French self propelled Artillery

[deadtorius]

My Austrian army has hit a bit of a snag lately, the ever sly Bathergut has devised a hard to counter tactic of placing his artillery in front a line unit and then (because he is much luckier at dice rolls) manages to prolong them forwards towards my Austrian line. End result is massive shooting dice. Also makes it hard to charge into the mess as its mass dice hitting on 4's if I try to charge into them. I did make a sacrifice charge in our last game with my Jaegers so that my Dragoons could hit the neighboring infantry unit without having to suffer cannon fire on the way in. The Jaegers retreated Wavering but the Dragoons destroyed the infantry unit that they hit, was a bit off angle so they hit on 5's not 4's
That was also one of the few Austrian successes in that game.

Anyway any suggestions on how to counter self propelled artillery that advances with the bloody French who can out range my poor Austrians? I am actually contemplating trying a cavalry based corps next time out....

[KendallB]

Light infantry in skirmish directly in front of the artillery. Keep the range at 2MU+1mm so nothing can interpenetrate and charge the skirmishers as they won't fit. The artillery has 6 dice needing 6s. Surely he isn't THAT lucky...

By the way, I have won (or at least not lost) with cavalry based armies, including pure cavalry forces. It certainly gives the opposition a headache!

[Blathergut]

Light infantry in skirmish directly in front of the artillery. Keep the range at 2MU+1mm so nothing can interpenetrate and charge the skirmishers as they won't fit...

While 2MU + 1mm is not enough room for 2 bases deep infantry, when the infantry charges through the artillery, the artillery may be pushed back up to one base depth to make room (page 40, righthand column, 3rd bullet under "Interpenetrations are only allowed if:"). It only needs to be moved back 10mm to give sufficient room.

[Blathergut]

The risk with the light skirmishers is that they will be forced to evade back through other units and force them to test.

[Blathergut]

Normally, I run hussards behind the artillery. It has a much more enjoyable charge range!

[Blathergut]

**Goes back to painting his Italian horse artillery.**

[KendallB]

If he charges your skirmishers he masks his guns so you don't have to worry about them now!

I assume you run a mixed division with those hussars up behind the guns.

[Blathergut]

If he charges your skirmishers he masks his guns so you don't have to worry about them now!

I assume you run a mixed division with those hussars up behind the guns.

Or a separate cavalry division. The divisional commander takes control of one unit and an attached officer takes commmand of the second. That way, they may operate independently of each other, on different parts of the battle field. The hussars are free to charge through any artillery or any skirmishers or any infantry of their own division.

[hazelbark]

Heaven forfend he develops combined arms tactics.

The downside of what he is doing is he is limiting his frontage. I would suggest trying to sweep onto his flank, but Austrians rarely sweep.

The other piece is to advance on him with 2 6s and split his fire.

[Blathergut]

The Austrians always outnumber me. Every unit is large. Usually though, I split his fire because he's 3 bases wide and I'm only 2. I get to concentrate on one target with three units (with marginal dice off to the sides) while he splits between three.

[Blathergut]

The Austrians always outnumber me (especially with the Army of Italy 1809: no conscripts to fill up rear ranks!). Every unit is large. Usually though, I split his fire because he's 3 bases wide and I'm only 2. I get to concentrate on one target with three units (with marginal dice off to the sides) while he splits between three.

[deadtorius]

Which is why Austria has been running 2 bases wide by 3 deep lately. Unfortunately two games ago I only managed to make about 2 successful CMT's in the whole game and none of the successes were for second moves Austria advanced very slowly in that game, and it was the French who did the sweeping

[Blathergut]

If you thought that was self-propelled, wait until next time: guard horse artillery and veteran horse artillery! Now, whether the tiny elite force can do anything before the Austrian swarms swarm, remains to be seen. It'll be a challenge for sure!

[deadtorius]

Starts painting Austrian runners so his swarms can swarm quicker
Really should try to grab a reformed ally army with the Austrians shouldn't I.