(Gnome Wars) Artillery Revisions

I had some quick thoughts on Thanksgiving. For starters, despite having not played a game of Magic in 5+ years, I can still follow a discussion with my wife's cousin over new cards and new decks concepts despite not knowing a single card. Same concepts: discard, big creature, millstone deck.


Now the important stuff.


In Gnome Wars, heavy mortars can absolutely decimate the battlefield. With line of sight, it can hit the board, it has a 3" diameter blast template, and has a 50% chance of killing a figure inside a heavy cover building yet no matter what distance the target is, deviation is the same (D6+4 inches). This basically ensures a successful hit since the deviation, even after 48+", varies from 5-10 inches max.

Here's my suggested revision that we'll be playtesting:


Heavy Mortar Deviation
Up to 24 inches 4+ d6 deviation
Up to 36 inches 6+2d6 deviation
Up to 48 inches 6+3d6 deviation
And so on until max range (or the size of the board) is reached.


Next, cannons in GW are an anachronism. You can only target solid objects (walls, buildings, tanks) and deviation is only left and right. Perhaps I didn't see those movies that has a cannonball or two decimate a closed formation. Truth be told, I wouldn't remove it from the game, because it has its place. I can imagine a small Swiss village pulling one of these old guns out of mothballs to defened against the German armor advancing across their fields. No changes

That brings me to the new addition to the Artillery section: Field Guns

Three man crew, ANY member of any force may operate a field gun. However any figure designated as crew reduces their melee to d6-1.
3" blast template (auto killed), out to 5" killed on a 6 on d6.

Range:
0-12" 4-6
12-24" 5-6 - Max Range to target Vehicles, no blast radius when used vs vehicles.
24-36" 6

As this is complicated enough, we'll make field guns to opposite to cannons in regards to deviation.

Deviation : Roll d6 (1-3 short, 4-6 long)
up to 12" : 2d6 inches
up to 24" : 3d6 inches
up to 36" : 4d6 inches

On top of that, I'm thinking of trying out a house rule: No more than 1 mortar, cannon, field gun, or heavy machine gun for every three units, UNLESS, you want an artillery battery. In that case all the figures must remain within 12" of the artillery at all times. (Consider this support and defense.)

Thoughts and input appreciated.