Hah, I should have known... First Winchester

[Harry Flashman]

Alright so you may have noticed that First Winchester is deceptively tough: for some reason those bluecoats just seem more vicious.

Well they are: they're all armed with Harper's Ferry rifles!

I'm doing a campaign wherein we maxed Recon (getting it to 10 by Shiloh) in order to draw up Order of Battle documents for future reference, will post 'em here too.

[Kristoph42]

Nice, good goal. Iam sure many people will find it useful

[Dragoneer]

tbh i have more trouble with 1st winchester than any other battle before antietam, they have like 4 full artillery regiments covered in the city together with x amount of skirmishers and high number brigades, its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slaugther to even try to advance in by the timelimit, what i have had most success with, is actually going around the left flank

[[TFM]bobcat]

Originally posted by Dragoneer 4th Lee:

tbh i have more trouble with 1st winchester than any other battle before antietam, they have like 4 full artillery regiments covered in the city together with x amount of skirmishers and high number brigades, its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slaugther to even try to advance in by the timelimit, what i have had most success with, is actually going around the left flank

Winchester is actually pretty easy. All you have to do is have cav wipe out the skirms to keep the enemy blind and then divert down the left as you said. It is then just a matter of shooting the arty from the cover of the city and just sitting on the objective. If the enemy does decide to attack you, they will have to cross open fields while you get to hunker down in the city and then just watch as they waste themselves against your defenses

[Caramirdan]

Originally posted by Sheldon Cooper:

I'm doing a campaign wherein we maxed Recon (getting it to 10 by Shiloh) . . . .

Hmmmm, have you noticed if the Intelligence Reports are more accurate with maxed Recon?

[Harry Flashman]

Well you get a breakdown of every enemy unit before the battle starts, pretty useful! The 'captured messages' are still rather arcane...

[pfcjking]

at Winchester, I always take 1 full brigade of melee cavalry, 6 brigades of infantry, and 1 artillery.

swing your infantry out to the right side of the map and send 3 skirmishers and 3 infantry brigades straight into the town.

have your 3 other infantry brigades cover your flank by attacking that clump of trees.

once you are in the town, keep your skirmishers headed straight thru town to push out enemy skirmishers, then perform a "right wheel" with your 3 in-town infantry brigades and push the yankees out of town and capture that flag.

you're done. should cost about 1600 casualties.

[Americus Wickey]

I just go all the way down the left side, deploying skirmishers ahead & on my flank, then pivot toward the town. I send a few inf bdes close to the trees to attract attention, and the rest into town - led by skirmishers. It usually works well.

[Imbezile]

The problem with outmanouvering the enemy through west is that you´ll end up with very limited number of kills. Thus the AI force gains more from the battle than you do.

I prefer taking 3 cav 1 arty and 4 infantry brigades to the fight. Cav clears the AI skirmishers and cavalry (in very precise order). The infantry draws the AI infantry from the cover of the northern woods routs them to west and procedes to the cover in the town and the woods.

Taking the objective too early just limits the time to wipe AI out, so avoid it as long as possible. Unless the town is taken the battle goes on for quite a while after the timer has run out.

[Kristoph42]

That is why this game is so fun. Everyone fights the same battle differently. There is no right way or wrong way, just so you achieve victory without to much lose on your side, it is a victory.

I bring 6 INF, 1 ART, and 1 CAV. The Inf and Cav mop up the few Skm units in the begining. The INF set up just outside those northern clump of trees and draw the Union INF out into the open and proceed to kill them (they have the best rifles in the army) with ART (24# howitzer) support. Once those two or three INF are gone, One of my INF turns around and chases off the enemy CAV with my CAV. The 5 INF then move to take Winchester and wipe out the ART and remaining Yankee INF. Just like Imbezile, I like to wipe out the entire enemy force.

Is anyone else looking forward to what

Originally posted by Sheldon Cooper:

I'm doing a campaign wherein we maxed Recon (getting it to 10 by Shiloh) in order to draw up Order of Battle documents for future reference, will post 'em here too.

I know I am looking forward to seeing that

[ComputerCrasherDad]

Originally posted by pfcjking:

at Winchester, I always take 1 full brigade of melee cavalry, 6 brigades of infantry, and 1 artillery.

swing your infantry out to the right side of the map and send 3 skirmishers and 3 infantry brigades straight into the town.

have your 3 other infantry brigades cover your flank by attacking that clump of trees.

once you are in the town, keep your skirmishers headed straight thru town to push out enemy skirmishers, then perform a "right wheel" with your 3 in-town infantry brigades and push the yankees out of town and capture that flag.

you're done. should cost about 1600 casualties.

Yes, that's how I did it too, except I split my attacking brigades by that clump of trees and flanked that beast brigade there. By the time I'm doing the "Wheel" my brigades in the clump of trees meet up with it to form a line. I'm in MG and lost 2000, but that new "Forrest" mounted skirm brigade you get after winning Shiloh is well suited to fight in this terrain. Very effective charging routed enemy skirmishers because of his 3 stars. I'd also add--get your arty planted by the flag as soon as possible. Keep your line backed up a brigade in places where you might get charged. It's a good deterent. Nice to know there's similar tactics out there. Wasn't sure what to do, but guessed right that the blue forces would be thick in the trees. And hitting and pressing their flank from the start gives you good advantage.

[Bramborough]

Posting to mention that 1st Winchester is the first fight (or one of the first 3 eligible fights) after Shiloh, where one picks up that Forrest cavalry unit. Still a CSA neophyte, I don't have much to say about my strat for the battle. But...

Not having done very well in developing cavalry during a Union run, this was my first experience with properly-perked 3-star carbine cavalry, and what they can do. Wow. Found it a fun fight. Pretty much just let my brigades fight a conventional line fight in the tree edge while focussing on micro-ing that excellent cav unit....who more or less won the battle with continual flanking/harrassing/routing. I think Forrest racked up like 600 kills for a loss of 20 troopers. For me, 1st Winchester is notable for that experience...in this first CSA campaign, anyway.