"ACW Skirmish Gaming?" Topic

I am woefully unfamiliar with the ACW aside from the broad brushstrokes most people gather. I was wondering how much skirmish action actually took place, and what would be the smallest skirmish action level in terms of manpower that could be realistically played as a game. Did most units have skirmish actions? Did Zouaves? What kind of skirmish actions took place?

I appreciate any and all replies, and apologize for my lack of time and skill to do full research on this myself.

Brother Against Brother is a good set of rules and plays really well with 20 or so a side. There was plenty of small skirmishes, and you can always play out cavalry raids and such. Frankly I use any figs I like and just set up typical small action games and go.

I believe skirmish actions were a common occurance in all sorts of situations. Picket lines meeting, foraging parties running into each other, recon patrols meeting, etc. You would be perfectly historical to game anywhere from 3 or 4 men per side on a foraging expeditions that bump into each other, on upwards .

"I was wondering how much skirmish action actually took place,"

Thousands and thousands. They can range from a handful of men to several hundred.

"Did most units have skirmish actions?"

Yes, all the time.

"Did Zouaves?"

Yes. Zouaves are just men with different types of uniforms. No more, no less. They were ordinary soldiers and not elite troops with special training or anything else. They fought the same as everyone else and died like everyone else.

Sometimes fancy uniforms makes men feel better than everyone else. Of course when the bullets start flying those uniforms do nothing to protect you. You either earn a good rep because you behave better in combat or you don't. I don't know why many people think that Zouaves were 'better' somehow. Oh well.

All theaters featured skirmish actions as noted from handfuls of men all the way up to companies engaging each other.

I think one of the more interesting campaigns was the fighting up and down the Shenandoah Valley. Lots of smaller actions and opportunities for skirmish engagements.

One thing that I have found though is that while there were lots of skirmishes happening all the time, these actions don't get recorded as often, so it can be more difficult to write specific scenarios down to a very low level.

But, since so many companies were whittled down to less than 50 men, you can also assume that the table you are fighting on is only a small slice of a larger Battalion, Regimental or higher engagement and just play out the 1:1 action on a very small section of a much larger battlefield. For example, I am interested in the Bucktails, so I began researching their engagements at Gettysburg. I found the fighting around the McPherson Farm to be interesting. In 28mm on a 4x6 table, you could easily represent a company or two of the fighting and call it a skirmish and have just as much fun as you would worrying about finding a specific "skirmish" level engagement.

It's all in how you define skirmish gaming and how you limit it or expand the definition for your game.

Not everything in a battle has to take place ON your table top. And you don't HAVE to "bathtub" stuff down. Think of it as "zooming in" rather than bathtubbing down.

Hope that helps.

I found just reading about specific units on the web and regimental histories on Wiki to be a good place to find skirmish ideas.

brother against Brother is a good way to go . I use it for AWI F7I and of course ACW. Our skirmish games are also flexible with the # of units and we still use B vs B.
Presently we are doing Burnside's bridge.
The rebs are dug in w/ arty and are making the Union pay for their advance over the bridge. The Union is about 1/2 way across and they are over the ford and about to hit the Rebel flank. All handle – able with the game mechanics .In these bigger games , I use a sword & the flame card move . ANY unit can do their turn when their sides color is drawn and then marked ( saves time labeling easch unit)
Again I highly recommend B vs B as a very good ,flexible skirmish set.

Thank you all for the great information.

As an aside, the reason I asked about Zouaves was because I had once heard they only appeared in one battle, during which their sole contribution was to break and flee. So I figured I would ask about them in particular, since I have no idea if the story I heard was true or not lol!

There were Zouaves at Gettysburg, I believe.

Many different Zouave regiments saw action and if you read regimental reports, I'm sure you would find many skirmish actions!

I love "Brother vs Brother", it's a great game, and can do small engagements of 20-40 per side, and can also do larger ones of more than 100 per side.

Another great option is "Battles by GASLIGHT" It's a VSF game, but you can easily leave out the SF elements and have a great game.

Try 'Valor Steel Flesh'; it's a VSF set of rules that combines the best of BaB and TSATF. We've used it to play historical skirmishes from the Indian Mutiny up to the opening of the Great War.

There were all kinds of skirmishes all the time – I myself like Brother versus Brother – you might want to read some of the accounts by veterans – for every big battle, there were probably hundreds of skirmishes

While I don't do much ACW skirmish gaming, I really enjoy it when I do – plus it gets my 28mm ACW figs off the shelf

"There were Zouaves at Gettysburg, I believe"

Well maybe there were and maybe there were not, its been one of those debates, for years.

There were definitely units designated as such but the real question is – did they look like they were Zouaves on the day?

At that point he steps smartly out of the LoF! :o)

It sort of depends on how you define "Skirmish". Civil War armies routinely deployed skirmishers ahead of their main lines. There is a section of the tactics manual that deals with the deployment and movement of skirmishers. It's something most regiments would have practiced on the drill field. You would be hard pressed to find a Civil War battle where skirmishers weren't used. That being said, in most cases the skirmishers would quickly get out of the way once the main battles lines closed. Skirmishers were primarily used in support of formed troops which were usually very close by. I'm not sure how interesting a game that would make.

If, OTOH, when you refer to skirmishing as engagements between smaller groups of troops away from the massed battle lines of the armies (the "Petite Guerre" as it's sometimes called) that's another matter entirely. And those sorts of actions happened a lot, too. Scouting, foraging, or raiding would often bring small detachments into combat. Lots of gaming potential there.

Lots of "skirmishing" at lots of different levels by nearly everybody. Everything from a few guys "potshoting" to maybe a few hundred in a semi controlled action!

As to your Zouave question, well different "variants" of Zouaves fought all thru the war, mostly on the USA side, and they certainly used skirmishing (in small detachments) as a tactic from time to time!

I see a lot of recommendations for Brother Against Brother. I always meant to order a copy of Advance the Colors from the Zouave magazine back when it was in business. Sadly, never got around to it; but it is occasionally available on Ebay.

Does anyone have experience with Advance the Colors? How does it compare to Brother Against Brother and/or the other skirmish rule sets mentioned here?

Advance the Colors is a solid set of rules, but more complex, and less fun, than Brother against Brother. For what it's worth, I sold my copy of Advance the Colors some time ago, but still have a copy of BaB.