Screaming skull catapult

[Spivo]

Have not tried them in ages, are they still bad, or did they buff them enough to warrant spending the gold in campaign to get them?

[fmalfeas]

They're pretty solid, particularly against things with low leadership like skaven, trolls, and brettonian peasants. Even if they fail to do a lot of damage, they can cause breaking, and if a unit breaks too many times, they shatter even if quite healthy.

Problem is, in terms of raw effect, they don't measure up well against the casket of souls. And for removing walls and towers, greatbow ushtabi and bone giants are superior (though the catapults can still fire into the settlement, over the walls, and wreak havoc).

I consider them a situational thing.

Am I using chariots? Yes? Then I'll use them too, since I'm already making the buildings. Am I not using chariots? Then I'll use them only if I capture a settlement that gives me that building already at T3, because for all that money I could get more tomb guard and archers, or more Ushtabi, or Necropolis Knights, or scorpions, or bone giants (and the bone giant building has all sorts of other valuable buffs too).

Oh, should note that if you're playing as Khalida, and get some Prepared lords, it might be worth it to roll out a few of them regardless, as they have more ammo innately than caskets, and are affected by Arrows of Asaph, so you'll be able to maintain the artillery barrage a LOT longer than normal. Nice for getting no-losses siege wins on hardened settlements.

[jonoliveira12]

They are quite good against Infantry and Archers, but you should inevitably just slowly replace them with Caskets of Souls in every army.

[Lucipurr, The Silly One.]

Originally posted by Spivo:

Have not tried them in ages, are they still bad, or did they buff them enough to warrant spending the gold in campaign to get them?

They are actually VERY good. Not many people realize but they are one of the best artillery in terms of taking out large amounts of infantry. Their stats may not immediately tell you that, but they have a massive splash damage with an op debuff.

[Cleftin Twain]

I liked them but I think the first post said basically the same thing I was going to say after my Khalida campaign. They are awesome if you are already building the building for chariots, otherwise you're better off getting Caskets.

If you need to break walls later on, aim for Bowshabti and/or Bone Giants as Caskets have trouble targeting walls a lot of the time and can have issues with towers as well. I don't think Khalida's early game really need walls to be taken down, even when going against Kroq'gar simply because you will have enough numbers for the walls not to matter (tested on VH/VH difficulty here). It's when you start to separate your armies that you may want to break the walls rather than build towers and by then you have other options.