Artillery effects

[Montecuccoli]

Hi to all,
today our first play with BLB. We had 8 btg, 8 horse sq. and 8 dragoons sq. per part, more 2 light guns on one side and 2 Field artillery on the other.
We have not finished the scenario for the time, but it was only a very first taste of the rules. All was OK and fun. The only thing that made us quite perplexed is the effect of the artillery fire. A field gun (in reality 2 pieces or so) in a single shot at short distance made 4 casualties on an enemy squadron! (there is a 70% to hit per each dice - on four dice!). Personally I am not an expert on the period, but as it is written on page 9 "Artillery ... it provides occasional casualties and an high nuissance..." I expected a someway lesser effect. (I was the shooter, so better for me... )
Where are we wrong?

Ciao,
Luca

NB Moved here from another Topic...

[J Anderson]

Hi

The moral of the story should be don`t let anything get within short range of artillery as it will fire canister or something similar unless you are charging it (minus modifier for charging cavalry) and a roll to see what range effect it will fire at if it stands and chooses to fire. If you survive and charge home the artillery will get minced. Hope this helps.

Jim

[barr7430]

Luca,

of course this would be possible if the target was cavalry at short range and the gun had shot at them before!
If it was a first time target the odds would be 10% per dice, if at a standard range probably no more that 30% per dice.
Remember that each game turn is roughly 20 minutes so the 140 casualties are not simply the discharge of two guns once only per gun. The gunners may have fired 10-15 shots each at short range. The target will not have taken 140 dead but this actually represents 140 men unable to continue the fight... scared, dazed, wounded, helping comrades, dead horse with useless rider, running away and of course some dead men.

Hope this puts it into perspective.

I have one question though....
what the devil were the cavalry doing within short range of a gun if NOT charging it????

[Montecuccoli]

Luca,

I have one question though....
what the devil were the cavalry doing within short range of a gun if NOT charging it????

It was just arrived at that position, ready to charge next move... No space enough to charge before, 'cause another units in front of it was charging another enemy... Or just a stupid choice by the player... exactly I cannot remember....
Anyway it was at about 8-9" so the short range was just reached...

Thanks to all.