The Role of Artillery

We have spent a lot of time today considering the role of artillery in napoleonic battles, and consequently in our wargames. This is as a result of the many suggestions resulting from Good Dice - Bad Dice.

We have decided that the role of artillery should only be softening up the enemy prior to the main attack. That at long range the guns should be mostly ineffective, and even at short range should not be a battle winner.

Looking through previous wargames it was obvious that the position of the artillery was critical, and everything else was deployed around it. It was also that we tended to place our artillery opposite each other, and engage in a duel. The winner would almost always win the game, because the side with artillery could inflict great casualties on the infantry as they approached.

So we have changed Page 7 of the rules dramatically.

All of this makes sense in theory, but it is only in play testing that we usually find the error of the theory. So we will be using the new rules over the next couple of weeks to see how well they work.


So Page 7 of the wargame rules has been amended drastically.