Halo, meet WoW

With Wrath of the Lich King's launch also comes the ability to command siege weaponry. These siege weapons will allow people to destroy buildings that stand in their way, and cannot be touched otherwise by any ability.

While the Strand of the Ancients tanks allow anywhere from 1 to 3 people into a vehicle, in Lake Wintergrasp, you will be able to mount up in either 1-man catapults or the 3-man siege vehicles also found in Strand of the Ancients, depending on your "standing" during the match.

Lake Wintergrasp's Siege Weaponry

Lake Wintergrasp will feature both small and large siege vehicles depending on the player's standing with their faction. Killing more people will let them advance in rank, and get into better vehicles so that they can destroy the enemy keep faster and have more support.

Let's take a look at the two different types of Siege Weapons in this PvP-Only zone in Northrend.

Catapult

The catapult becomes available as soon as you earn a handful of kills from any of the shops in the zone. It's faster than the demolisher, but it also deals less damage, and is a 1-person vehicle. If your faction has the advantage and only needs support fire, the Catapult is the best option to get to the front line and start doing some damage to the enemy building. However, if you're still advancing and capturing checkpoints, it might be best to continue ramping up your kill count and get access to the Demolishers.

Demolisher

This vehicle can handle up to 3 people inside of it. It has considerably more HP than the Catapult, yet it's slower. On the up side, you can have up to 2 companions in with you that are able to shoot spells and such in order to keep the damage you receive to a minimum while you get to your objective. This vehicle becomes available later as the battle progresses.

Strand of the Ancients

The Demolisher makes a repeat appearance in Strand of the Ancients, as your only option to break down the enemy fortress walls and keep advancing to capture your goal before the other faction wins.

You may hop onto a Demolisher as soon as you get out of your boat leading into the beach, and start destroying the enemy walls if you have a clear path. Generally, players will block your advance and try to destroy your machine right away, so it's best to clear the area before destroying one of these treasured vehicles.

The vehicles currently have 50,000 HP in Beta. This may or may not change for live.

Defensive Structures

You might be thinking, "What am I going to do against the onslaught of enemy siege vehicles against my base?" Simple, your bases are also, both in Wintergrasp and in Strand of the Ancients, equipped with anti-siege weaponry, which you may mount ontop of the fortress walls, and consequently shoot down any intruders into your space.

The machines also have 25,000 HP and are usually mounted on both sides of the walls you are to defend. They only have one attack, which is a fire burst attack that shoots fairly often and damages people with an AoE explosion. You must ensure both of these are manned at all times during the attacks on your base to eliminate enemy siege weapons coming nearby, and players coming in to protect them.

These anti-personnel cannons exist both in Strand of the Ancients and Lake Wintergrasp - you may access them by hopping onto a teleport pad on the other side of the wall, and then walking up to them and right-clicking in order to hop in and start shooting.

Using your Siege Weapon

Using your siege weapon is simple. When you can get into one, you simply head over to its side and right-click on it. Your cursor will change to a green arrow, which will let you hop in immediately, and it will substitute both your abilities (if you're the main driver) or simply let you in for the ride.

Once you're inside your vehicle, you will see your HP bar replaced by the vehicle's. As long as you're inside, you will share the vehicle's health pool. Should you get destroyed, you will be unmounted immediately and be at full HP, ready to battle.

Control of the vehicle is as normal, as it moves like your character does, with a few exceptions:

Turning is slower (as is to be expected!) and you may not cross water, so you must use bridges. You also can't jump.

Vehicle Abilities

Your vehicle will have 1 or 2 abilities open to them, depending on its model.

Catapults and Anti-personnel Cannons

Hurl Boulder / Fire: Shoots the enemy from afar, will do AoE damage. If it hits a building, its HP will go down accordingly.

Demolishers

Aside from Hurl Boulder, you get the ability "Ram" - with a 15yd range and a 4 second cooldown, you do 3000 damage to enemy players in your way, and 1500 damage to any buildings infront of you.

If you ever want to abandon your vehicle, you may right-click on the red arrow at the very right of your replaced UI, this will make you jump off and resume your fighting by foot.

Tips

Always ensure you have some protection, vehicles are clunky and can be destroyed quickly if not protected correctly - your damage is meant to be done primarily to buildings, not players, so players will definitely destroy your vehicle if you can't take care of them.

Always shoot to where your enemy will be, not where they are at the time. Assume some movements in order to always catch them off-guard and render their moving useless!

If on foot, defend your faction's vehicles, as players will undoubtedly target them first instead of any ground troops. If you can clear the way to the siege objective, you stand a good chance to do the maximum amount of damage!

If escorting your faction's vehicles, always try to take out the enemy turrets before they get to use their firepower on your vehicles. If the enemy's turrets are down, you stand a better chance at destroying that barrier!

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