"Skirmishers in new rules "Onwards to Victory!"" Topic

Hello again, gentlemen:

One more time I need your invaluable help!

How do you like the rules for skirmishers in a tactical Napoleonic game?

You are a Divisional Commander (just like in NaW), so you have some brigades, each of them can throw its skirmish screen…so far, so good, but how detailed do you think these rules have to be?

Currently we have some skirmish bases (1,5 for each battalion in the brigade/equivalent) and they canīt fire, combat,…only has some effects on the close order units: slowing down the enemy units, threatening the artillery if they are near enough, but we donīt use any machanics to fire or be fired with the skirmishers…

Any thoght on it?

Thank you very much!

To me most games do not handle skirmishing in the tactical play as mechanic to accomplish what they were out there for and do so in game "elegance"
( Elegance = defined for me as…. for a lack of better choice is for smooth play and not doing something that appears as an after though to bring in some period feel but a big expense of time and complication).

Fate of Battle Tactical rules- they are elegant because, it has a purpose well defined(as why they occurred during this period) so it is in play by a savvy player's choice who has initiative(as happen in battle), it has a quick action mechanic to be taken during start of turn to initiate such activity, and it is simple modifiers to the fires and/or the assaults ( so simple thus min. impact to play)during the remainder of the turn or until they are suppressed/ become casualties.

A more detailed method ( for tactical level) which seems to be lacking in elegance is having the choice to push this action or not and thus if pushed, it becomes a replacement to the assault for that turn, a result is achieved ( is defeated or wins), it eats up resources to attempt it to get the desired result ( IE escalation to have 3:2 or 2:1 etc thus a drain from the brigades or battalion's), and then accomplishes it's goal upon a win( to either hold back a threatening screen or an aggressive screen penetrates-puts fire to the formed unit and allows better intelligence as to the enemy position & formation etc. for the assault, to occur the following turn's opportunity).

The "Et sans Resultant" grand tactical rules seem the only ones I have seen so far to come close to this approach. Interestingly they are grandtactical!

good luck
MG

Ideally, the skirmish fight should be quickly and easily resolved each turn between divisional screens. Results should be a tie or one side gaining the upper hand, affecting other combat in the turn, possibly silencing guns (that instead fire at skirmishers to keep them at bay).

If the enemy gains the upper hand the losing side may wish to reinforce, which reduces the number of troops in the main fight. Perhaps a steady trickle of losses among the screen.

That's what I'd like to see. If you can get some of this with a simple rule, cheers to you.

@vtsaogames
This where I think our games have greatly deviated from what was actually going on… the time it took to get a result and resource drain to conduct it.
So this is where there is disagreement and thus it should be a replacement to, in tactical play, and not a quick sub portion of the attack (as in most games).
Skirmishing occurred 2 to 10 x the amount of time that it took of an actual attack ( including protracted firefights) in order to get the result needed/desired or came up empty thus ceased, before an assault of the formed units occurred.
So it should be done or skipped(per say… indicating the skirmish was too short to have had any impact to the following assault action).
In tactical play typically has 15-20 min turn. With the scale, most of this time is used up marching/charging to make the close contact between the formed opponents…so a skirmish action should be deliberate,take up all of the turn, if not multiple, to accomplish it's goal or be concluded to fail, if such action is chosen to be initiated.

MG

The skirmishers like every other part of the rules should match the same vibe. I am always puzzled at how game designers can come up with many good game mechanics and then have the rules bog down on overly fiddly rules. I prefer simple but if you like detailed, then you skirmish rules should be detailed too at least to the same level.

General de Brigade gets it about right. But the game is roughly at the brigade/division level, where individual companies are distinct. (20men/figure). At this level, you can handle and use and enjoy the skirmishers and they have real effects. I see most napoleonic rules with a brigade being multiple stands- but the brigades operate with much the relative ranges, formations and behaviors of a battalion. (It is napoleonics so you need that to feel the flavor). At that scale the skirmishers become too fiddly a detail because of the rational that we are moving around big blocks of formed troops. So divisions act like brigades that are without skirmishers. Been that way for every game not using the big battalions.

Thank you all for your suggest.

Joker, youīre right: too detailed skirmish rules take you to a very long skirmish phase of combat and you havenīt time to play the real clash of the formed units. I went out of Field of Glory (Ancient, first edition) for this reason.

Currently our rules are in the line of what Mr Tsao suggests.