Blacker Bombard Spigot Mortar

[Uther]

I’m new to Bolt Action and I’m trying to understand how the Spigot Mortar is meant to work.

In the Sea Lion Book it is has the following stats:

• Team Weapon
• Static
• Indirect Fire
• Tricky to aim

If it’s an indirect fire weapon why does it also have “Tricky to aim” (which is new in the Sea Lion book and gives it a -1 to hit)?  It doesn’t have the “Howitzer” rule so I believe that it can only fire indirectly, when you hit on a 6 and ignore modifiers.  It also doesn’t have a minimum range which I believe indirect fire weapons should have?

There are also stats in the Armies of Great Britain book.  This doesn’t have the Indirect Fire rule and does have a bit more range.  But that book is older, and you’d think the newer book would be more “correct”.

Should I just ignore the “Indirect Fire” rule and have it firing over iron sights all the time?  Or should I just flip to the Armies of GB rules, which also has it as “Fixed” and not “Static”.

[Stuart Harrison]

Static vs Fixed looks like the spigot mortar entry is meant to reflect emplaced versions of the Blacker, while the AoGB entry is meant to reflect the mobile version.

vs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacker_Bombard#/media/File:Blacker_Bombard.jpg

I can’t see a reason for the other differences as they were the same weapon employed from a different mount.  If anything, the emplaced version should have the longer range as the operator could aim the barrel higher for a higher trajectory.

Newer books don’t over-write older books, only errata does that.

Differences between author interpretations for the same or very similar weapons is just one reason Bolt Action needs a continuity editor – supplement authors may know their pet subject but they don’t always know the interactions of existing rules, or the full suite of existing supplements.

The application of a ‘to hit’ modifier to an indirect fire weapon I’d put down to author error.  Either he failed to understand the interaction of the ranging in process and ‘to hit’ modifiers (there isn’t one – they don’t apply) or he failed to detail his process for applying this one (does it affect the initial ‘6 to hit regardless’, or does it kick in from the second shot when you’d normally start ranging in?)

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Stuart Harrison.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Stuart Harrison.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Stuart Harrison.
• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Stuart Harrison.

[Uther]

Thank you so much for your response.

I did wonder if they were talking about the emplaced version, that’s the version with which I’m most familiar as I’ve hunted down a few of them in various places over the years.

I’ve checked the errata and there’s nothing for the GB Army book or the Sea Lion book.  The Sea Lion version just seems “wrong”, it’s the same points for shorter range and inconsistent rules.  So I think I’ll just use the version from the GB Book as it’s also what the Warlord model represents (on a “mobile” platform).

I am very tempted to try and bash together a version on the fixed mount, that would be a nice project.

Thanks once again for your time.

[Author]

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