Mortar

Mortar is a Empire siege engine unit in Total War: Warhammer. What a Mortar may lack in sheer stopping power compared to cannons, it makes up with pure vicious, explosive destruction.

Description
Mortars are short, heavy weapons, designed to lob a hollow, explosive shell high into the air so that it drops onto its target. While a solid cannon ball may plough through several victims, a Mortar shell explodes with tremendous force, scattering razor sharp shrapnel over a wide area and scything through whole ranks of enemy warriors. Firing a Mortar is always a tense moment, for the quality of fuses is highly variable and it is not unknown for one to burn through before the crew have finished loading the shell. As a result, Mortar crews tend to be superstitious and carry a large number of good luck charms about their person.

Strategy
Where the great cannon excels with armored and large units, the Mortar excels at lower armor infantry units. This artillery piece is great for damaging clumps of enemy infantry. One strategy is to use a Hero or Lord to blob the enemy around you before mortaring the area.

Mortars also counter ranged heavy armies. In order for most archers to shoot they need to be standing still, making them great targets for the mortar which is generally inaccurate. In extreme cases, mortars can also be used to shell a failing flank; unlike Helstorms, Mortars are accurate enough to generally hit the enemy unit more than yours, provided the line is somewhat stable. However, this will usually cause your unit to rout after a couple volleys.

Their projectiles have a very high trajectory and easily clear walls to to hit units on the other side, making them uniquely useful in siege battles for both attack and defense.