Portable Ram

This article is about the unit in Age of Mythology. For similar units in other games of the series, see Ram (disambiguation).

Template:Infobox units The Portable Ram is a ram-type siege weapon available to the Norse. It is trained at the Hill Fort from the Heroic Age.

God Bonus

Odin increases hit points by 20%.

Upgrades

Specific

• Dwarven Auger (Baldr) increases speed and attack by 20% and reduces training time by 50%.

General

• Draft Horses increases speed by 20%.
• Engineers increases attack by 50% and attack against walls by 60%.

Strategy

Portable Rams are the cheapest of all true siege weapons and can therefore be mass-produced easily. They do massive damage to buildings and are virtually immune to ranged fire. As such defensive buildings are useless against them (unless they have Boiling Oil). When in groups they can destroy walls and defensive buildings rapidly while taking little damage in return. This makes reaction teams against them a must if one is playing defensively. They have weak hack armor but a lot of hit points so can survive fairly long if under attack by enemy units but must be deployed with an escort if they expect to survive.

History

When taking an enemy town quickly was important, one simple, expedient solution was to cut down a strong tree, trim the trunk, attach some handholds, and use the tree to batter down a gate or wall section. Although very dangerous work for the men holding the ram, it could be put into action with hours of arriving outside the city walls. The Portable Ram was particularly effective in surprise attacks and against fortifications of weak design. Such a ram was popular with raiding armies and those who could not linger outside a city for a protracted siege.