Soo...Philippi?

[Energist]

I like this game so far, atleast in theory. Being unable to get past the first mission is really stupid though.

No doublt, I'm not a pro, just started, but considering I can't do much besides choose cover and whom to fire at(About all the game has taught me so far), the first mission seems mathematically impossible. I'm losing it even with 1:2 loss ratio against the ai.

What needs to happen for me to win the first mission? I absolutely cannot hold the town long enough before reinforcements arrive- let alone get over to the town. Once that happens, I'm stuck picking shots from across the river for 30 mins until I lose by technicality.

I don't have the men to fight them 1v1, Nor do my men have the resolve to hold the town before reinforcements arrive...

Here's what I do.

I garrison the town- each of the shield icon spots. I make sure I have my men ALL with 200% cover.

I use my cavalry to run their general off the map to hit their morale and kill off their artillery.

I bring my reinforcements over as quickly as possible.

None of this matters though. I lose the eastern half of the town 100% of the time before my reinforcements arrive. By then, the confederates have the defending position with 2 to 3x my manpower. How do I win this?

I like a challenge, but quite frankly, I have very little control and considering that the first mission is this.... unapologetic makes me wonder if I want to push on.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just a game for masochists? I've got 7 minutes left to return this game so if I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong on paper, I'm just going to return it. Very strange that the game is this hard for the tutorial mission. It hasn't even taught me how to play and my teeth are being kicked in for some reason.

I really don't want to return this. Seems like the kind of game I'd love, but I hate slogs, and needing to get lucky and such. Hoping there is a whole side to this game that it just hasn't taught me yet that I can use to turn this frown upside down.

[oswaldo]

Yes, Philippi is too hard as first battle if not broken. But don´t worry, all later battles are better designed and intuitive to play.

You should leave the (eastern part of) the town after capturing it. Cross the river in western direction with all your troops and wait for the Greys near the bridges. They will attack and take high losses when trying to cross the river. Let them bleed, repulse, then recapture the eastern part of the town.
And take care of Walton and Loomis. These two Infantery Units and both artillery Units you have at Philippi stay with you after the battle. These are your men. Try to save as many of them as possible.

[Energist]

Originally posted by oswaldo:

Yes, Philippi is too hard as first battle if not broken. But don´t worry, all later battles are better designed and intuitive to play.

Good to know. If only I could get to them lol.

You should leave the (eastern part of) the town after capturing it. Cross the river in western direction with all your troops and wait for the Greys near the bridges. They will attack and take high losses when trying to cross the river. Let them bleed, repulse, then recapture the eastern part of the town.

While I've yet to try abandoning the eastern half entirely, most of my attempts have naturally led in that direction where I end up on the west side, picking shots at them. This doesn't seem winnable though from my perspective.

If they take the town, I can't ever get it back - atleast not within the allotted time. The best I've been able to do is inflict massive casualties, but every counter offensive I do results in my guys being routed and incurring heavy losses.



This battle either takes extreme luck to win, or there are aspects to this system that are invisible to me.

If I shoot at them from the west side, I lose due to time.

if I charge them, I lose more men than they do.

The time limit means that I have to be aggressive or else I lost automatically, but they don't budge when I shoot them. I can't get them to route from gun fire alone in the alotted time. Charging is suicide for me.

And take care of Walton and Loomis. These two Infantery Units and both artillery Units you have at Philippi stay with you after the battle. These are your men. Try to save as many of them as possible.

How can I ensure their survival? Seems random on whether or not they die.


I think I'll play it safe and just return the game. I've only got 7 mins play time left to return it, and I don't think that I'll ever get to those later battles at this rate. I may get lucky in the next few attempts, but if not, I'll be burned out without even getting to see most of the game's content.

I was hoping that maybe there was a mechanic or something I was overlooking, but it seems like it's just positioning and hoping that they route before I do, which seems incredibly unlikely given the manpower difference.


Perhaps they'll have this patched or rebalanced by next sale. It's a real shame!

Thanks for the help.

[Carnifex]

I picked up the game during the sale and I didn't find Philippi too bad.

Just flank and use cover once you cross the river. Don't expose your flanks. Use one or two skirmishers to scout. Position your cannons so they can take out the armored train.

I made my reinforcements run to help when they arrived in the west. Maybe if you pick up the game again sometime this helps.

[Energist]

Originally posted by Panzerjäger:

I picked up the game during the sale and I didn't find Philippi too bad.

Just flank and use cover once you cross the river. Don't expose your flanks. Use one or two skirmishers to scout. Position your cannons so they can take out the armored train.

I made my reinforcements run to help when they arrived in the west. Maybe if you pick up the game again sometime this helps.

I'm refering to the second part of the battle where you have to defend the city. I could take the city just fine.

As for the armored car, it's been icing on the cake really because I'm pushed west far before the train and my reinforcements get there. I can't say the train has really hurt my odds all that much.

How do you flank them when they have enough men to crush your entire army twice over? For example, if I take one 500 man regiment to flank, by the time they're inp osition my main force in the town is already engaged or routing. They have more regiments than I do, which makes flanking very difficult as I have to give up much of my combat frontage to do so. They can flank my entire army while I could flank maybe one regiment.

I could run them I guess, I only tried it once, but they exhausted themselves so quickly getting there that they were almost helpless. It was such a devastating effect that I didn't do it in any of my 3 subsequent attempts. The first time I ran them I failed miserably because of it. They start VERY far away.

Idk. I'm at a loss. I'd be willing to try iit once or twice more, but then I can't return the game, and so far it's left a very poor taste in my mouth. It's explained very little and, from what I was told, it immediately puts me into the hardest battle of the game. Seems almost spiteful.

I've looked it over and I can't really think of any tactic that would work, but it's only taught me a couple things. So far the advice has been too nebulous for me to fully comprehend. I know what you're saying, but I don't see how to translate that into the game. I'm simply overwhelmed by a force many times greater than me, that also gets a fantasy tank on top of their extreme advantage.

The odds are simply ahistorical. Expecting me to win a fight that is so heavily disadvantaged is not something that happened in history except for very rare circumstances with many aligning variables.

In reality, getting into such a one sided fight would be a total strategy fail. No general worth his salt would stick around to fight that unless it was a last stand. It seems unreasonable to expect the player, a new player who just took this as their first mission no less, to somehow turn it into a miraculous victory. I mean, imagine being a fresh General and your supervisors put you into a situation where you're outnumbered 3:1 lol! Then I get fired? damn. Someone should fire my boss!

If you have a diagram or a step by step on how to deal with it, I'd love to give it some thought, but so far, I think I'm doing what everyone is saying to do. I just can't hold the town. The math is overwhelmingly against me, and I don't know how to abuse the game mechanics enough to cheese my way through it to the more historical and fair battles.

[dallan007]

The goal here is to buy time...you don't have to rout the enemy...you just need to keep them off the flag objective until the end of the scenario.

Some directional clarification: North is the left side of the map, South is the right, East is top, and west is bottom.

First...your best chance of winning is to take as few casualties in phase one. To do that, you need to rely on a slow, methodical advance and avoid charging into melee for no good reason. The easiest way to do that is as follows:

1. clear the skirmishers off the hill to your left using your own skirmishers. Split off a skirmisher from your first brigade and use it to help drive off the enemy skirmi in the woods to your right.

2. When your other brigades arrive, try to pincer off the single enemy brigade on the west (nearest to you) side of the town...again, deploying skirmishers from your main brigades will give you additional units to surround the target.

3. concentrate fire on only one of the two bridge crossings. Let your artillery pound on it until the unit routs...shifting your cannon fire as needed to clear a path. For the south bridge (on your right), station your troops in houses for cover and let them blast away. You can even move one further to the south to flank the enemy fortification. On the northern bridge, let your artillery do most of the work while hidden on the edge of the forest. When the enemy evacuates their fortifications, run (and I mean RUN) your brigades across the bridge. First brigade stops just on the other side, turns and faces the enemy..second one forms up next to it....then the next. use your skirmishers to try and flank, but be careful because routed brigades might try to counterattack. Concentrate all your rifle fire on one target when possible. The trick here is to place your troops under cover (buildings or forests) to keep them from getting hit until they can get across the bridge. Once you're across the bridge and in formation, move up through the town taking down the enemy units one at a time. Use skirmishers to flank them when possible.

Phase 2 (Defending the town)

The problem with the initial starting positions is that they are too spread out. It's better to pull your forces into the town, since the buildings provide almost as good (in some cases better) cover than the fortifications. Remember, the goal here is just to buy time and hold on to the flag point.

1. Pause the game at start and deploy skirmishers from each of your brigades. Send each skirmishing party out to harass the enemy formations along with your cavalry. Generally, I only use the skirmishers spawned from my main brigades for this task. Don't let them get into prolonged fire fights. Use them to force the enemy to deploy or shift position, then use the fall back command to get them out of there. You can still use your cavalry afterwards to kill artillery, supplies and commands. Use the plowed fields, farmhouses and forests for cover. Keep it up for as long as you can without losing any skirmishers. Pull them back into the town proper and use them as needed to flank, or re-attach them to their brigades. This buys you more time to get your reserves up.

2. Pull Loomis out of the fortifications on the northwest (left) side of town. Pull your commander back into the center of town. You can station Loomis' detached skirmishers to hold those fortifications if you wish, but it's not necessary. Pull your middle brigade back to fortify the center of town. Let Walton hold his fortified line, but pull him back into town if it looks like he's about to be overrun.

3. Pull both artillery into town, stationing one battery covered by a skirmisher brigade (not a detachment) facing the train station. (I usually place the battery further down the street facing the station, not right next to it). When the train comes in, use this arty to blast it. The train will leave once it's taken a certain amount of damage. Use the other artillery to support as needed.

4. At this point, the goal is to keep the bridges open so your reinforcements can use them. If things get desperate, you can deploy skirmishers from your reinforcing brigades and run them into town faster, or you can use the run command to dash the whole brigade over the bridge and into position. The majority of the attack comes from the southeast (your right flank) so reinforce this with 2 brigades. This part of the battle is hard to predict...you'll be trying to put out fires everywhere along the line. Again, all you have to do is hold. If you can weather the storm the rest is easy.

Some additional tips:

1. you can shift brigades and skirmishers in and out of your fortified positions when they get tired.

2. ALWAYS use the fall back command to issue a retreat order. This will keep your brigade facing the enemy as they withdraw. Falling back is way better than getting routed, so don't be afraid to give a bit of ground up if needs be.

3. If you are going to re-attach a skirmisher to its home brigade, make sure the skirmisher is behind their parent formation, not in front of it. If its in front it will spin around and get rear or side flanked as it moves to rejoin.

4. ALWAYS place your forces in cover if at all possible. Do not let them chase routed units unless you are certain the town is secure and that they won't get jumped by back line infantry.

5. Keep your defensive line as compact as possible. Think of Philippi as mini-Stalingrad. Use the buildings as defensive positions and get those reinforcements over the river as quick as you can.

6. Look to use skirmishers to fire on exposed flanks. Concentrate fire on targets.

Hope this helps!

[General WVPM]

My advice: start as a CSA colonel. It's easier and more fun. When you complete 1 campaign, you should know the battles a bit and understand the mechanics better. Alternatively, play Philippi as a scenario to try different tactics.

[oswaldo]

Now your decision is:

(a) Give this bad game back.

(b) Understand what happened when starting with a good game.


I think this happened: due to sympathies for the underdog and counterfactual history most players start with the Confederate Campaign. In fact, the place to learn how this game works is the first confederate battle. Unfortunately you started with the Union. (Noone told you. You could not know! And yes: there is a lack of a tutorial).

When I started with UGCV, I played the first confederate battle six or seven times until I knew how this game worked and it needed some days until I was able to win the battle. After this "tutorial time" I could play and win the confederate campaign on normal (Brigadier) difficulty without bigger problems. I can´t say this game is too hard but for non "wargames only" it surely has a learning curve.

After two month of playing as Confederacy with some demanding (Antietam, Chickamauga) but no impossible battles (I never had to reload), I started the Union campaign - and was unable to win that little Philippi battle for days!
Finally, I watched walkthrough videos and studied old community discussions until it somehow worked...

Philippi may be hard for players who already have some experience.

***

So:

Bad game? Give it back!

Good game you started unlucky?

Keep it!


It think at least 95% of this community would testify this is a good or even great game with a nice difficulty (if you are into the game and studied how to beat the final boss named "Philippi" ^^)

And isn´t the community of a game a symbol, too? Most steam games discussion boards show month-old threads about graphic driver problems. Here the game and even its topic are permanently discussed at the boards. Crap games don´t have such a community...

***

Edit: If starting with the Union and crack the philippi nut, perhaps you take a look at this video, Energist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSJnKyyRE3k

This is Philippi on Easy (Colonel).

The player does not retire, he fights east of philippi, up the hill.

He does not know how to use the fortifications (he has to click the shields)

His defense is terrible (the supply wagon is stolen, his troops build no front, block each other, he is flanked several times, Walton has high losses etc. etc. pp.) but he manages to win this on his first attempt.

[Energist]

Originally posted by dallan007:

The goal here is to buy time...you don't have to rout the enemy...you just need to keep them off the flag objective until the end of the scenario.

Some directional clarification: North is the left side of the map, South is the right, East is top, and west is bottom.

First...your best chance of winning is to take as few casualties in phase one. To do that, you need to rely on a slow, methodical advance and avoid charging into melee for no good reason. The easiest way to do that is as follows:

1. clear the skirmishers off the hill to your left using your own skirmishers. Split off a skirmisher from your first brigade and use it to help drive off the enemy skirmi in the woods to your right.

2. When your other brigades arrive, try to pincer off the single enemy brigade on the west (nearest to you) side of the town...again, deploying skirmishers from your main brigades will give you additional units to surround the target.

3. concentrate fire on only one of the two bridge crossings. Let your artillery pound on it until the unit routs...shifting your cannon fire as needed to clear a path. For the south bridge (on your right), station your troops in houses for cover and let them blast away. You can even move one further to the south to flank the enemy fortification. On the northern bridge, let your artillery do most of the work while hidden on the edge of the forest. When the enemy evacuates their fortifications, run (and I mean RUN) your brigades across the bridge. First brigade stops just on the other side, turns and faces the enemy..second one forms up next to it....then the next. use your skirmishers to try and flank, but be careful because routed brigades might try to counterattack. Concentrate all your rifle fire on one target when possible. The trick here is to place your troops under cover (buildings or forests) to keep them from getting hit until they can get across the bridge. Once you're across the bridge and in formation, move up through the town taking down the enemy units one at a time. Use skirmishers to flank them when possible.

Phase 2 (Defending the town)

The problem with the initial starting positions is that they are too spread out. It's better to pull your forces into the town, since the buildings provide almost as good (in some cases better) cover than the fortifications. Remember, the goal here is just to buy time and hold on to the flag point.

1. Pause the game at start and deploy skirmishers from each of your brigades. Send each skirmishing party out to harass the enemy formations along with your cavalry. Generally, I only use the skirmishers spawned from my main brigades for this task. Don't let them get into prolonged fire fights. Use them to force the enemy to deploy or shift position, then use the fall back command to get them out of there. You can still use your cavalry afterwards to kill artillery, supplies and commands. Use the plowed fields, farmhouses and forests for cover. Keep it up for as long as you can without losing any skirmishers. Pull them back into the town proper and use them as needed to flank, or re-attach them to their brigades. This buys you more time to get your reserves up.

2. Pull Loomis out of the fortifications on the northwest (left) side of town. Pull your commander back into the center of town. You can station Loomis' detached skirmishers to hold those fortifications if you wish, but it's not necessary. Pull your middle brigade back to fortify the center of town. Let Walton hold his fortified line, but pull him back into town if it looks like he's about to be overrun.

3. Pull both artillery into town, stationing one battery covered by a skirmisher brigade (not a detachment) facing the train station. (I usually place the battery further down the street facing the station, not right next to it). When the train comes in, use this arty to blast it. The train will leave once it's taken a certain amount of damage. Use the other artillery to support as needed.

4. At this point, the goal is to keep the bridges open so your reinforcements can use them. If things get desperate, you can deploy skirmishers from your reinforcing brigades and run them into town faster, or you can use the run command to dash the whole brigade over the bridge and into position. The majority of the attack comes from the southeast (your right flank) so reinforce this with 2 brigades. This part of the battle is hard to predict...you'll be trying to put out fires everywhere along the line. Again, all you have to do is hold. If you can weather the storm the rest is easy.

Some additional tips:

1. you can shift brigades and skirmishers in and out of your fortified positions when they get tired.

2. ALWAYS use the fall back command to issue a retreat order. This will keep your brigade facing the enemy as they withdraw. Falling back is way better than getting routed, so don't be afraid to give a bit of ground up if needs be.

3. If you are going to re-attach a skirmisher to its home brigade, make sure the skirmisher is behind their parent formation, not in front of it. If its in front it will spin around and get rear or side flanked as it moves to rejoin.

4. ALWAYS place your forces in cover if at all possible. Do not let them chase routed units unless you are certain the town is secure and that they won't get jumped by back line infantry.

5. Keep your defensive line as compact as possible. Think of Philippi as mini-Stalingrad. Use the buildings as defensive positions and get those reinforcements over the river as quick as you can.

6. Look to use skirmishers to fire on exposed flanks. Concentrate fire on targets.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the detailed response. This is inline with the kind of thinking I think would be helpful. Some of the details you presented I have been doing quite well I'd say. The only area where I may be able to improve is the use of skirmishers. Until now, I've not used them offensively- which many people seem to suggest.

I do pull them in.

I do fortify the town.

All my units always have cover.

I route their general and their artillery asap using my cavalry.


Despite all that, each attempt goes roughly the same. I get pushed west before my reinforcements can get to the the town to fortify it. By that point, I have lost because I can't get the town back within the time limit.

It seems what I can do differently is use skirmishers offensively to try and distrupt their advance. I'm skeptical it's enough though. It seems there is a bit of luck in this battle.

[Energist]

Originally posted by oswaldo:

Now your decision is:

(a) Give this bad game back.

(b) Understand what happened when starting with a good game.


I think this happened: due to sympathies for the underdog and counterfactual history most players start with the Confederate Campaign. In fact, the place to learn how this game works is the first confederate battle. Unfortunately you started with the Union. (Noone told you. You could not know! And yes: there is a lack of a tutorial).

I'm the opposite. I got the game exclusively to play as Union. I have no interest in the confederacy. Had I known that the confederacy was almost necessary as a starting point, I would have passed the game over.

I could play as them. It's not like I refuse to. It's just that it wasn't a feature I was after really.

After two month of playing as Confederacy with some demanding (Antietam, Chickamauga) but no impossible battles (I never had to reload), I started the Union campaign - and was unable to win that little Philippi battle for days!
Finally, I watched walkthrough videos and studied old community discussions until it somehow worked...

Even without this issue, it's unlikely I'd put in anywhere near that many hours. I play games through once and then shelf them unless they have some extraordinary replay value.

Philippi may be hard for players who already have some experience.

Which I don't considering it's the first mission of the game lol!


***

So:

Bad game? Give it back!

Good game you started unlucky?

Keep it!

I would not consider the game bad, but it may not be the game for me. Any game that gives me too much resistance too early on feels like it's wasting my time for better or worse.

It think at least 95% of this community would testify this is a good or even great game with a nice difficulty (if you are into the game and studied how to beat the final boss named "Philippi" ^^)

And isn´t the community of a game a symbol, too? Most steam games discussion boards show month-old threads about graphic driver problems. Here the game and even its topic are permanently discussed at the boards. Crap games don´t have such a community...

The community has been great, and very helpful for sure. I agree, that the game is probably very good. It's a shame it has some fundamental road blocks like this that deter new people from playing it. Before I can experience any of the game's many features, I first have to beat the final boss it seems.

Edit: If starting with the Union and crack the philippi nut, perhaps you take a look at this video, Energist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSJnKyyRE3k

This is Philippi on Easy (Colonel).

The player does not retire, he fights east of philippi, up the hill.

He does not know how to use the fortifications (he has to click the shields)

His defense is terrible (the supply wagon is stolen, his troops build no front, block each other, he is flanked several times, Walton has high losses etc. etc. pp.) but he manages to win this on his first attempt.

Oh I sure am not playing that poorly. As mentioned, I destroy the enemy general and his artillery each time. I ensure I have the town fortified, and I have all of my units with cover. I still lose by such a demoralizing margin that it begs the question of how, without abusing the mechanics of the game and the scripting of the AI, that it can be beaten.

If it felt doable, as in I was even remotely close to victory doing what I would consider a fairly decent job as a new player, I would just keep trying. Alas, the game truly feels like a slog, and makes me question whether or not I want to keep it.

I am not on easy either though so maybe that explains how he can stumble into victory. Normal feels like impossible difficulty. He has way more troops, and his confederates have way less troops. It actually almost looks like the exact opposite situation as normal lol. It feels like the Alamo from my perspective.

Thanks for your feedback. I am holding onto the game for now while I work on some other titles. If I get the motivation to try it in the nex week or so, I'll keep it. I wish I had enough time on the return to give it another full attempt using the knowledge I have now to see how much of a difference it would make.

Obviously I know the battle is doable. I am sure that with skirmishers, and artillery canister shot ( I didn't even know about that), the lack of friendly fire I just learned about and other key info the game didn't explain to me, I probably could beat it within the next few attempts.

[CivWar64]

Here is what I do:

Pull back your unit from the fortification on your left. You're too exposed there.
Put one artillery unit (10 pounder) near the flag, and one (6 pounder) near the right side of town.
Put one infantry in the right fortification and one angled at it's right (the artillery is behind them). This right/front corner of the town is critical to hold. By having your arty fairly close behind, they can hit the enemy (and later the train) with cannister shot, doing the most damage.
Send your cavalry and a skirmisher far along the railroad to the bottom right, get in the woods above it and snipe at the incoming enemy to slow them down. Retreat back when it gets bad. Also send a skirmisher along the road perpendicular to the town to harass the enemy units (cavalry and artillery) coming from there. If your cavalry has retreated up there it can help.
Send skirmishers right away from your reinforcements to get to town to hold that right corner. Walk the rest. When they are about 1/2 way there, run one of the infrantry to help. The second infantry will probably have to run a bit later to help..try to hold off on running them as long as possible to keep them fresh.

[dallan007]

Yeah, the canister shot and lack of friendly fire are key. For example, if one of your units gets into melee, an adjoining unit can fire into the fray without risk.

One thing that made my life a lot easier was the positioning of a canon to fire on the train. It does make the battle more winnable.

Remember to try and keep your units in formation as much as possible, and look for flanking opportunities.

I really hope you can pull off a win...the game is very rewarding once you learn the tactics.

[PaloAlto]

Another trick is to capture the town quickly on the 1st day. For whatever reason, you will face less Confederates on the 2nd day. The longer you draw out the 1st day, the more Confederates you will face on their counterattack.

[scott0007]

Ok so first of all the mission is not impossible I’ve beaten it on legendary multiple times. A good video to watch is Aetius Union Legendary Campaign use the same tactics as him but your opponents numbers will be much lower.

I do the opposite of Palo Alto...

Phase 1: Detach one infantry from brigade, send it counter clockwise and into the heights above you. March them wide so they come in behind the fortified Tripp’s and not along the ridge line. If they don’t engage at all before your first reinforments come no problem. Send the your now slightly smaller brigade and the two skirmersher units into the woods on the right, try to push the enemy skirmisher unit towards the right side of the map or into the peninsula to the right of the town and below the river, isolate and destroy if possible. When your reinforcements arrive rush the cavalry along the road then towards the slope under the visibility point. The 2 skirmishers from the heights will be falling back along there. Have the skirmisher unit you have be around and ready to fire into the melee if the cavalry catches on of them. Move the general to the visibility point. Move your cannons towards the bottom of the town but out of range of the unit in town. Merge the two new infantry brigades March them in front of where the artillery will be. Position your troops surround the town. Your initial troops on the right your new troops and artillery on the bottom and your cav to their left. Wait till your artillery is loaded then advance the merged bridage into range to fire. Once the enemy gets their shot off advance the flanking troops. One volley from each should dislodge the troops in the town. Normally the unit retreats across the bridge but sometimes it does towards the further bridge, give it as many volleys as it retreats as you can while staying out of range of the entrenched troops along the other side of the bridges.

Now place the 10pder in the woods by the left bridge as close as you can get it while leaving it hidden, the other artillery in the left side of the town and hidden, if they are not hidden they may receive artillery counter fire. The merged brigade in the town at 100% cover facing the right bridge. The other single brigade in between the two bridges but hidden, have the run command on so it can cover a crossing from either bridge. Your 3 skirmishers into the wood line facing the left bridge. Now here is the important part, there is no timer. For the next couple of hours let your artillery blast the entrenched troops and have your infantry anhilate any brigades trying to cross to attack you. Whittle then down and give your troops experience. Soon enough they will abandon there entrenchments repeatedly, dissolve or be very slow to return to the river. At that point race across the bridges and fire into their artillery in town. When the timer expires on to phase two, hopefully you have inflicted major casualties.

[scott0007]

Phase 2:

Artillery, the ten pound near the objective fixed in place facing the train depot. The other on the right side of town but in town with cover. One skirmisher in the left exposed entrenchments with the cav behind, dismounted if you like. Remerge the other brigades from before and abandon all the other entrenchments you can’t afford to man them at the moment and the town offers more cover. So the merged brigade on the right side of town and the single brigade on the left covering the entrenched skirmisher and the artillery. The remaining skirmisher on you far right by the river line. Use the single brigade to fire into any unit that gets into melee, have it on run mode. When the train arrives turn the firing off on both artillery. When the train gets to the station turn it back
On and let them target he train with canister. 2-3 shots and it will retreat. When your reinforcements arrive send one running to the left side of town and 2 to the right side. The artillery to the left bridge. Now just absorb their attacks and then counter attack and kill them all, plenty of time to finish them off completely. The cover in the town is your best friend.

[BicycleMan]

you can always play the confederate Campaign it is a fun experience i assure you :)