One of the most effective ways of deterring persistent attackers from scaling fortress walls is to drop nasty and unpleasant things onto them.

Boiling oil scalds unprotected flesh, soaks through armour and clothing and causes excruciating wounds. It is also sticky, smelly and extremely painful. In other words, it's the perfect way to deter attackers from taking your fortress.

As well as oil, the different races in Warhammer use molten bronze, boiling blood, alchemical fire and even oxtail soup! Of course, during the long history of sieges many other things have also been used, such as hot water,
lime, heated sand and lead.

Cauldrons and Units

You may only buy one cauldron per infantry unit you have in your army. One cauldron has enough boiling oil to last for the duration of the entire battle.

Cauldrons can be moved around the ramparts at half the normal speed of the regiment moving it. The unit may not move a cauldron and pour the boiling oil down the wall during the same turn.

If a unit panics and flees they will abandon the cauldron, which is assumed to be knocked over in the process. In this case, remove the cauldron model.

Using Boiling Oil

This can be used in the Shooting phase just like any other missile weapon. You can declare a stand & shoot reaction with boiling oil against troops climbing up using ladders or ropes.

Models that are defending a wall section or tower may pour boiling oil over their enemies in their own turn provided that they are not engaged in close combat.

It requires two unengaged models to use the cauldron of boiling oil, and they may not use any other missile weapons during the same Shooting phase.

To use boiling oil take the circular 3" template and position it directly below the cauldron and in front of the wall as shown in the diagram on page 254. Any model whose base even touches the template is hit. No rolls to hit are needed. As the cauldron uses a template, the characters can be saved by a successful "Look out, Sir!" roll.

All models hit suffer a S5 hit with no armour save possible. Against boiling oil, molten metal, etc, the crew of a battering ram receive a 4+ special save, as the mantlet of a battering ram has been specifically designed against such attacks. Boiling oil can only be used every other turn - it takes time to heat and fill a cauldron!

Points cost: 25 points per cauldron

Some races have created other, even more unpleasant things to use to repel besiegers. All the rules for boiling oil apply with the following exceptions:

Boiling Blood

Dark Elves have a particularly nasty way of repelling attackers. Using slaves and captives as donors, the Naggarothi fill their cauldrons with blood mixed with corrosive poisons. These are then heated up, laced with even more poison and poured down the fortress walls.

Troops that suffer casualties from boiling blood must make an immediate Panic test.

Boiling Blood: 30 points per cauldron. Dark Elves only.

Molten Metal

Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs use molten bronze, hot lead and other heavy metals instead of oil. as their mountain homes are rich with metal ore, whilst oil is hard to come by. Any molten metal uses exactly the same rules as boiling oil, except that its hits are resolved with a Strength of 6.

Molten Metal: 30 points per cauldron. Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs only.

Alchemical Fire

High Elves have perfected an arcane formula for an extremely lethal substance called Deathfire, or Ielthan in the Elven tongue. It is Strength 5, causes D3 wounds and inflicts double damage on flammable creatures.

Alchemical Fire: 30 points per cauldron. High Elves only.