how to deal with gun batteries - what's your advice
Just thought I'd throw this up for general discussion after a recent game What are your suggestions for dealing with your opponents gun batteries? Assuming that the brigade or part of the enemy line that you are attacking contains a 4 gun battery how do you recommend tackling it? Now something has to take casualties and so it seems inevitable that some poor infantry battalion will cop it in the neck while the rest of the brigade attack the surrounding infantry. In general there's no way of avoiding a single battery as you'd never press home an attack if you continuously shy away from a part of the enemy line that contains one. Trying to tackle a grand battery is an entirely different matter and only for the foolhardy

Regardless of method, make sure you have your lucky dice! In restricted space artillery seems very hard to dislodge. Perhaps with more open terrain it is easier to take out the support units or attack a flank.

If you can, use a combination of skirmishers and Grande Bande. Guns are pretty decent bits of kit, but are always small in terms of figure count, shoot the gunners! A French GB at effective range will always win a firefight with a British 3 gun battery. You do need a couple of GBs if you are up against a Russian 6 gun battery though :roll: I'd tend to insist on using artillery ammo rules as well (pinched from RMD) - a battery gets 12 rounds of ball and 4 rounds of canister, half what is left if you get a "low ammo" roll when firing. Stops the gunners blasting away hoping for a double 6 roll.

Rudorf, In the end I did just that (I think I saw someone - possibly you do this in a Friedland refight). In fact, the firing from the skirmishers and later the grande bande did little, but the GB then charged the artillery (Austrian 12#). This was about my only successful charge of the game. :cry: Anthony

Playing in 6mm we have more space to deploy and maneouvre in so guns hurt but aren't as devastating. I use skirmishers to cover my troops and try to ping away at the guns. This I try to combine with a flanking unit of cavalry to draw the guns fire away. Cavalry doesn't always survive but my foot troops tend to get across the table and stuck in unscathed. Doesn't pay to be a cavalryman in my army :lol:

Interesting to hear that playing GdB in 6mm is different to other scales. I play 15mm for GdB but am planning to use 6mm for Grande Armee. I might have to try GdB at this scale. Despite VB setting up a large table, three BUAs and a wooded area led to our units being kept centralised. Anthony

We play at a local games club on a Friday night so we keep the forces smallish at about a division per side plus cavalry support to get the games finished. Fits nicely onto a 6' by 4' table with woods rough ground and built up areas, while still having manouvre room. Playing on the 8' x 5' table is better as it gives about a foot of room either flank for an attack to manouvre into and also gives you some depth behind the lines to rout into and not fly straight off the table. I still love my ABs because I can really go to town on the uniforms.