Epic: The Ikteros Pattern Basilisk

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Legions Imperialis army must be in want of artillery. So obviously my Solar Auxilia need some Basilisks. But there's a problem: I can't tolerate the miniature in Legions at all.

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The so-called Mars-Auxilia pattern Basilisk is an Earthshaker gun on a Leman Russ chassis. Or more accurately, it's an Earthshaker gun sticking out of a turretless, slightly extended Leman Russ hull, and I think it's ludicrous even for a Warhammer vehicle.

If you look at the layout of a Leman Russ, the engine simply has to be at the back of the hull. With the turret, sponsons, driver's position and hull gun, there's really nowhere else it can be. So on the Mars-Auxilia Basilisk, the breech where the gun is loaded, the fighting compartment around it, and the ammunition, would all need to be exactly where the engine is. This seems to be confirmed by the large door on the back of the vehicle.

I can't make this make any amount of sense, and even if it somehow did, that fighting compartment is just way too damn tiny. More to the point, that thing doesn't look anything like a proper self-propelled gun. Compare, for instance, the Armageddon pattern Basilisk, which does. I think I need to try to do something about this.

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The Basilisk hull is made up of a top and bottom bit.

I cut the top of the fighting compartment off with a hobby knife, which was fairly easy.

And drilled a little hole in the bottom hull.

I then glued together the two hull halves.

And glued a cocktail stick in the hole to hold the roof up at the proper height.

This makes for what looks like an appropriately sized fighting compartment to me.

It leaves a bit more to be filled in on the left side.

Then it was just a matter of a little green stuff work, finished off with some putty.

This, then, is the Ikteros pattern Basilisk. It's not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but I think it's perfectly adequate on the tabletop.

Produced on forge world Ikteros, home of Legio Venefica, the Ikteros pattern mounts a substantial fighting compartment on the Leman Russ hull, keeping the crew and their ammunition supply safe while allowing room to work the gun.

Ikteros pattern Basilisks are fielded by the Yat-Kha Shock Cohorts of the Solar Auxilia, who appreciate the vehicle's capacity for sustained operations in hostile environments.

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This was a fun little conversion to do! It may not be the prettiest thing ever, but I'm happy with it and it was a good learning experience with green stuff. I've already found a Solar Auxilia sub-cohort to be an excellent allied formation to include, and I'm definitely bringing the Basilisks in my next game as well.

Epic: Legions Imperialis Artillery

I've now played Legions Imperialis for the first time, and the main lesson I took from it is that I need more artillery. To be perfectly honest, I've thought that in every wargame I've ever played since my very first one, KOEI's L'Empereur (1991) on the PC. In L'Empereur, artillery fire would cause casualties to enemy formations and even break them, leaving them almost defenceless. It taught me to never fight a battle where I don't have artillery superiority, and I intend to take that lesson with me to Legions Imperialis.

So I painted the rest of my Rapiers.

With the release of Liber Strategia, we finally got Whirlwinds, and obviously I pre-ordered a box of them immediately.

They were quite quick to build, and I think I'm already developing a routine for building a Rhino chassis.

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So that's the artillery I've got. But what kind of artillery should I have?

When The Great Slaughter came out, Goonhammer ran the numbers on the Basilisk, and they're impressive. I quote:

a 12 model Basilisk company (430 points of models) can kill a mint Warhound Titan (330 points) with slightly better than average dice, or a Warhound without Voids on below average dice, or a Reaver or Warbringer without Voids on average dice. They can wipe out a 4 model Predator or Sicaran detachment on average dice, or 1 ½ Kratos.

And that's with the old points values: Basilisks actually got cheaper in Liber Strategia!

Now that we've got more artillery units, we can do a little comparison. Not counting Titans, the Mechanicum's only Barrage weapon is on the Karacnos Assault Tank, which is a self-propelled artillery system despite that name. The Legions Astartes can now field Rapiers with quad-launchers as well as the Scorpius and Whirlwind, while the Solar Auxilia have the same Rapiers, and the Medusa and Basilisk.

Surely, by the way, the mole mortar should have Barrage?

The Rapier quad-launcher, Whirlwind and Karacnos fire two shots out to 30", while the Scorpius gets two to 18"; the Medusa fires a single shot to 12" and the Basilisk has a massive range of 90" for its single shot. Everything hits on a 4+. Taking minimum ranges into account, firing at a target 8-12" away that they can see produces one hit per Rapier or Scorpius, 1.2 hits per Whirlwind because it has Rapid Fire, and 0.5 hits per Basilisk or Medusa.

When you convert that into points per hit with the Liber Strategia points values, here's what you get:

Basilisk • 65 points per hit • -2 save modifier

Medusa • 60 pph • -3 • Heavy Barrage

Legion Scorpius • 50 pph • -2 • Light AT

Karacnos • 40 pph • -1 • Ignores Cover

Whirlwind • 37.5 pph • 0 • Ignores Cover

Legion Rapier • 20 pph • -1 • Light

Auxilia Rapier • 15 pph • -1 • Light

So the Basilisk costs the most points per hit, but has superlative range and a pretty hefty -2 save modifier, which does make it excellent for deleting armored targets. On the Marine side, you can get two Whirlwind hits for the same points, while Legion Rapiers are almost half the price again and Auxilia Rapiers are less than half. Of course, the Whirlwind doesn't have the save modifier, but does ignore cover, while the Rapier shots are Light.

With its Light AT shots, the Scorpius is a bit of a special case, as it's going to be good against armored infantry, cavalry and walkers, especially in the open. So a dedicated anti-marine weapon system, which does make sense for something the fluff says was created for the Space Wolves. Similarly, the short range and Heavy Barrage rule on the Medusa also make it a more specialist weapon to use against troops in buildings at short range.

The Karacnos is the strangest artillery system so far. It's called a tank, and in addition to the mortar battery, it has two dice of Point Defence lightning locks and a shock ram with Wrecker (2) - and a CAF of +0. So a self-propelled gun that can ram buildings. It's actually slightly cheaper than a Whirlwind, can defend itself better, and has a -1 save modifier into the bargain. Bizarrely, it's a Battle Tank in the Mechanicum organization chart, so you could bring an Autokratorii Regiment with three of them for 120 points as an allied formation.

For the other systems, I think this isn't a bad balance of costs. Whirlwinds strike me as the best general artillery, while Basilisks are better against armor and Rapiers generate a lot more shots against Light targets.

The picture gets more complicated if you factor in that Rapiers also have a direct fire mode with Light AT and Demolisher, and as infantry they can use buildings for cover. Legion Rapiers have a better armor save and morale, and if they're Word Bearers, they can stay on First Fire even if their formation breaks.

The numbers here are calculated for directly visible targets, frankly because it was that much easier, and firing indirectly affects all the units the same way. The only real exception is Basilisks in artillery companies, or if you bring a Marauder Pathfinder. I think there should be more fire control options, so let's hope something gets introduced in the future.

In general, I think that for an Astartes army, a mix of Rapiers and Whirlwinds seems best, and the Solar Auxilia pioneer company is starting to sound like a really good allied formation to pick.

Speaking of the future, there's still plenty of artillery systems I hope make it into Legions. If I remember correctly, Imperial Guard artillery in Space Marine included the Bombard siege gun and Manticore rocket launcher, and 28mm Horus Heresy has the Arquitor Bombard for the Marines.

For myself, I think I'll be picking up some Mechanicum artillery next!

Team Yankee: Where on earth is the Soviet artillery?

I picked up the rulebook for Team Yankee on a lark over the winter break. Based on the novel of the same name, it's a miniature game that depicts combat between Soviet and American forces in a World War III being fought in Germany. Given the choice of those two sides, I'd definitely be inclined to pick the Soviets - if not for one major problem: artillery.

In Team Yankee, each Soviet battalion gets one battery of 2S1 122mm self-propelled howitzers, and you can also select one battery of divisional artillery, also 2S1s. Were you to select a division's worth of troops, you'd end up with 17 batteries, 102 guns in total, and the single divisional BM-21 rocket launcher battery.

As FM 100-2-3 The Soviet Army: Troops, Organization and Equipment (pdf) tells us, a Soviet tank division mustered four battalions of 2S1 122mm self-propelled howitzers, one per regiment, and an artillery regiment with two 2S3 (152mm) battalions and a rocket launcher battalion. That's a total of 72 2S1s, 36 2S3s and 18 BM-21 rocket launchers (FM 100-2-3, 4-13). In terms of raw numbers, then, Team Yankee is close to the organic tube artillery held by a Soviet tank division, but the 152mm guns of the divisional artillery have been replaced by 122mm ones. With only a single battery present, two thirds of the division's rocket launchers are missing.

There are two problems with this. First, this is a highly counterintuitive way to handle Soviet artillery. As Chris Bellamy (Red God of War: Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces. Brassey's Defence Publishers, London, 1986) reminds us, the basic Soviet fire unit was the battalion, not the battery (185-190). Divisional artillery in tank and motor rifle divisions was grouped into battalions at regiment level, not penny-packeted to the battalions, which would have been a decidedly un-Soviet thing to do. Motor rifle battalions did have an organic mortar battery, which is missing from Team Yankee. Individual artillery batteries charging around with battalions was not Soviet practice.

Also, what we've looked at so far is just the organic artillery, i.e. the artillery units permanently attached to the division. Team Yankee is set in West Germany, which would have been the crucible of any NATO-Soviet shooting war. There's just no way that a first-line Soviet division would be participating in an offensive in the key theater of operations with just its organic artillery. Bellamy estimates (194-197) that a division advancing along a main axis would be supported by or even allocated artillery from both the Army and Front level; in his hypothetical example, two battalions of 152mm SP or towed guns from the Army, and three battalions of SP guns, self-propelled mortars, 203mm guns and heavy rocket launchers from the Front, for a total of over 300 equipments. In other words, support from higher echelons would more than triple the artillery strength of a front-line division along a major axis of advance, purely in terms of numbers of equipment; because some of the higher-level artillery is heavier, the increase in firepower is actually even larger. To take a World War I comparison, Bellamy estimates that the artillery fire in support of a Soviet breakthrough would have been six times more intense than the initial German bombardment at Verdun.

The heavy breakthrough battle is a special case, though. The scenarios of Team Yankee are set in a more fluid post-breakthrough environment where NATO forces are conducting a mobile defence, and are apparently able to engage the Soviets in smaller engagements. In a sense, then, the whole premise of the game is that NATO strategy has been succesful, and the Soviets have failed to overcome their defences through mass and tempo. However, how would Soviet artillery have been deployed in mobile operations? According to Bellamy (199-200), while artillery control would have been heavily centralized during the breakthrough battle, during the exploitation phase afterward, artillery battalions would be allocated to forward maneuver battalions. In this special case, it might have been possible for individual artillery batteries to be allocated to companies, but at battalion level, a forward tank or motor-rifle battalion would certainly have been supported by an artillery battalion. Existing tactical protocols for meeting engagements, a form of battle the Soviets would have actively sought, deal with an artillery battery attached to the company forming the march security element, with the rest of the maneuver and artillery battalions close behind.

In both the heavy breakthrough battle and subsequent engagements, then, we would expect to see a Soviet maneuver battalion supported by at least a battalion of artillery, if not more. Using the Team Yankee formation charts, the first battalion-level formation would be supported by at most two batteries of SP guns. Adding a second battalion only raises this number to three, meaning that a two-battalion force would only have half the minimum number of artillery support we'd expect to find. Admittedly, the rules make it possible to select "companies" which are actually barely platoons, but at this point the nomenclature and organization become thoroughly confused. An easy solution would be to increase both the battalion- and division-level artillery, and include equipment like the 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortar, or even the 203mm 2S7 Pion.

Perhaps the most pointed example of the neglect, if not even disdain, the designers have for Soviet doctrine, is the scenario on pages 108-109, called "the Battle for Hill 214". The scenario depicts a Soviet motor-rifle battalion, reinforced by a handful of tanks but with no indirect fire support whatsoever, assaulting a US mechanized battlegroup in prepared positions over open ground. From the Soviet point of view, such an operation would be inconceivable, and the circumstances in which it would come about are exceedingly difficult to envision.

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Unfortunately, this neglect of artillery has more or less put me off trying the game, along with the price of the miniatures; at our friendly local gaming store, the 2S1 SP guns set you back 10€ each. One look at the prices for the Team Yankee models, which I didn't by any means think are all that unreasonable, forcefully reminded me of how cheap living card games are! But at the end of the day, while I was hoping for a combined arms battle on the Inner German Frontier, my impression is that this is a system more geared toward charging about in tanks. I'll probably take a look at the West Germany supplement, because if we're going to do Girls und Panzer, then why not go for a proper Panzer; however if they ever put out a rules supplement for the 1985 French army, I will definitely reconsider my decision to not get involved.