Domination of Gaines Mill Union Campaign BG

[ViveLaGuillotine]

So i tried something different at this battle and I know some people struggle on this map so I though Id share the results and tell a little about how I was able to achieve this ratio.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1437778686

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1437778814

So unfortunately I didnt save any screenshots of the beginning deployment, but if you look at the map in the shots you can see the bulk of my army is holding the first river that is actually the river you cross during one of the minor battles for the shiloh campaign. Now by now most people know that the defenses the AI tells you to man are about the worst fortifications in the entire game and you are best to completely abandon them. I took this one step furthur and brought in a corps of 11 INF 1 MCAV 1 SKRM(w/sharps) and 2 ART (1x24 LB and 1 10 LB) and a full corps with assorted palmetto and rebored farmers units along with another 10 pounder.

When you begin the battle half your army is at center far left of the map, whilst the other half sits already near the main defense points, and the AI tells you to hold the woods just to the left, in order to slow the enemy down. But the river the runs the entire length of the map just to the right I thought could be a much better alternative!. I put all of my infantry in this side and both artillery up at the top of my defensive line.

During the course of the battle I was constantly adjusting my lines because the arc of range for your units gets squirrely because of the nature of the river, and you want to make sure your troops dont fire until the enemy actually gets into the river, the difference between a units getting fired upon in the river and in the trees in huge, plus the movement speed is slow so the enemy units will be trapped while 24 and 10 lbder artillery rain fire into the river. Now I noticed as the battle went on, the enemy started to attack progressively southward, so adjust your units accordingly. You do need to min max quite a bit or your troops might get flanked. I never really got charged so the Confederates insane melee ability was always bogged before they could reach but the 3k stacks just love to pepper from the woods if your troops are too close so be careful.

Now I was safe to deploy all my troops to the west side because the Rebs get 3 consecutive waves from this position. Northward is an impassible large river and to the south is swamp which is horrendously slow for movement speed. SO i kepy my cav to screen the bottom flank and watch for rogue skirmishers who might go that way. However near the end of the first phase you get the remainder of your forces (for me I got my SKRM and 1 INF, but if your ARMY ORG is higher you can have 5 brigades more from this phase)

With about 1 hours remaining you and about 20 min after you receive troops, the Rebs get their flanking force, and your main goal is to delay. The rebs in their infinite historical accuracy get 3000 man brigades, so fighting them in open ground was impossible. Basically to hold them off, use light utility units like your cav and SKIRM to distract them, and position an infantry right at the entrance of the woods, and you should be able to slow them down for about an hour. Even if they make it to one of your victory points its ok because you can bring a brigade from your main line and start surrounding and flanking them. For me I was facing 1 star brigades so one good flanking volley was all I needed.

At the end of the 1st phase it says something to the end of "You need to hold till the end of the day" and about 30 min later you get your second corps. IF the enemy has been stupid like it was for me, all you need to do is reinforce the forces on the right and push them out till you hold the edge of the woods, then stop. You can see where I stopped my troops on the right of the map. You will also notice I had a detached skirm and a cav reg behind the lines because their are 2 art back their I cleaned up. Pay attention if you do this because the retreating rebs could try and drive you off and they could one shot your detached SKIRM.

Back to the main line and cleaning up

So at this point Longstreet comes and your one main line will have received 3 whole waves of Rebs, but for me only 1 brigade had received more than 40% casualties, and I had shattered already about an entire wave of Rebs, the 2nd was at half strength, so I only had to deal with one wave of full infanty. This is why I believe this strat would be less viable in MG and LGD because they get so much more units. As I said before the attack shifts southward, so its acceptable to replace southern units with northern ones and I actually took a few off the flanks to help clean up the main VPs, the main waves actually only attacked 3 of my regiments at a time( Hence one of my brigades getting 4000 kills. Suprisingly my 10 lbder got 500 more kills than the 24 lbder so i couldve used it better, but as you see both made my top kill lineup. Once I held the right, it was only a matter of cleaning up the VPS and shifting forces on the west to equally distribute kills and losses until I finished the battle.

In the end I had less kills then many minor battles and I have received a low hit considering the next battle is Major battle in Malvern hill (hint: this battle is also easily exploited, but their are a few people that have explained this so I won't).

[scott0007]

People have trouble with this battle as the union? It’s one of the easier in the game.

[Ninjasquirrel]

If you set up your line like this, you won't have to move your line -

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331380950

The confederates have zero cover if they try to attack you. Concave shape of line will put almost all of their units that come into range under flanking fire. Imo this is better than holding the river because of the large amount of woods that line the riverbanks, giving them good cover on the approach.

[scott0007]

I never let them get past the river. It runs red with rebel blood. At the top you can have artillery close enough for canister and still be hidden.

[Lord Ruler]

Is it easier to fight the major battles first? Seems that on BG winning skirmishes seems to only grow the enemies army???

[Malkor2]

No, because once you win a major battle the game takes you to the next major battle. Which means that all the rewards in money, manpower and reputation points from the smaller battles will be lost to you. Not to mention the career points you're losing out on. And since i only play on BG difficulty i can say that i have never seen the enemy army grow larger because i won all the small battles before a major battle. After Shiloh i would always bring at least the same amount of men the enemy army had if not more to most of the major battles.

As far as Gaines Mill as the Union goes i always slaughter the Rebels near the river. They never get past it. But i will give Ninjasquirrels apporach a try because if it works on Legendary (with all these 3 star Rebels it has to be Legendary) then it should work even better on BG.

[General WVPM]

Originally posted by Lord Ruler:

Is it easier to fight the major battles first? Seems that on BG winning skirmishes seems to only grow the enemies army???

I have seen this. If you destroyed an enemy army, it may double in size with the skirmishes. But your army grows as well as Malkor2 points out.

[CivWar64]

Originally posted by Malkor2:

No, because once you win a major battle the game takes you to the next major battle. Which means that all the rewards in money, manpower and reputation points from the smaller battles will be lost to you. Not to mention the career points you're losing out on. And since i only play on BG difficulty i can say that i have never seen the enemy army grow larger because i won all the small battles before a major battle. After Shiloh i would always bring at least the same amount of men the enemy army had if not more to most of the major battles.

As far as Gaines Mill as the Union goes i always slaughter the Rebels near the river. They never get past it. But i will give Ninjasquirrels apporach a try because if it works on Legendary (with all these 3 star Rebels it has to be Legendary) then it should work even better on BG.

I used Ninjasquirrels method for my first Legendary try and it worked great. As a slight modification, it helped to have some skirmishers way up near the top to hit CSA units in the flank that try to turn your right.