The Commander Series Forum

Hi guys

New to BKC and generally loving the rules at the moment, there is a great pace and fluidity to the play style which works well, but i have a few questions i need help on please.

1 - British Artillery
At the moment, the way we are playing British Artillery seems a bit OP - and i'm not sure if we are playing it correctly.

The rules say that you buy Artillery SUPPORT units for on table Artillery, and Artillery UNITS for off table scheduled/requested support. This is straightforward for other lists (Yanks for example) as they have specific named SUPPORT Artillery with support in the name, also generally the on table Artillery has more shots and more Hits due to it firing like a Infantry Gun.

However, Brits have Field Artillery units, and Heavy Artillery units - no mention of specified SUPPORT Artillery units.

Over the last few games we have been having players with 9 batteries of Field Artillery Units (25-pdr, 8-gun) deployed off table - which means that requested Artillery support can throw 54 dice on a concentrated 20x20cm template (or 180cm x 20cm of smoke/barrage!).

My question is - is this correct, or are the "Field Artillery Units" the same as named ARTILLERY SUPPORT units, and should be deployed on table, and firing as an IG? The confusion comes from the naming, and the fact the guns have '6' listed as their AT/AP with no ranges.

If it is correct, and it IS 9 batteries off table - am i the only one that thinks this is a bit off-kilter, with most other countries only able to take 24-30 dice is max on average?!

However, Brits have Field Artillery units, and Heavy Artillery units - no mention of specified SUPPORT Artillery units.

They didn't use their artillery in a direct fire role in NWE - see the note on p.70

So we have been using it correctly. Crumbs! 54 dice ahoy lol

To clarify - no Brit artillery is deployed on table? As they are all Artilley Units, not Artillery Support Units.

You need to check the list for the army that you are using.

Late war British have no artillery support units, but the North Africa list does allow them.

As far as firing 9 batteries of 25 pounders to get 54 dice, the more batteries requested, the harder it is to call them in. 4-6 batteries - minus one to CV, 7-9 - minus 2 to CV.

Remember, you do not need to inflict hits to knock out a unit, hitting an already suppressed unit could cause it to fall back more than 10cm and knock it out. So, Split fire is some circumstances might be a better option.

Steve