- "Soon there was great peril of fire behind the wall, and all who could be spared were busy quelling the flames that sprang up in many places. Then among the greater casts there fell another hail, less ruinous but more horrible. "
- —The Return of the King, The Siege of Gondor
Catapults are a cheap siege engine of Mordor: they serve as a tool of economic destruction and against battalions of weak units. They have the particularity of being able to damage garrisoned units, which is quite strategic. This means you can kill the units inside defensive towers. However, they do have a minimum range from which they must fire, or they will have to move back from their target (unlike archers who can shoot even at melee range).
A Mordor Catapult fires upon Minas Tirith in the film The Return of the King
Abilities[]
Halt Auto-Fire / 
Auto-Fire - This defines whether the catapult is allowed to pick its own target or if it has to wait for the player to assign one.
Bombard / 
Stop Bombardment - This allows the player to pick a place on which the catapult will continually bombard, or to stop that bombardment.
Release the Prisoners - If Gothmog's ability is activated near one or more catapults, then the player will be able to choose to fire human heads for a short duration. Human heads create small zones from which enemy units will flee from but cause very little damage. After a while, the catapult will resume using fireballs, and the ability must cool-down before it can be used again. The fireballs will cause damage to buildings and to garrisoned troops inside towers.
Upgrades[]
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This siege engine has no upgrades. This means that this siege engine can not gain any sort of permanent boost from upgrades found in either its palantir or from other units/heroes. If this is not the case, fill in the section following the format of other pages. |
Strategy[]
Catapults are meant as an early game way of harassing a foe's economy. They are, however, not very strong and take quite some time to produce. It is recommended that the player switches either to Troll Catapults or Battering Rams if they wish to take a Camp or Castle down. They can also be used from a distance to destroy weak troops such as Archers, allowing them to stay hidden behind the enemy line of sight. They also benefit from the ability "Release the Prisoners" which allows them to throw skulls instead of fiery rocks, creating a fear aura around the place they land. This is enabled through Gothmog's level 7 ability Release the Prisoners.
Quotes[]
Commissioned
"Let's make use of this catapult!"
Selected
"Hey! You watching this?"
"Hmm?"
"See anything out there?"
Moving
"Let's get it moving!"
"Come on! [groans loudly]"
"Come on, now! [grunting]"
"Are you pushing?"
Attacking Units
"Give it to 'em!"
Attacking Buildings
"We'll destroy the place!"
Selected while fighting
"Load it up!"
"We got 'em again!"
"You watchin' this?!"
"Watch this one..."
"[laughs] You see that?!"
"Ha ha ha!"
"Load up another one!"
"There it goes!"
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