This is something that came up in our game today, and we couldn't really find a proper answer in the hobbit rulebook.

During a siege one guy had parked his trebuchet off in the middle of nowhere behind the walls and some building, making it completely invisible (and as such, indestructable) for our side's forces. He then started happily firing at targets on the other end of the board, using the volley fire rule.


Thinking that it made no sense whatsoever to use the line of sight of a model 30 inches away from you we looked it up, but the rules for volley fire are rather vague.


It says:

"A trebuchet can fire at targets it can't see, as long as a friendly model within range can see the target."

What is "within range"? The guy with the hidden trebuchet was pretty certain it meant "as long as they are within shooting range of the trebuchet", but that makes very little sense from a realism perspective, you can't exactly tell a trebuchet on the other side of the board where to fire without a mobile phone which were in terribly short supply in Middle Earth.


So... what is "in range" for a trebuchet? What determines if a friendly model can lend its line of sight to the trebuchet?

From my interpretation of the rules your friend is correct. As Trebuchets may fire indirectly at anything within their firing range so long as a friendly unit has line of sight. I don't really consider it a big deal because the battlefields you play on dont really represent that large of an area, and really I think the allied line of sight is really more to limit the trebuchet than anything else.

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But that doesn't limit the trebuchet in the slightest, that makes it perfectly possible to park a trebuchet behind fifty walls and still hit things in the open with it. Being able to shoot at anything that somebody on your team has line of sight to is not a limitation, that's a massive, MASSIVE benefit.

That's what your mate paid the points for!

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Trebuchets don't need line of sight, that's the whole point. If defending, range markers would be set out on the ground below and despatched crewmen indicate by flags or whatever, range to shoot at. This is simplified in the rules as any unit can indicate targets.

It's a limitation that they even need the spotter. That's what I was pointing out. And consider this, Trebuchets are not very mobile, are limited in attack capabilities and are pricey, in the points you pay. I have no problem with their abilities. And I don't have one, I fight them lol

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We play. House rule where if you're in base contact wit a tall obstruction in the trebuchets direction, it has to take an in the way test.

It's very over powered IMO

trebuchets and mordor catapults use the volley fire special rule. Means they can shoot stuff they cant see. Did you not see the siege of minas tirith? The trebuchet loaders would have been working overtime and relying on instructions from the spotter on where to aim the massive rock of doom.

In gaming terms, dont forget that the trebuchet has a minimum range of 18". Get within that and you're safe. Also, it cant fire into combat.

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There's a fairly big difference between firing a trebuchet and depending on the spotter a few feet away from you to tell you where to aim and firing at a target that you couldn't possibly know the existence of if it weren't for the fact that a soldier on the other side of the battlefield (who has no reliable way of actually telling you where to aim) happens to see them.

It feels to me like they forgot to mention an actual range at the point where it says "does not require line of sight if an allied model in range can see them". I don't think they intended for "in range" to mean the range of the trebuchet, which is far, far larger than verbal communication would allow.

Sorry to put it bluntly, but I'm almost certain you're wrong

You are misquoting, the actual rule says "... friendly model can see the target and its is in range of your siege engine." You seem to have missed off those last 4 words which tell you the engine has to be in range, the spotter can be anywhere that can see the target that's in range of the engine.

The kind of situations you are describing as 'worse case' are all terrain dependent. I believe all scenarios have you alternate turns putting down terrain and then roll for who gets to pick a side. There shouldn't be that many times that come up where a player can put a trebuchet in an inaccessible location. Considering how many points they cost, the minimum range and limit on firing near a friendly, and relative vulnerability in MOST situations I don't think the few isolated cases where one seems completely safe is that much of a concern.

If for some reason the stars really do align against you that much to make it a factor, bring along a flying model. A tough Nazgul on FB or a Dragon should be able to get anywhere the trebuchet is and make short work of it unless it's VERY heavily protected (in which case now they sunk lots of points into the trebuchet for the luck of an amazing deployment option AND kept a lot of troops around it...ignore it and go for the objectives. ).

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