The Road to Edain 4.5: Dwarven Battlewagons news

Ever since we reworked the Dwarves to be more in line with movies, new battlewagons have been one of the most frequent fan requests. In Edain 4.5, we have answered your wishes: You'll be able to build all-new chariots in the movies' style!

Joragon has created entirely new models based off the Hobbit movies, making the wagons look much more fearsome:

We took that opportunity to not only redesign the visuals, but also add new gameplay and upgrades to the wagons. Our primary goal was to create more distinction between the wagons of the different Dwarven realms, further pronouncing each faction's unique gameplay.

To that end, each wagon now starts with a different crew:

• The Erebor battlewagon is manned by pikemen who stab at nearby enemies as the wagon plows through them. This gives the Erebor the best battlewagon for crashing through enemy lines, as befits an offensive faction.
• The Iron Hills wagon comes with a crew of shieldbearers, increasing its armor. This makes it the best battlewagon for carrying support upgrades, bolstering the army while being difficult to remove.
• The battlewagon of Ered Luin has two archers riding along, firing at nearby enemies. In line with Ered Luin's more unorthodox tactics, this allows the chariot to circle around enemies and deal damage without engaging them.

As you may have noticed, some of these crew members used to be upgrades of their own. Don't worry, though - we have introduced a host of new upgrades to replace them!

Each wagon can choose between one of three improvements. Two are available to all factions, but the third is faction-specific and thus further enhances their unique traits.

• The Banner is largely unchanged. It's a support upgrade that grants leadership to allies near the battlewagon.
• The Hearth is replaced by the Beer Keg. Its function remains the same, however: Healing allies in the vicinity. We just thought the Dwarven soldiers would appreciate a good barrel of beer so much more than some weird hearthfire mounted on a wagon. Style points!
• Erebor gets the Wheel Blades upgrade, making the wagon lose less speed when scything through foes. Keeping with the faction's theme, the Erebor wagon is the most vicious killing machine of them all and can crash over twice as many enemies with this improvement.
• The Iron Hills can upgrade their wagon with a Trophy of severed Orc heads mounted on a pike, demoralizing nearby enemies and decreasing their damage. The trophy debuff becomes more potent as the battlewagon levels up. This means that enemies are incentivized to destroy it as quickly as possible, in turn making the increased armor gained from the shieldbearers more valuable. The Iron Hills are the only faction who have both a buff (the Banner) and a debuff (the Trophy) available as wagon upgrades, making their battlewagons the best support units.
• Ered Luin once again favors ranged attacks and lets you augment your wagons with a Bolt Thrower. This miniature ballista has been inspired by a scene from the movies and deals more damage than the archers, turning the battlewagon into a surprisingly powerful ranged unit.

Visually, some upgrades also add more crew members, such as an officer of Erebor for the Wheel Blades:

We're very happy with how the new battle wagons turned out. We think they not only look much cooler (shoutout to Nazgul from the SEE mod, who created the awesome ram models), they also play better and add interesting new options to all three Dwarven factions. We look forward to letting you play with them! Let us know what you think of them in the comments :)