AA 1914 - Artillery Duels ?

[Arreghas]

Been trying to think of rules that have an interesting effect without becoming convoluted. One thing that came to mind was the idea of “Artillery Duels”. Basically, in a contested territory, instead of making a full attack, you could elect to use your artillery to bombard the enemy position with just your artillery.

You would select the number of guns you want to use, attack with a -1 penalty (so hits are on a 2 or less instead of a 3). You can choose to launch your fighters to gain air superiority and hit on a 3. The defender then chooses whether or not he will reply and with how many guns and if he sends fighters to challenge your air superiority.

The catch would be that artillery units and fighters used this way may not defend or attack for the rest of this turn. This basically means you are trading mobility and moves for a turn in order to try to soften up your opponent before a battle or maybe slow his buildup of forces.

Any thoughts on it ?

[MasterMark26]

@Arreghas I really like the rule. Here’s what I like the most

1. I think it would speed up the game
2. It helps minimize giant stacks of troops
3. It’s historically accurate. Concentrated artillery bombardments were used all throughout the war, especially by the Germans in Russia during 1915

I just have one suggestion. I feel like having the artillery not being able to battle if they do this will discourage people from doing this, so here’s what I propose:

1. When you choose to have an “artillery duel” artillery just hit at one less, like you said. You and the defender use all your artillery in the territory
2. Once per turn you may choose to have your artillery battle at their normal values. However, the roll at 1 until your next turn.