As the title says -- how do you roll? Tips? Advice?
I've seen talk of using artillery for fast-moving units, but I am assuming that is with "on board" artillery where the flight time is within the same turn.
Primarily I play the 3025-era, but it is all fair game. I haven't truly had the chance to use artillery yet so wanted to get a better grasp on it.
First off:
Scatter means Artillery is the only system in the game that has built-in friendly-fire rules. meaning you can dust your own guys on a bad roll, which sets your OWN 'area of denial' where you need to not have your units when it hits.
Second is that a single artillery gun is worse than useless-because scatter, because it's hard to hit anything with it, and because of the size of the dinner plate you're dropping with the bigger versions (Long Tom, Arrow IV standard mode, sniper to an extent) a single gun isn't a force multiplier for your side, it's a force
divider-you're more likely to hit your own guys, than the enemy when using a single tube. This is true whether you're using a single tube on-map, or off-map.
To use artillery effectively, you need to keep in mind the widest scatter range of your shot,
and stay away from that range...at least, with your infantry, light vehicles, or anything with thin armor or exposed criticals.
'good enough' is three to six tubes. That's what you're going to need to be actively more hazardous to your opponent, than yourself, and big maps. Forget the single-mapsheet duelling map, or even the double-sheet layouts, you need a map with
size and scale, six mapsheets or more if possible-so you can actually deny terrain and influence the battle with your artillery, as opposed to having a random chance to walk 20 point bombs on your own guys.
Tactics for dummies *(like me!)
1. Don't bring artillery in singles. you need a battery to be useful, so if you can't bring a battery, bring something else. Airstrikes are nice.
2.Don't try to use artillery in a phonebooth fight, you'll lose more often than you will without it.
3. Artillery is best used to influence the other side's movement choices, damage them before the merge, and create denial zones. A 'denial zone' is an area that is taking so much fire, that it will chew up their lighter units and hamper their heavier units. (this goes back to 1 and 2). to do this, requires planning your shots so that they fall in a general area in a rough pattern, and keep it falling. (means: bring lots of ammo, you're going to burn through it.) Typically, I use arty batteries to close off routes of approach or channel the enemy. This means putting down several rounds each turn into a given segment of the map that my guys aren't in.
4. Avoid going into your own battered zone. Yes, that crippled locust is a tempting target, he's also where you're dropping shell. do not send your infantry, tanks, or other light 'mechs in to finish him off. The scatter diagram is too random and too wide to do that without greasing your own guys.
Skirt
around the beaten zone, don't try to run through it, you'll fail.
5. violate (4) on offense...but shift your targets at the speed you're advancing, away from you, and toward him. In this case, you're applying something akin to a "curtain battery"-you're dropping arty rounds just ahead of your line of advance, which is another reason you don't want to overrun your own artillery shells, it does bad things to your forces, instead of your opponents.
If you're going to get close, try to make sure that if it DOES fall back toward you, you're only taking the splash and not the full.