The following was published as an extracts from FAQs on the Nunawading Wargamers Assoc. DBx site. Question: Is artillery in DBM worth it? Artillery is useful for a number of reasons: It is great if your opponent sets up in a defensive position. It can be used to deny areas of the battlefield to your opponent. It can be used to destroy troublesome enemy elements (El, WWg, Generals) Troops don’t count (S) against artillery, and in comps there are a lot of (S) troops. It has a long range. The key to using Art(S) is to deploy them correctly and to move them early in the game. With my Ottomans the Art are usually deployed in the centre with the CinC and they are moved as far forward as possible in the first turn. T hey can then form a support platfor m for light horse to harass the enemy. By running your light horse 400-500 paces in front of the artillery you can often draw enemy troops into range of the guns and then withdraw your LH. They also make it harder for the enemy to redeploy from one flank to another or to reinforce troops under attack. Ar tillery can also be used to fire across the front of a defensive line of troops or across the path of attack of your own troops (which is great for dispersing enemy skirmishers trying to slow your advance). In general don’t line up the artillery in the same direction as your army is facing. By splitting the artiller y into two groups it is possible to advance one group while the other group is ready to fire. You can then fire to their front. Art(S) may seem to cost a lot of points but if the enemy wants to destroy them then they will have to commit many more points (and PIP's) to ensure success. They can try and mask them with skirmishers but this can be PIP intensive. I usually try an attack the enemy skirmishers with my own LH. If the enemy reinforce their skirmishers than pull back the LH and blast away at their reinforcements. Against enemy who have large numbers of skirmishers it is perhaps better to deploy the artillery on the flanks. Here they can use their long range to break up groups of enemy skirmishers. The one thing that you must do is to stop enemy troops marching up to 200 paces from the artillery as this will negate their long range. Happy shooting! Back to Table of Contents -- Kriegspieler #10 To Kriegspieler List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Kriegspieler Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com