Artillery Observers

[Smokey]

After an off-board artillery barrage has been called in and executed, is the observer removed from the game?

[Stuart Harrison]

No. He’s still a unit in the game and can be used for other tasks, such as sitting on an objective, attacking other units (shooting or assault), boarding a transport to man a weapon etc.

[martyn simpson]

I’m a bit surprised by this answer as it assumes there is a difference between Artillery observers and spotters for on table guns and mortars. The Bolt Action errata seems clear about spotters. Maybe there is an intention for there to be a difference?

>Note that spotters are always ignored for the purpose of victory conditions
(e.g. they cannot capture/control/hold objectives and areas of the table,
move out of the table to score points, etc).

[Stuart Harrison]

“I’m a bit surprised by this answer as it assumes there is a difference between Artillery observers and spotters for on table guns and mortars”

There is a huge difference between observers and spotters. Despite similar ‘In Real Life’ practice, they are totally different in game concepts.

Spotters are a 10 point upgrade to indirect fire units which provide another point to draw LOS from when they fire. They don’t get their own die and have to use the unit’s die if you choose to move them, leaving the unit unable to act that turn. They have a lot of restrictions on what they can do, detailed p71. They also get to count as ‘Down’ unless they’ve used the unit’s die.

Observers are units in their own right with an additional ability to (once per game) call in an off board asset. They have their own dedicated die and they can do anything else that any other infantry unit can do (unit special rules for the other units aside).

[invisible officer]

The real observer was an expert. Specially trained and normally doing nothing else. A spotter was just an ordinary man that had a base training in gun spotting. Every officer and NCO had that ability in the big armies.   So the different rules are historically correct.

 

But  armies tended to misuse specialists. Not just in desperate situations.   Well mostly.  My own father was in WW II an artillery observer. Following the destruction of the guns he was used as infantry.   Badly wounded and POW.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 4 weeks ago by invisible officer.

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