Hello again, dear reader. After last week’s epic post about artillery in Albedo, I did promise a follow-up with a bit more detail on organisation, as well as some unit cards.

So, here we are. In this article, I’m going to talk a bit about artillery organisation in a general sense, then talk about the sorts of support available in each era of our game. Finally, I’ll talk about the specific units and how you can represent them with out miniatures.

Artillery Organisation

Why am I talking about this? Well, that’s an excellent question that I’m not going to answer at the moment. All things being equal, you will find out later in the year. For now, you could just put it down to my undiagnosed OCD.

Individual weapons have a crew, which usually consists of a gunner, loader, one or more ammunition bearers, and a squad leader who gets to yell “Fire” and point towards the horizon, often while holding binoculars. Depending on the unit, they will have one or more vehicles, and the weapon may actually be self-propelled.

Regardless of the actual weapon, each of these instances is considered to equal a squad, and using the rule of four that is common in these rules, four of them make a platoon. Three platoons, plus a support platoon make a company sized formation, which because this is artillery, is called a ‘battery’. Why critters use a word from Mediaeval French is probably down to the Creators.

The battery support platoon contains various specialists. There’s a logistics element for bringing ammunition and supplies up to the battery site, and an engineering element to help dig holes and construct fortifications. Finally, there are forward observer teams, who have the exciting job of going out ahead of the gun line and finding suitable targets.

Batteries are classified as light, medium or heavy, depending on the calibre of the weapons they use. Batteries are grouped into battalions, which are a group of three batteries and a support company. An artillery regiment will often contain a battalion each of light, medium and heavy weapons, as well as battalion assets that support the whole organisation. There are lots of moving parts.

This is an example of the organisation for a HomeGuard mortar platoon, taken from the imminent Deep Green campaign supplement.

Artillery by Era

As you know, in the Albedo game we use four phases to group the historical development of armed forces. To recap, they are:

1. Formation.
2. Pre-Beii – before the battles to control the Beii system
3. Post-Beii – shaped by the lessons learned from the Beii campaign, and lasting until the end of the war
4. Modernity – post war armies, going into the current phase of ILR aggression

Each phase is characterised by advances in technology and organisational maturity. So, in Phase 1, for example, ConFed units are using civilian weapons and improvised APCs. The ILR became mature earlier, because they started the war… For this reason, artillery is not a thing in Phase I Tables of Organisation and Equipment (TOE). The ILR didn’t need it, because they usually had the elephant of surprise and the defenders didn’t have time to think about it.

In Phase II, HomeGuard units are starting to get organised. They are the ones who first introduce artillery, as a way to offset the numerical advantage of the ILR. HomeGuard artillery focused heavily on mortars, because they are simple and cheap to build, and it is easy to train inexperienced critters to use them effectively. From phase II, HomeGuard units feature medium mortars (90mm) at the company level, and vehicle mounted 120mm mortar batteries at the battalion level. Learning from this, the ILR adopted similar measures.

After a brief but unsatisfying experiment with 60mm mortars at the squad level (some of these weapons can still be found, but not many) they likewise picked up the 90mm mortar for company support. However, the ILR high command preferred to use free-flight rockets as battalion artillery, believing that the shock and awe factor of a barrage of rockets landing to be worth the slower reloading time.

By contrast, the nascent EDF did not see the need to provide extra fire support. Clearly, they argued, any EDF force would be supported by spaceships and ACV if they ever needed heavier weapons. Unfortunately, that prediction did not line up with reality, and as a result EDF troopers fought at a disadvantage in many campaigns until enterprising commanders figured out the best way to use their issued Portable Missile Launchers in an artillery role. While effective, this was expensive in terms of ammunition used.

Because of this, if EDF forces weren’t simply raiding or patrolling, local commanders would try to co-opt mortar tubes from HomeGuard units to fill the gaps. Combat reports made it obvious to the EDF command that there was an issue, and after the battle of Beii their preferred solution was the introduction of a range of gunships, as documented in the Albedo Sourcebook.

By the end of Phase III, HomeGuard Units are getting better at developing gun tubes, and quite often heavy artillery guns can be found, cheap and reliable, and able to deliver technical payloads if available. The ILR’s rocket focus has continued and as phase 4 begins, the ILR are introducing much smarter rockets, capable of precision strikes and extended range. All factions are experimenting with light drones to supplement forward observers, and tactics are well-practiced. Additionally, the EDF is experimenting with medium drones for air support, which are a cheaper and more flexible alternative to ACV fighters,

In the modern era (Phase IV+) medium drones are used by all factions. They have advanced AI and are capable of loitering and interdicting for a considerable period of time.

So – in summary:

• HomeGuard – Tube artillery
• ILR – Mortars and Rockets
• EDF – Gunship goes “brrrr”

Modelling Artillery

A good thing about ACP164 is that, as a skirmish game, you’re quite unlikely to find artillery on the board, so there’s no need to buy miniatures. Unlike some games, we don’t make allowances for firing siege weapons over open sights at all and sundry, so there’s no real value in having big guns on the board, except as objective markers.

If you really want to have your air strike fly over the board, we have an Aerodyne you can use. The LARC gunship is treated as an AFV rather than a strike platform. But otherwise, drones and airstrikes can use standoff weapons, or are treated as being too fast to bother putting on the board.

So, that leaves mini-drones and mortars. I have taken the time to create models for these that you can print out on a resin printer – you could use an FDM printer, but honestly, they are a bit small. In the future, we might look at making metal ones, and a greater variety of drones and launchers. But for now, here is the “Albatross” mini drone, it’s portable launcher, and a 90mm mortar.

It occurs to me that we probably also need a couple of new arms: Holding a mortar bomb, and maybe with a case of bombs. I’m not altogether certain that we have binoculars, either. As time permits, I’ll see what I can do to create those. As an aside, as we go along I will be hosting more useful files at the site albedopatrol.com. I’ve also set up a forum space there and will be developing it as a central place for ACP164 information.

Summary

So, in this article, I’ve looked at artillery organisation, and the way in which artillery developed over time in the canon (I did it again!) Finally, I’ve talked about modelling the likely artillery units that you might find on the board. I hope you find it useful!

In closing, I just want to quickly mention what’s happening this month.

Starting in the week of the 10th, we’re going to have at least 6 new vehicles ready to download from Sally 4th and Myminifactory. Some of this is my work, and some is the excellent work of Deniper Graves. I also expect that the Deep Green campaign book will be ready to download. We have a lot of plans for developing ACP164 this year, but in a real sense, they depend on you.

Thanks for reading.