Gun carriage melee range

[HellecticMojo]

Does the gun carriage have a melee range, outside of activation? Since it doesn't actually have a melee weapon, only a mount. Also, if I do have a range, can I make free strikes with it? trampling hoves only dictate how I can use it as a weapon during the combat action, not outside the turn.

[PG_dbsmash]

To have a melee range, the first thing you need is a melee weapon (or a rule letting you act as though you have one). The Gun Carriage clearly lacks the former, but Trampling Hooves gives you the latter. But, as you point out, that rule only governs your combat action, so doesn't help you for free strikes. Given that the Carriage has no melee weapon and no rule giving it a melee attack out of activation, I would think it has no melee range for the purposes of free strikes...

[solkan]

The gun carriage is a cavalry model, which means that the Mount weapon that it has follows the rules for Mount on page 81 of Prime Mk II, in addition to any rules that the model may have.

So it most certainly has a melee range when it can use the mount weapon because of

A Mount weapon has a 0.5 melee range.

and

A model's melee range is the longest melee range of its usable melee weapons.

Edit: I wrote earlier that it had a melee range whether or not it could use the weapon. I was wrong.

So,

Normally a model can use its Mount only to make impact attacks.

so while the Mount gives the model a melee range during its combat action, neither page 81 of Prime Mk II or page 76 of Wraith contain any rules allowing that mount weapon to be used in a free strike outside of the gun carriage's combat action.

[Michael]

You cannot make free strikes with the Gun Carriage's Mount.

Nothing in Mount rules lets you do that, and nothing in "Trampling Hooves" lets you do that.

For further clarification: see any of these posts.