Artillery and Definitions of Terms...a campaign design process update.

 

Due to a request from one of my readers here, I'm posting the below. 

Artillery

The intent for artillery units is to either target a single enemy formation for extended bombardment or to support one or more friendly units in attack or defense. 

When supporting, the artillery unit distributes a number of dice equal to its ranged attacks by placing them on the tabletop, adjacent to one or more targeted enemy units. These will then be added to any friendly ranged attacks that occur during the turn.

Instead of directly supporting friendly units, artillery may be activated to conduct bombardment of specific enemy formations. This represents a more lengthy period of fire against the designated target. 

Artillery units have a ranged fire rating that varies, based on range to the target. When artillery conducts bombardment, all of its attack dice are used against a single target. On the other hand, when supporting friendly units, the owning player may allocate individual attack dice to one or more legal targets. These dice are then rolled with the ranged attack dice of another friendly unit attacking the target that turn. Once these dice are rolled, the allocated artillery support die is removed, ready for a future activation.

Artillery may only be activated to fire once a turn. Horse artillery may move and fire or fire and move; Foot artillery may either move or fire, but not both, in a single activation.

[illustrated imagery with example text needed]

Units under bombardment subtract 2 dice from their defensive dice when rolling for saves against hits received from the bombardment.

Note, artillery dice should have a different appearance from any other dice used by either side, to better distinguish them. Alternatively, a numbered token showing the number of dice allocated can be used.

Bombardments have a slightly different outcome than normal ranged fire and require a different table, as shown below.

Bombardment
Target #	Results
18	2 SP Loss
12	1 SP Loss
6	Disordered/ + Retire

Note: If a bombardment is particularly successful and scores both an 18 and a 6 on the same roll of the dice, then the second result of Disordered becomes a Retired, instead. So, a target receiving this fire would be disordered, lose 2SPs, and also retire as the result of the one bombardment roll. However, this is likely to be a very rare occurrence.

Terms

Attack Dice: The number of dice used in a combat to attack an enemy formation, based upon the unit's ranged or melee attack value, plus and minus any modifiers.

Defense Dice: The number of dice used to defend against hits receives from enemy attacks, based on the unit's Morale, plus and minus any modifiers.

Disordered: The affected unit is disorganized and subtracts one die from its attacks and defense until it recovers from disorder. Disordered units must be marked with a token of some kind, to show their current condition.

Rally: Units may be ordered to Rally, requiring a leader to be temporarily attached to the unit and then must pass a rally test. Successful rallies result in the unit regaining 1SP. A unit may never rally from a single SP loss, meaning the first SP loss is permanent for the duration of that battle or skirmish.

Retire: The affected unit is moved one square away from enemy unit which attacked it, maintaining its facing.

Retreat: The affected unit is moved one square away from the enemy unit which attacked it, facing away from that enemy unit.

Shaken: Shaken units are those units with 1SP remaining. They may not advance towards the enemy baseline and subtract one die from their attack and defense dice. They may not initiate melee, but can deliver ranged fire. The effects of disorder and being shaken are cumulative. Shaken units may attempt to Rally.

Target Number: The number on one of the combat results tables where a player must equal or exceed it to gain the associated result against an enemy unit. The highest number of a table must be matched or exceeded first, before another result on the same table can be tallied and applied. At no time can a player elect to accept a lesser target number on a combat table; the highest target number must always be attempted.

Note to the readers: I would like to keep the target numbers the same, if at all possible. I did toy with changing the target number for bombardments to be multiples of four, but I felt that might lead to some confusion.