Skirmishers
After reading a number of books now about tactics I feel I understand skirmishing no better. Perhaps many soldiers at the time didn't understand this and that is why there is so little detail written on this. Books, such as Nosworthy tell us what skirmishers did, but not why, and what effect they actually had on the enemy. Many forces deployed skirmishers as protection from enemy skirmishers. But why deploy the in the first case. It is apparent that they often inflicted few casualties. Much of their effect seemed to be on morale and cohesion. They were often employed to cover a retreat or buy time for friendly units to organise themselves to meet an attack. This makes me wonder whether units advancing in the face of skirmish fire (or perhaps any fire) found their march slowed, leading to a more prolonged time taking fire. Can anyone shed some light on this topic (historical or gaming)? Anthony

The little I have read on this subject would seem to suggest the opposite. Being under fire made advancing troops move faster to get to grips with the enemy. This appears to make sense. Ceara

That certainly makes sense, but then how did skirmishers protect a retreat? They certainly don't provide a solid mass of troops that might intimidate an enemy, and they are unlikely to cause large numbers of casualties. Ants

Perhaps because they can occupy terrain features, force the enemy to deploy, then fall back faster than formed units can pursue? Yours, James D. Gray

During a strategic pursuit (eg after a battle), the pursuers would be in march formation rather than combat formation. A rearguard of skirmishers would force the pursuers to either deploy fully to clear them out of the way, or to deploy their own skirmishers to do so. Either option takes time and delays the pursuit, allowing the retreaters to get further ahead.

At Marengo, the French left small groups of infantry in the high corn and amongst the trees, which carried the vines. The Austrian centre found it hard going to advance against this. In addition, the French made a point of felling senior mounted offiocers, so that on the counterattack, the Austrian army lost its cohesion and direction. Ignore Nosworthy - he knows nothing about the subject. All nations skirmished across the period, but for a variety of reasons from little advance-guards through to the organised screens in front of formed infantry. In the end, it decides nothing, but it vcan create uncertainty in the mind of the enemy commander, who cannot then know what is behind hem.

D, In the end, it decides nothing, but it can create uncertainty in the mind of the enemy commander, who cannot then know what is behind them. Dead right - and something that is hard to recreate in a wargame - esp. in one where aesthetic appeal is important. It’s that uncertainty that leads to confusion and as we all know confusion leads to disaster! DB

Why not alter the skirmish mechanic so that, instead of actually shooting, skirmisher screens resolve to see which side has skirmish superiority (perhaps once every 3 or 4 moves); losing brigade or divisional commanders have to roll on an "uncertainty" table which can result in them altering their orders.

Skirmishers
All, An interesting comment regarding confusion in the mind of the commander. We have had a couple of attempts to replicate this through hidden movement. The blind cards, and another methid which takes a litle more explanation and requires an umpire and some mapes is another. In the later case a skirmisher screen is one of the things that can obstruct a view of troops behind (although cavalry following may be an exception to this.) In the first game we tried it, the results were reasonably realistic (in my view). The "attacking" player inched forward tentatively, unsure of where or how his opponent had deployed. He also maintained a rather large reserve, in order to be able to shift his weight to the correct sector when he located the enemy. The result was that his forward line was too weak to be able to overcome the defender's screen, and got strung up on the first obstacle that was encountered. Once the defender started mobilising units to crush the by then bogged-down attack, his dispositions became clearer, and the attacker started psuhing his reserves forward. Our game had a time factor in the objectives, and consequently the attacker was not able to bring his weight (3:1 ratio atacker to defender) to bear quickly enough. I think it amply demonstrates the point that uncertainty (as could be imposed by the use of skirmishers) will drive behaviours in an opponent.

B, Why can you not have skirmishers obstruct vision when using blinds? If trrops stay on blinds the enemy is still not going to know the composition of the forces nor whether the blind is "false". I have seen somewhere, but can't recall the site, where even false blinds will contain some troops and this is decided randomly by a dice roll. It may be a small cavalry unit, or skirmishers or some detached companies etc. This adds further to the uncertainty. I would like to see a system where some subordinates run the risk of going "out of control" and doing their own thing. Perhaps launch an attack prematurely or decide not to advance. Ants

Skirmishers
Ants, you could indeed do that. The additional feature that the map method provides (in my view), is that both sides are deprived of options. If I can see 5 cards,and know two are false, then I can start formulating a plan based upon some assumptions. If I do not even know where the blinds are, and where the weight of the blinds are disposed, I am left much more in the dark, and have to think a bit harder about terrain and objectives in order to deduce where my opponent may have deployed. Of course, not everyone is going to go for that. We more commonly use the blinds system, with the false cards having the possibility of some troops, so that a poor guess is going to based upon something, rather than just a dummy card. To generate more of the fog, we can also variabilise the number of troops per unit, and the morale grades, so that the commander is not sure until the start of the game how many troops are in each unit, and until first contact what their morale is going to be.

Ants, The 'variable' blind idea was mine (well I think anyway). We started with the normal blinds (pinched from the TFL rules), but found that it became too obvious where the blind was. The whole concept of blinds in games of this period is that the enemy may be in the village or over the hill in force, but it could be just a company of skirmishers or a few LC - the brigade or divisional cmdr just doesnt know. The variable blind actually means that there probably is someone there, but not a whole brigade. On the scale of the games we have been playing recently at 3-4 brigades per side, the small forces deployed from the variable blind can actually annoy. If cavalry are rolled, they may be the only cavalry unit on the table. It just means that the variable blind does contain something and cant be ignored even when its spotted. An example is below. the player deploying the card rolls at the start of the game and only puts the figs on table when spotted: French Blind card: Roll 2D6 1: Nothing – Sorry :( 2: Two Volgiteur Companies = 12 figures (Line) 3: Two Volgiteur Companies = 12 figures (Veteran) 4: One Chasseur Squadron = 6 figures (Line) plus 1 x HA 6 pdr 5: One Chasseur Squadron = 6 figures (Veteran) 6: One Chasseur Squadron = 6 figures (Line) plus one Volgiteur Coy = 6 figures (Line) 7: Two Chasseur Squadron = 12 figures (Line) 8: Two Chasseur Squadron = 12 figures (Veteran) 9: Legere Battalion of 24 figures (Line) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 10: Two Chasseur Squadrons = 12 figures (Line) plus 1 x HA 6 pdr 11: Two Dragoon Squadrons = 12 figures (Line) 12: Two Dragoon Squadrons = 12 figures (Veteran) Orders: Note – any units deployed from Blinds do not affect brigade morale.

Skirmishers
Ants, I can support baxterj's claim to the variable blind. Quite effective it is too. In our last game, two squadrons of hussars were turned up in the blind. They held up a French dragoon brigade in the centre, and with assistance of neighbouring batteries, managed to rout it from the table, collapsing the French centre, and turning the game. As to your deisre for subordinates to go "mad" and behave independently, you could try variable movement. The mechanics are quite simple, but does require a 2D6 die roll for each brigade. Every turn they are tasked to move, roll 2D6. The number rolled represents the % of the normal full move that the brigade commander moves his brigade. So if he rolls 7 - that is only 70% of the normal move in column/ line for the brigade. If he rolls 12 - that is 120% of the normal move. You can remove the variability by placing the CinC adjacent to the brigade.

I like the variable blind idea , how many do you place ? How can roll a 1 on 2d6 ?

Skirmishers
That's what happens when one goes of the table, and the other one rols a 1. You only count the dice remaining on the table. :P