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Caranorn -> RE: Skirmishers/Leader casualties (2/27/2006 2:35:44 PM)
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1) I agree with rhondabrwn on casualties. As far as I can tell (I had to stop my research for teh past two weeks and will be out for anotehr two weeks, my computer crashes too often for me to actually work on it) most civil war battles had much lower casualties then what commonly results in BG series games (that is of course in part due to the fact that no sensible general (maybe Hood on opium and in a very bad mood:-) would attack the way we tend to do in this game). Of course, and again I only consider killed and wounded as casualties (and stragglers to be covered by fatigue).
2) Leader casualties I don't really know, I never paid particular attention to this. Though generall, I don't end up with corps or army leaders on the firing line. Even my division leaders usually spend their time a few hexes to the rear.
3) Skirmishers, I agree that a better system might be found for this. In at least some battles regiments would detach multiple companies as you described. But when you play the napoleonic BG games you will notice that the large number of such detachments can get pretty annoying and often unrealistic (the few tournament games I played we used a house rule forbidding regular (non guard/light) skirmishers from deploying in the open more then three hexes from their parent unit). Maybe a light/regular distinction could also be included in the ACW BG games (some regiments and battalions were always used to form skirmishers, others never (or never over great distance). Allow those light units to indeed detach skirmishers as in the Napoleonic BG games, but never more then 50% of original strength (even that was rare, other then actually splitting a regiment into two battalions).
4) Sharpshooters, as units I feel these do not belong into the game (that's in relation to 3) above, they were essentially split up all the time. What I'd like to see is increased leader casualty risk when fired at from a forest, orchard, building or rock hex (not usuing actual BG terms here, but you get the idea). Maybe have the exact increase be variable from battle to battle and side to side (one side might have only a handfull of ineficient sharpshooters while the other has a few batallions armed with shaprs rifles...).
P.S.: Thinking about it, leader casualties as at Pea Ridge (the one battle I have almost completed work on for my board game) are certainly as good as impossible in BG (McCulloch gets killed, McIntosh gets killed, Hébert gets captured... leaving a entire division leaderless (Pike did not belong to the division, while he assumed command that was actually one of teh reasons for the dissolution of that division on the first day of battle (Greer was next in the chain of command and rightfully assumed command of those units neer him) in less then an hour, of course that dosn't even mention leader casualties of the union and of van Dorn/Price's wing (Price wounded, Slack dead of wounds...)). So maybe leader casualty rates should also be variable from battle to battle and side to side.
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