chris6 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:51 am
Yesterday I had the first game with artillery on my side and even though the gunnies kd an opponents element i was not really happy with my playing of the guns.
I did put them in the middle of my battleline because they are obvious the slowest moving element and I wanted to make sure that my wheeling of the line isnt slowed down by guns on the flanks. But this idea cut my battleline into 2 pieces after I closed in to the oppenent and I had to use more pips for all the movement. Well, I did not want the guns in HTH combat.
Do you have any suggestions on how to use/place the artillery efficient? (I mean high rolls on shooting are an obvious tactic..
)
As you found out, putting the artillery in the center of your line is a mostly flawed tactic. It can work -- if your opponent is slow, unimaginative, and inexperienced. Otherwise it holds you back from attacking and makes it easier for the enemy to split your army.
The trick is to find something useful for your artillery to do. That's the main path to success for all types of stands, incidentally. Bow Levy is a wonderful troop type -- but you've got to stay focused on giving them tasks that they can achieve. Same is true for Artillery.
They can be great with a bit of support, holding a refused flank against mounted. They don't have to be in the line, either -- they are always more effective off the line, angled in, with a bit of raking fire.
They can hold a patch of rough or marsh or a steep hill against an incursion of difficult-terrain troops (light foot, raiders, skirmishers, rabble). You don't (can't) stand in the difficult terrain -- but you can force the enemy to allocate a million pips to their attack by breaking up their formation and driving it back.
Those are both defensive roles. With their slow movement and extra pip requirements, it's easier to find good defensive roles for artillery than it is to use them offensively. That doesn't mean it's impossible to use them offensively, it just means it is more difficult. Offensive use of artillery requires a lot of foresight, or the ability to exert your will upon the developing battle. The critical point to make is this -- do you understand where the focus of the battle will be, four to six paired-bounds ahead? If you do, then you have a chance to use artillery offensively. Just start moving the artillery to where they will be needed, six turns ahead.
Of course it is not that simple. By the very act of moving your artillery, you are changing your choices and influencing your opponent's choices. But that's the heart of the matter -- deciding where the true center of the conflict will be, and choosing where to place your artillery so that it can participate in that future battle in a meaningful way. Then moving your artillery forward so as to occupy that position in the future.
Artillery isn't the only troop type that has this issue. Pike, Bow Levy, and War Wagons have many of the same issues. To use them effectively you must employ foresight and planning -- you have to be thinking 4-6 turns ahead, and trying to get those troops into positions that will be useful THEN, in the future, in the battle that will be happening at that point. This is a hard skill, and it takes a long time (and a lot of experience) to learn.
One constant issue with artillery is their vulnerability to, well, anything. But you can also use that as an enticement, a way to impose your will upon the battle. A glistening plum. Battles are disagreements won by resource management -- the person who uses his command points most effectively will usually win. The person who gets more of his troops into the battle (managing his army as a resource) will usually win. If you entice three or four enemy stands to try to find a way to kill an artillery with a couple of horde or bow levy for support on one flank (whether they are light foot or raiders moving through a patch of difficult terrain, or a group of mounted trying to fight through a gap), you will be using a small, slow detachment from your army to fight a larger, faster part of the enemy army, and making the enemy pay the command points (out of his limited supply) to do so. That's good generalship, and it gives you more resources (in troops and command points) elsewhere.
The hard part about Triumph is that mostly you can't win everywhere. You have to pick part of the battle as the place you want to win, and other parts of the battle as places where you want to not-lose. With their ability to enforce their will over a big shooting range, and their enticing vulnerability, artillery can be a great component of your forces in spite of their disadvantages.
But yes, they are complex.
Good luck!
David Kuijt
ps: one of my all-time favorite battles involved a Grand Triumph fight where DS and I were using Ming Chinese with their Bamboo Katyushas. A force of Knights came over a hill to charge the guns. We had Ming crossbow as Artillery escort, and they helped with disordering the final assault, but the artillery did the work breaking up the attack, making the enemy use more pips for it, and driving the devastated command of knights back over the hill with their tails between their legs after their assault failed in slaughter and chaos.
.....sounds spacey....Triumph! with space marines? 
