Bulwark Mobile Interrupter

The Bulwark is the Missile Interrupter's magazine on tracks and nothing else: it shoots down rockets and guided missiles that come within five tiles of it, and it has no gun of its own. It is the first thing that can carry point defence to where a column is, which until now only a tower could do.

How to use

Drive it inside the column, not behind it: its ring is five tiles and the rockets have to cross that ring on their way to what it protects. One Bulwark thins a Tempest's salvo and never stops all of it; two stop it cold, and keep doing so, because between salvos the magazines refill. A Viper's guided missiles count as ordnance to it; shells do not, so a Thunder or a Salamander lands regardless. It is a target with no way to answer — anything with a gun kills it — and it costs population. Bring it when you have seen rocket artillery, and leave it at home when you have not.

Anecdotes

The idea of shooting the incoming round instead of armouring against it is older than it looks: the Soviet Drozd system was fitted to a few tanks in 1983. Israel's Trophy made the first combat interception in 2011, a rocket fired at a Merkava in Gaza, and the crew learned of it from the bang.