Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. This is the article I have been waiting to write for two months. Today's article is on the effective selection and use of artillery in an Alpha Strike game. So go ahead and strap in, because this one should be a good one.
I went over a little bit of this with the Catapult article, just a few days ago. This will be going significantly more in depth. So you guys get the best picture of how to use artillery I can provide, I'm going to go pretty deep into the mechanics of it, and after that it'll be time for unit selection and actual use on the table.
Artillery has recently been the subject of a pretty major errata, which can be found
here (PDF link) for anyone who wants to check it out. It begins on pg. 3, and adds quite a bit to the game, both in terms of adding artillery to the Alpha Strike standard rules, and making it much easier to use.
In standard rules, artillery has a maximum range of 42”, unless using Extreme Range rules. This is a lot of what makes it easy to use, since it's similar to making a standard weapon attack. The major difference on that front is that artillery is
always considered to be made at Long range, with regards to to-hit modifiers. Snub-nose artillery, like the Thumpers, Snipers, and Long Toms you'll find most frequently fielded on 'Mechs use normal range modifiers.
Artillery may be fired either directly or indirectly, and unlike normal IF do
not require a spotter in order to fire. Direct fire artillery may choose a unit to target, or a point of impact (hereafter abbreviated as POI), while indirect artillery attacks may only target a point of impact. What's the difference, you ask? Direct fire attacks use the attacker's skill, terrain intervening, the defender's TMM, and are automatically at long range (unless they're snub-nose field pieces, which I'll stop referring to now unless it comes up specifically). Indirect attacks use the attacker's skill, are automatically at long range, and add +1 for firing indirectly.
What gives? That sounds like direct fire is always worse than indirect, at first glance. A little deeper digging shows this isn't the case. While direct fire uses a lot more modifiers than indirect, often times a savvy player can keep those all at zero. If all else fails, there are even ways to switch between the two on the same target! When firing directly, it's entirely possible that there will be no terrain in the way, and that the unit's TMM is equal to or lower than the indirect modifier. You also can't use the bonuses provided by a spotter on a direct fire attack (with the exception of TAG and homing/copperhead rounds), which adds up pretty quick when you start bringing in spotters with Specials like PRB. There's also, technically, nothing preventing you from laying a POI directly adjacent to the spotter's base and circumventing the TMMs that way, but I think as a GM I'd rule that as a little bit of rules-lawyering and not allow it. Your mileage may vary.
Indirect, however, can only target a POI, unless there are homing rounds and TAG involved. When firing indirectly, having a spotter with the Specials PRB, LPRB, or BH will reduce to to hit number by a point for most artillery weapons, and will reduce it a full two points if the weapon is an Arrow IV launcher. Score one for the Arrow IV. Indirect is, ironically,
more accurate against targets that are fast, or hiding in woods or behind hills. The presence of the spotter bonuses you can get makes it generally easier and better to fire indirectly than directly, though some exceptions do exist, usually if you don't actually have a spotter available.
If you hit the target, be it a unit or POI, an area of effect template is placed on the spot, with the size depending on the particular artillery piece used, and the ammo fired out of it. Most artillery uses a 2” template by default, which includes everything except Long Toms, which use 6” templates. Any true artillery (excepting Battle Armor tube artillery) is also capable of firing cluster ammo, which increases the size of the blast template. Templates that were 2” become 6”, while the Long Tom's 6” template becomes a monstrous 8” across. Damage is reduced by 1 for cluster shots, and that modified damage is again reduced by half outside of the normal size template (rounded down),
however, which means that, as per the letter of the rules as they stand right now, all cluster ammunition not fired out of a Long Tom is utterly useless, and the Long Tom loses a point of damage in the 2” center in order to deal a single point of damage outside of 6” and inside of 8”. There's a rules question pending on that one. There was errata submitted on this very subject while I was in the middle of this article. If the damage is modified to 1, then damage outside the center template is reduced to 0*, not just a flat zero. This also includes the shots for Thumpers, which previously would be modified down to 0 by the cluster shot and deal no damage. They now deal a 0* across the entire 6” template.
But what happens if the attack fails? If you were using homing rounds of any sort, the attack misses and is never heard from again. If you were using anything else, it drifts. On each template is a series of numbers, from 1 to 6 on the perimeter of the template. Each of those represents a direction that the shot can drift. Oriented the '1' to the 'north' of the map, and roll 1d6. Whichever number comes up is the direction that drift occurs. As you can imagine, this can be problematic if you have units in the area. Once the direction is determined, roll another d6 for the distance. Tube artillery drifts however many inches appear on the die. Missile artillery drifts double that distance. The Oblique Artilleryman SPA reduces that drift by 2 inches, to a minimum of zero. Yes, that means that it's absolutely possible to have an attack 'miss' but still land exactly where you wanted it to. Welcome to the joys of artillery.
Units inside the blast template take damage. Duh. That includes units that may be hitching a ride on anything caught in the blast zone, but does
not include units currently underground, inside buildings, and some units underwater, depending on how deep they are. Please note that I may be incorrect on this one, as the rules as written only mention units' bases as they relate to the template. I've taken the liberty of assuming that artillery damage resolves similarly to bomb damage, which make specific mention of those exceptions. Of note, artillery damage
cannot deal damage to the rear of a unit. All damage is treated as being dealt from above, regardless of where the template is placed in regards to the unit.
Everything above happens whether you're using standard rules or advanced rules, pretty much interchangeably. Where it gets really interesting is in the advanced rules, where flight times start coming into play, along with varying ranges for each artillery piece. Most of it is still too far to be a real consideration on a normal table, but it can affect flight times.
Post errata, artillery now requires a flight time longer than same-turn when the POI is farther than 42” away, rather than the previous 34”. This is a good thing, allowing artillery attacks to land the same time as LRMs fired from the same place. Beyond that, however, flight times increase to multiple turns. Beyond 42”, all the way out to 90”, artillery shots will land one turn after they're fired. Beyond 90” out to 170”, artillery shots will land two turns after they're fired. If you're using on-board artillery and your table is longer than 170”, I cannot comprehened the size of your playing surface and my advice does not matter at all. Also on the subject of range, it should be noted that Battle Armor Tube Artillery, such as found on the Centaur Battle Armor, has a maximum range of 68”. It is still subject to the 42” same-turn impact, but it cannot make shots further than two turns before impact.
Any spotting for an artillery strike must happen on the turn it's
fired, not the turn it lands. This makes first-turn attacks with artillery rather difficult, but I suspect that's part of the entire idea. Coupled with spotters only being able to stop for a single artillery attack per turn, and I'd say that it's a good balance decision, even if it doesn't line up exactly with what we expect from real life artillery units. Considering how much artillery I use in my games, this is a good thing, and prevents artillery from being utterly overpowered. When artillery lands, regardless of the turn it happens, the the attack resolution is the same.
With a 42” same-turn flight time, there are some fun things you can do. This is the first part of the article where I'll actually get into genuine tactics to use for artillery (finally!). With some proper maneuvering, it's possible to land multiple shots from the same artillery piece on the same target in the same turn. The effect, I must say, is immensely satisfying. It relies on being able to predict enemy movements, but I'll take care of that in a minute. As it so happens, movements in Alpha Strike are much easier to predict than in standard scale BattleTech.
Speaking of which! The simplified movement system in Alpha Strike lends itself to very easy use of artillery. This isn't a knock on players, but most people are
really predictable when it comes to moving in Alpha Strike. This is a natural consequence of the method of movement. Imagine, if you will, a single enemy unit on the table. For our example, this unit will have a potential move of 8”j. Alpha Strike units are not required to move their full distance in order to get their full TMM, but for some reason everyone I've yet played against nearly universally moves the full distance every time regardless. I'm not immune to this, but it makes for some interesting interplay.
Back to that unit. Picture an imaginary circle around it. That represents how far it can move in a given turn. Let's also imagine that your artillery is exactly one turn flight time away from hitting anywhere near it. There may be terrain nearby. If that's the case, your job actually just got easier, especially if you also have units in the area. Cover is a powerful tool, and if given a chance to have partial cover and a full TMM, anybody I know jumps at it. This is exactly what makes predicting artillery easy.
Keep imagining that circle, and picture, after that unit moves next turn, which direction it will go. You don't have to be precise to the quarter inch, just within an inch or two. Knowing your opponent also helps, but it's arguably not necessary for a good barrage. Drop your shot wherever on that circle you see that unit going the next turn. There's no real need, 90% of the time unless your opponent knows what's getting shot at ahead of time, to try to measure and guess how far along that line it will move. As mentioned before, Alpha Strike makes moving easy, and makes moving at full speed easy. Predictably easy. It's still more difficult for faster things, but be on the look out for nice spots of cover within easy dashing range of things like hovercraft and scouts. Pay attention to places that will give your opponent a concrete advantage when engaging your troops, and then take it away from them with artillery.
That's the mechanics of artillery, and a brief snippet on how to use artillery with multi-turn flight times. But what units do you pick to bring along, and what sort of tactics should you filed them with? Well, this is going to be my favorite part of the article. As of this paragraph, this article has officially surpassed 2000 words, so that should tell you a little bit about how much I enjoy artillery in general. If this is my favorite?
So, what makes a good artillery unit? That, in large part, depends on what you want to do with it. I'll go over the three primary methods of using artillery first, and then go into how different kinds of artillery slot into that.
The first, and arguably the simplest, if not exactly the easiest method for utilizing artillery is have it truly off-board, or hang all the way in the back for the entire game. This keeps it the safest, but it also keeps it from being able to react as much to the changing battlefield. Shots must be made a turn or two in advance, and fire can't be shifted quickly from one flank to another as the tactical situation demands. This is, by far, the most conservative way to play artillery, but it does keep them relatively safe from direct harm. This is the method I like least. Unless you're taking special care to keep them moving without actually advancing up to the front, they're also far and away the most vulnerable to counter-battery fire, and enemy aircraft ruining your day. It requires a lot of baby sitting to keep mostly safe, and that draws still more away from your lines. This is the method I'd use if your games are gargantuan affairs, and you have 200-300 points of artillery alone, where weight of fire is more important than accuracy or response time.
The other two methods are similar, but differ primarily in how the artillery units react to the enemy. The second is to advance the artillery behind the main attack force, keeping the front within single-turn flight times. This artillery is much more reactive than predictive, dropping artillery with deadly accuracy exactly where it's needed on a turn by turn basis. Being this close to the front generally minimizes the risk of taking shots from enemy aircraft, which will have to expose themselves significantly in order to go after your guns, but it makes it much easier for enemy headhunters to engage given a brief gap in the lines. This is my personally preferred method of providing support to my units, but it definitely takes a different kind of artillery unit to pull it off. The main draw is the same-turn flight times, and being able to adjust immediately to enemy positions without having to guess where they'll be next turn. This particular method works best with more mobile pieces, and those with a bit more armor than the rear echelon pieces that exemplify off-board artillery.
The final way to play artillery is by far the most aggressive. This uses similar types of units to the previous one, and keeps up right there on the front. The entire point of this particular method is to use the fact that non-infantry units with the ART special can make a weapon or physical attack the same turn they make an artillery attack. These units thrive at medium range, engaging with their own guns and providing artillery support for their lance on the front lines. It's particularly satisfying to open up holes in an enemy's armor, and follow up with another attack to start generating critical hits, or to use an Arrow IV launcher to land an Inferno IV in the line of the enemy's approach, forcing them to slow down or take damage in order to get good positions. These artillery units are the very definition of close fire support.
Those are the three basic ways to use artillery, largely split between just how involved you want them to be in the main battle. I, personally, prefer the latter two, but then again I'm recklessly aggressive. There are artillery pieces that work best for one or the other, and that's where we're finally getting in this article. Artillery as it relates to force composition.
Rear echelon pieces are cheaper, pound for pound, than forward acting, mobile pieces. Movement and TMMs can inflate the cost of a unit, and so do extra armor. The fearsome Mobile Long Tom is 28 points, and offers the only canon method to get a genuine Long Tom artillery piece on the table in Alpha Strike. The Sniper artillery piece is 32 points, and has enough armor to shrug off a few counter-battery shots or air strikes. Also of particular note here are infantry towed field artillery guns. They're generally too heavy to transport with anything short of a dropship or small craft, but they're cheap as hell and their artillery works just as well as any one else. The pieces you generally want for off-board and rear area pieces are these ones. They're inexpensive, they have a good throw weight, and they don't need to move quickly or often.
Units that work well for the other two methods generally tend to perform similarly. The primary difference is in application. These pieces, typically 'Mechs or super heavy tanks, carry enough weapons and armor to take fire on the front lines and provide close fire support. 'Mechs like the Catapult -C3 and -C5, the Anvil -8M, Loki Mk II B, and Urbanmech -AIV embody these units. Also very, very useful for the easy of transport is the Centaur Battle Armor. Being able to drop a 1 point template just about anywhere on a normal map in a package that can be carted up near the front by your own 'Mechs before they engage is invaluable, and one of my personal favorite artillery units.
Organizationally, these ones are a bit of an odd duck. You can still put them in Artillery Fire Lances and use Oblique Artilleryman to make your artillery fire more accurate and drift less. This is good for units just behind the lines, as you're less likely to hit your own units. The other way you can do it is to group your artillery units, particularly units like the aforementioned Catapults and Anvil, into your line combat lances. They won't get bonuses to their artillery attacks, but fitting one into a Battle Lance gives you a reroll on a particularly crucial shot, and gives your opponent things that are more immediately threatening to shoot. Plus, you're close enough that you can then turn to engage whichever units lost armor that turn and start dealing crits, or you can open up holes for your lance to capitalize on. Fitting one of those units into a Striker Lance lets your artillery close the gap to same-turn flight times quicker, and helps manipulate the range to keep your unit out of danger, or behind cover when an indirect shot will be easier than a similar direct fire shot at a weakened or hard to hit target.
That takes care of organization and actual use of artillery, so now let's get into alternate ammunition and other things you can do with artillery. Cluster ammo, in particular, is probably the most useful alternate for your pieces to carry. Not only do you gain increased splash for your shots, making a difficult shot more likely to do damage anyway by accounting for splash, you can also use it to damage more units and gain increased damage output in general. It's particularly useful for parking multiple vehicles at range.
Units firing cluster ammunition may also engage in a special type of attack, targeting airborne aerospace targets. Of important note, an Artillery Flak attack may be made against an airborne aerospace target that is in the Inner Ring, not just the central zone or over the ground map. Shots against aerospace targets that are not in the central zone are made at a +2 to hit, but that's still more teeth than anything else on the ground has against air support. If the attack hits, it does damage as if the aerospace fighter had been in the center template of a hit. That is to say, minus a point of damage, down to 0* out of a Thumper. An attack that misses explodes harmlessly. Each attack must be targeted at a single craft, and does not splash.
An important thing to note! If a fighter is hit by an artillery flak attack, it must still make a control roll for taking damage. If the fighter is in the Inner Ring, it falls back to the central zone. This
does not count as ending its movement in the central zone, and it cannot make a ground attack the next turn. Aerospace units (that cannot hover, which is most of them) must move at least one space on the radar map per turn if they're not engaged, and unless they can move two spaces per turn (requires a MV of 10a at least) they can't actually get back into the inner ring and then to the central zone in the same turn. It's possible, with some luck, to keep a fighter falling between the Inner Ring and Central Zone in perpetuity, unable to conduct an attack run.
Air Defense Arrow IVs work similarly, though as written there's some... distinctly odd interaction with range bands. Aerospace fighters conducting attacks on the ground map are treated at short range, targets in the central zone that are not currently over the ground map are at medium, and targets in the Inner Ring are treated as long range. Then, on top of that, the attack is made at a -2 to hit. The damage, as listed in my copy of Alpha Strike, is 2 points. I don't see any errata for that as it stands, but it doesn't seem to have been changed with the general decrease in artillery damage seen in recent errata.
Homing and Copperhead rounds work effectively identical to each other. A unit must be successfully hit with a TAG attack in order to be struck by a Homing or Copperhead round, but if the TAG was successful, then the target number is 4, period. Damage listed is 2 points, which is likewise not touched by errata as far as I can tell. If a Copperhead or Homing round misses, it explodes harmlessly away from the fight, and does not drift or splash. This is the shell to use if you're concerned about hitting your own, or if your artillery unit has TAG for itself. You don't have to declare the attack until after you've resolved the TAG, so you can hedge your bets, so to speak, on whether you can get things done with little collateral, or if that's not going to be possible. It's the most conservative ammunition to use with artillery, but also the one with the least... well, not potential, because you can still hurt something with it, but it spreads the pain the least.
The other munition that I have much experience with is the Inferno IV. Inferno IV missiles hit or miss like any other round, and drift on a miss. Wherever the POI ends up being, the ground in a 2” template (sound familiar?) is set ablaze as if it were on fire. Anything that travels through that area suffers one point of HT, which includes taking damage if they're a vehicle or infantry unit that doesn't have Fire-Resistant armor. This fire is treated as a regular fire, including the rules for spreading it, and the rules for smoke as a result.
Flechette ammunition deals double damage against conventional infantry and wooded terrain, Smoke ammunition drops a 6” template of smoke, regardless of weapon used. The inner 2” is heavy smoke, the rest out to 6” is light smoke. Good for obscuring LOS or giving your units some cover from aerial attacks or attacks they can't respond against. Illumination rounds cancel out any darkness modifiers, if you're using those, in a 6” area, and burn for 10 turns but do no damage.
Thunder and Thunder-Active are available only to Arrow IV launchers, and land 2” minefields with a density of 2 wherever they hit (and they do scatter on a miss). That's not a huge minefield, and 2” is pretty easy to go around in Alpha Strike, so I'm not convinced of the utility of them, particularly in a game where facing and direction changes are free. They definitely lose a lot of the luster compared to their ilk in the standard game.
That... well, I think that covers just about everything. How artillery works, tactics for using it, units that fit those tactics and how to organize them, and finally alternate artillery abilities and ammunition.
A big thanks for everyone who reads this articles. They mean a whole lot to be able to write and have the support. This is one of my favorite things in Alpha Strike, and I'm happy to be able to put all this down on paper. Up next: the Malak, on Friday.
