# Introduction

*The Heavy Armory, Siege Engines, Great Guns, and Vehicle Weapons for Exodus NDS. Source: https://exodusnds.com/sourcebooks/heavy-armory/introduction*

One person fires a rifle. Nobody fires a twenty-four-pounder. A gun captain gives the word, and seven other people have already done their part.

> **A heavy weapon is a crew, and the crew is the weapon.**

That is true of a ballista, a carronade, a mortar, and a tank. It gives a group of player characters something to do together: one lays the gun, one loads, one spots, one keeps the enemy off the crew. This book is written so that each of those is a job with a rule.

## What You Should Expect

**One stat line for three thousand years.** A bombard and a main battle tank gun are read the same way. Mount, Hull damage, Crit, Range, Crew.

**Crews.** Every crew weapon says how many people it needs and how many rounds it takes between shots. Chapter 3 says what happens when some of them are missing or dead.

**Batteries and broadsides.** Fourteen guns fired on one command are one attack. Chapter 3 has the rule.

**Indirect fire.** Mortars and howitzers hit what the crew cannot see. They need a spotter and a round or two to find the range.

**Two scales, settled.** One point from a great gun is ten from a musket. Chapter 4 gives the whole procedure, including what the heavy weapons of the other armories do to a wall or a tank.

**Walls.** Chapter 5 gives doors, gates, palisades, castle walls, bastions, and bunkers an Armor and a Hull, so that a siege can be played.

**Things to shoot at.** Chapter 13 has thirty-nine vehicles, ships, and aircraft, from a war wagon to a battleship.

<img class="framed" src="https://exodusnds.com/assets/sourcebook/heavy_armory/heavy-armory-field-gun.jpg">

## Four Periods

| Period | Years | The weapons |
|:--|:--|:--|
| **Ancient** | To 1400 | Rams, bolt and stone engines, galley rams, the first bombards |
| **Powder** | 1400 to 1860 | Muzzle-loading guns on carriages, mortars, carronades, rockets |
| **Industrial** | 1860 to 1938 | Breechloaders, machine guns, trench mortars, turret guns, torpedoes |
| **Modern** | 1939 to today | Tank guns, automatic cannon, guided missiles, aircraft and naval weapons |

Every entry prints the first year or period in which it is found. **Prices are by period too:** each period uses the money of its own armory, as Chapter 2 explains, so a price in one period cannot be compared with a price in another. Old weapons stay in service for a generation or more after something better appears.

## Using This Book in Your Universe

**The names are generic.** A Universe names its own guns.

**A fantasy world** uses the Ancient chapter with *The Ranged Armory*, and the Powder chapter if it has gunpowder. Nothing here assumes it does.

**A pirate or musket game** uses the Powder chapter with *The Black Powder Armory*.

**A modern game** uses the last four weapon chapters with *The Modern Armory*.

**Space opera** has its own book, *The Starship Armory*, built on the same stat line and the same two scales.

## What You Need

The **Exodus NDS core rules**.