
Hello.

36", huh? Well, if you don't think that's too much reach, I'm all for it. We'll definitely want to bring the cost up above 20 pt, though.
Honestly, I had figured that it would be used with it's volleying ability most of the time.

Well, since it's taking me so long to get my pictures done, here's a link to the kind of bow I was thinking it should be built on. I thought maybe make it out of hardwood like other bows (instead of bamboo) & give it a bracing pole for when shooting.

Ok, so here's what I was thinking. Should it do 3" like the Gondor bow or +1 to all scatter roles? Since Good weapons will not fire where they might hit an ally, I thought that might make it more accurate than others. But I also figured that was probably making things too complicated... What do you think?

_________________
I hate Black Hat SEO!
Smite the iron, shape the pewter, sculpt the putty.
My DeviantArt Page