skirmishers

[hankstiffler]

With a mere 5000 skirmishers the Union would have routed the entire Confederacy by the end of 1861. They are way too powerful in this game.

[TrebaolofArabia]

How's that? I just finished the Union campaign and loved the detach skirmisher mechanic, and I'd sometimes keep a independent skirmisher unit in a division, but they never seemed much more useful than to harass the edges of the opposing army or do reconnaisance. Is it like...you have that many skirmishers and you just juke around so much that the enemy army can't keep up and you slip in and take the objective? Or are they just raw killing machines and I didn't notice because they're always retreating after firing and I never used them to hold frontlines?

[hankstiffler]

Sorry, i was being scarcastic lol. The skirm seem to be far more powerful than what they would have been. scouting andpicking at the infantry. These guys can rout infantry

[hankstiffler]

I guess I just havnt figured out how to defend against them. Lined uo to 1500 infantry 150 skirm should be annhilated in one volley, instead they stand there trading volleys back and forth

[thewelshwizard *T*R*Y*]

I've never had skirmishers stand toe to toe. Fire a volley and withdraw. Or they get chased all over the map by an entire brigade. Detached skirmishers are fine. Just need to run a bit faster. Dedicated skirmishers and sharpshooters need a greater range and arc of fire. With maybe fewer casualties.

[uhamster9]

They already run faster than cavs :^)

[thewelshwizard *T*R*Y*]

Everything runs faster than Cav :)

[hankstiffler]

I think they games misunderstands what skirmishers were all about. I dont believe in the middle of major battles groups of skirmishers were running around the divisions fighting.

[aultridia]

It is true, skirms OP.

The first thing you do in any battle is detach skirmishers, since that instantly upgrades 10% of your men to hero status. They hit harder, take less damage, move faster, and recover more quickly. Plus it makes it easier to flank enemies and guard your own flanks. Another trick is that after skirmishers have taken casualties, you can re-attach them to their main unit, and then de-attach them again to refill their ranks. This will replenish the ranks of your heros.

Skirmishers need some sort of flaw or weakness in order to address this.

[chesspaladin]

I agree with hankstiffer that the skimishers in UGCW are quite different than those in the actual war. But An important question: Would the game be better with or without UGCW type skimishiers?

Imperfect though they are, I think that they add the the tactical richness of the game,

[hankstiffler]

good quetion, I hate enemy skirm, but I had a few suggestions on using my own. I was serverly under utilizing mine lol. Seems much easier to route your enemies when you have a ton of them running around

[Racer D]

Skirms were definitely used in the middle of big battles - I am not an ACW expert but at Waterloo skirmishers were all over the place picking off enemies.
There is a story of a French skirmisher that used the body of a wounded cav officer to hide behind. During his sharpshooting tgey had a nice conversation for a while but when the French retreated he bid farewell and went off.

It's more that at Waterloo they seemed to be acting independently without much cohesion.

The goal was to create confusion in the enemy by for example taking out officers. Maybe a brigade will lose cohesion and morale when a sniper takes out the commander, and maybe a brigade will then rout...

[gothicform]

Skirmishers are there picking off enemies... but I don't get it. I have combined units of infantry fire into skirmishers who have no cover at all and each volley kills only a few. The skirmisher group will go down from say 200 to 50 before they rout! Meanwhile the skirmishers can fire a couple of volleys into each of my units, in cover, in turn, and they will rout.

Whilst we're at it, why can't I take them down with cavalry charges like would actually happen. They seem to outrun my expensively equipped heavy cavalry with ease, shoot them too, and cause them to rout.

[hankstiffler]

thats what I was getting at. Skirmishers are 500% too powerful. You can have 2000 close range infantry fire into open field skirm and only a few die.

[Zapp Brannigan]

I'm sure the lower casualty figures for skirmishers when they receive a volley is to reflect that skirmishers fought from behind cover. Even in open ground a skirmisher would lie on the ground to try and avoid a volley. Starting in the Napoleonic Wars, skirmishers were the beginning of modern infantry tactics. Not standing in formation, using camo (such as it was), and hiding behind cover or hugging the ground.

That said, I do think the skirmishers are a bit OP in the game. Skirmishers shouldn't be quite so deadly to massed infantry unless they have repeater rifles. The game also doesn't reflect one of the primary missions of skirmishers, which was to pick off officers. So maybe they nerf the overall damage a bit but buff the unit's ability to wound/kill officers? Or maybe reflect that by an increased impact on unit morale from sustained skirmisher fire?

[ThanksGivingTitty]

I feel that skirmishers are basically guerrilla fighters who aim to kill/incapacitate.(sic) A small group of men whose tactic is to shoot/run/hide/reload/shoot again is basically what I think of when I think of them.