Written by Jacob X Sullivan
Sully here from the Golden Dragon Games design team. Today I am going to go over some of the most difficult rules systems in Marcher to help demystify the system. I will explain the history behind some of these mechanics and provide a detailed account of how they interact to give everyone a better understanding of how the game is played. Without further ado, let's go into our topic, perhaps the one I get the most questions about on the Discord: Artillery.
Musings on Artillery
If you are a seasoned wargamer who has experimented with multiple game systems, you are probably aware that game mechanics concerning ‘Artillery’ have a bad reputation in Wargaming, and with good reason. One of the largest complaints about Artillery is that it just realistically should not be present on a standard wargame battlefield. Real-life artillery (particularly in our niche of semi-WW2 gaming) is pretty far away from the front lines. With that being said, the truth of the matter is, artillery is cool, and so humble game designers such as ourselves are forced to grapple with arcane mechanics to implement on board artillery, because the models are too sick not to use on the map. The question then arises, how do you make artillery work differently from normal guns?
Many a brave game developer has found the solution to the above problem to be twofold: make the artillery not have to see its target to attack it, and make it attack things in a radius. This was our initial system for artillery units. Back when Marcher was in its pre-alpha phase, this is precisely how Artillery operated with no other caveats. It was a unit that could attack anything within range regardless of LOS, and when it attacked, it placed a Blast Token down and attacked all the units within range.
This was immediately problematic as artillery was able to outclass pretty much every weapon in the game due to it not relying on sight, and its ability to hit multiple Units at once. As a result, over the years, we as game developers have been forced to come up with a number of schemes to make artillery feel less accurate and more unique. The current edition's artillery rules are the result of many years of game development, and about 6 other botched versions of the Artillery rules. Even with all of these iterations and refinements, the current rules remain by far one of the most complicated systems in Marcher. With that said, we believe that the current system, despite its complexity, is a good solution to the many problems that board artillery poses to game designers.
Siege, Dial In, and Ordnance, Oh my!
Unfortunately for players trying to wrap their heads around Artillery in Marcher, there is a slew of special rules that go into successfully using these unique units. In Marcher, the rules governing Artillery are typically associated with Units with the ‘Siege’ Subtype, though this is not always the case. The main rules that govern siege Units are “Ordnance X” and “Dial In”. Let's review each rule to better understand how Siege units work in Marcher.
Ordnance X
Ordnance X:
During the Command Phase, decide if this Weapon is using Direct Fire or Indirect Fire. When making an Attack with this Weapon, each instance of it must select an eligible Blast Token, then resolve an Attack against every Unit within X" of that Blast Token. When all eligible Attacks have been resolved, remove the Blast Token. This Weapon is considered to have the High Explosive, Precise, and Suppressive Special Rules.
Let's start with Ordnance X, as it is the meat and potatoes of Siege Units.
During the Command Phase, there are a lot of potential rules happening other than just giving out order tokens. Unit abilities also trigger at this time, including the ones from Siege units like Ordnance X. Following the rules for Priority Player, you need to choose how your Unit with the Ordnance X keyword is going to be attacking during the action phase. As a result, in the Command Phase, when it is your turn to activate Unit abilities, you must choose if your Unit is using the “Direct Fire” or “Indirect Fire” special rules. Let's explain Indirect Fire.
Indirect Fire:
During the Command Phase, place a Blast Token for each instance of this Weapon within Range and no less than 12" from this Unit. When making an Attack with this Weapon, it does not need Line of Sight to select a Blast Token. When a Blast Token is selected, it Drifts up to X", where X is this Weapon's Ordnance value. You may spend Aim Tokens to raise or lower the number rolled for the Drift direction or for the Drift distance by 1 for each Aim token. Remove the Token after resolving the Attack.
So if you choose Indirect Fire, in addition to choosing this profile, you also need to put down your blast tokens in the command phase following the Indirect Fire rule. These Blast tokens are not unique to the Unit; they are just markers that you are going to use later when you make an attack. You can put these tokens anywhere within range, and you don’t need line of sight to place them. Make sure to place a token for each weapon with “ordnance” in your Unit, because oftentimes you have more than one artillery gun that needs to fire.
Once you place the blast tokens for all your ordnance weapons, there is nothing left to do in the command phase for these rules. When the Unit Activates during the Action Phase, it gets to use these blast tokens to make it an attack. You can choose any blast token in range (not just the ones your Unit placed in the Command Phase) when you are making an attack with an Ordnance weapon. Due to the nature of Blast Tokens, you need to resolve each attack made by an Ordnance Weapon one at a time. Here is the process for resolving these attacks:
- Select a Blast Token within Range
- Resolve the “Drift” of the token by using a drift ring
- Resolve the Attack against all Units within X Inches of the token, where X is the X value in the “Ordnance X” Special Rule
- When you resolve these attacks, they have the High Explosive, Precise, and
- Suppressive Special Rules. (Damage Spills over, Can’t be Obscured, Applies a Suppression Token)
💥Things to keep in mind: Blast Tokens do not discriminate between enemy and friendly Units. The Attack will target all Units in range, regardless of their affiliation. Also, when the Unit is targeted for an attack by the blast token, it can take a reaction, meaning that the drifting happens before the Unit reacts, making it pretty easy for a Unit to fall back away from a blast token.
Direct Fire
Direct Fire:
When this Weapon is selected to make an Attack, place a Blast Token for each instance of this Weapon within Range and Line of Sight. You must select these Tokens to resolve Attacks with. This Weapon is considered to have the Inaccurate Special Rule.
Mercifully, Direct Fire is much easier. If you select the Direct Fire profile in the command phase, your siege Unit does not have to place any Blast Tokens during the command phase. Instead, when your Unit makes an Attack, it places a Blast token down within Range and Line of Sight. That Blast Token does not drift and instead immediately attacks all Units within X inches, where X is the X value in the Ordnance X special Rule.
In addition to having the downside of needing Line of Sight, these Attacks also have the “Inaccurate” special rule, meaning they have -1 to hit in the evasion check, and they can’t be modified with aim tokens. They do still benefit from the High Explosive, Precise, and Suppressive Special Rules as they are still Ordnance Weapons. Much like before, each Ordnance X weapon places down its own direct fire blast token, and these tokens do not discriminate in their targeting, hitting all Units within range of the token placed.
Dial In X/Y
With Ordnance out of the way, let's talk about the other big mechanic governing Siege Units.
Dial In X/Y:
During the Command Phase, set the Dial In Counter to 0. Each time a Unit activates, tick the Counter up by one. If a Unit performs 3 or more Actions or uses a Difficult Action, tick the Counter up an additional time. Until the Counter reaches X, this Unit has the Cumbersome Special Rule. If this Unit is a Battery, its score to reach is increased to Y instead.
Dial In is a fun mechanic used to restrict when a Siege Unit is allowed to activate. Due to the Cumbersome rule, a Unit with Dial In is unable to activate until all other Units without Cumbersome have activated. Luckily for the Unit with Dial In however, the Unit can become Cumbersome if the Dial In counter “ticks up” to the desired number.
Essentially, each Unit with Dial In has an X and a Y value indicating what the target number is for the “clock” to count up to before the Unit loses the Cumbersome keyword. The X value is used for the target number if the Unit is a single carriage Unit. If the Unit is a battery, the Y value is used. If the Unit is not a battery, you can ignore the Y value.
To “tick up” the dial in counter, you need either a Unit to Activate, or a Unit to perform 3 or more actions / a difficult action. This is pretty achievable since it counts both your own units and your opponent's. As soon as the Dial In Counter reaches your Target number for your Unit, that Unit loses Cumbersome for the rest of that round. At the start of each Command phase, the Unit regains Cumbersome, and you reset the Dial In counter to 0.
Other Artillery Rules
Now that the main Siege Rules are covered, let's go over some other rules that are common among artillery.
Setting Up!:
This Unit may not be selected to Activate until another Friendly Unit has Activated. If the Previous Unit selected to Activate in this Army had this Rule, this Unit may not be selected to Activate. This Rule may be ignored if all remaining Friendly units have this Special Rule or the Cumbersome Special Rule.
Setting Up replaces the “Dial In X/Y” rule for Units. It is a different way to restrict when a Unit can activate and is typically seen on Mortar Teams to let them activate a little faster than normal Artillery Units.
Drift:
Before the start of the Game, both players must select a table corner to be North. When placing a Drift Ring, the 9 must always point North. If you forgot to do so at the start, ask a friendly, impartial stranger which side of the board feels most ”North”, this is now North. When a Token is selected to Drift, place a Drift Ring around it and roll a D10, and then move it D5 inches in the direction of the arrow that matches the rolled number. On a 1, if the Token is for Gas or Smoke, it dissipates; if it is Blast, your Opponent may choose a direction for it to be moved, on a 10, it stays in place.
Drift is a mechanic put in place for several tokens, including Blast tokens placed with the “Indirect Fire” rule. The Drift ring is placed facing north, and you roll a D10. The token then ‘drifts’ in that direction, D5 inches.
(Note: the game dev team is currently in talks to change it to drift the ordnance X value instead to simplify it and save a step, but that has not been implemented as of this blog post)
Bombard X:
After resolving an Attack with this weapon, make a Bombard Check for each Terrain Feature that was within the radius of that Attack’s Blast Token. When rolling Bombard Checks for this weapon, add +X to the check.
Bombard Check:
For each level of cover this terrain feature has, roll a 7+ check. If all checks are successful, apply a Bombard Token to this Terrain Feature.
Bombard Token:
For each Bombard Token a Terrain Feature has, its Cover Level is reduced by one. If a Terrain Features Cover Level is lowered to 0, it is destroyed and removed from the battlefield.
Bombard is one of the ways that Units can destroy terrain features in the game. Many Ordnance X weapons also have the Bombard X rule. Note that if a terrain feature is destroyed with a unit inside it, that Unit has to take a “Bailout” check with the type of Bailout being determined by that Terrain Feature's initial cover score (e.g. a heavy terrain feature that is destroyed is a dangerous bailout, medium is a normal bailout, light is a safe bailout). These rules are explained in detail in the terrain section.
Adjust Coordinates:
Select a Friendly Blast token, move it up to 3". If this Unit has more than one weapon with Ordnance X, move Tokens equal to the number of weapons with Ordnance X.
This is an action on the Siege Units Action list. It lets them move blast tokens around. Note, you can give this action to other units by taking the Radio upgrade.
Fixed Elevation:
Cannot Use Direct Fire
Limited Elevation:Cannot Use Indirect fire
These are self-explanatory, but basically, they are a way for us to restrict the way some weapons can interact with the Ordnance X special rule.
Concluding Remarks
Whew! I am tired after that one, but I think that about covers everything having to do with artillery. Unfortunately, this system is a bit of an eldritch abomination, but hopefully, this guide helped clear up how all of the rules work together to build out the broader artillery ecosystem. Until next time, Keep Marching On!
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