The Massacre of Parker's Farm

[Stonewall47]

So I started a new job a few weeks ago that has sapped my time. I came back to the game after two patches and feel a bit lost. I resumed my Union campaign and have started Parker's Farm a few times, each time being less satisfied than the last. First, you can't see who is firing at you in the fortifications. That would be fine, if my troops would have the ability to at least fire in the direction of where they're taking hundreds of casualties. Then, I move them out to find 5-6 brigades that whittle my 3 star units to a nub pretty quickly. So, I restarted and tried the offensive from the start. I stayed in cover, maneuvered well and still seemed to take a crazy amount of losses for being in cover and having elite troops. 

 

Am I missing something?

[Wright29]

You mean Parker's Crossroads, right? That is a battle in which you should feel content in walking away with equal losses. You definitely do not want to be in the fortifications. Meanwhile, in the brush, crappy troops are just about as good as veterans. The one major advantage you have is that your brigades can be bigger than those dismounted cavalry. What does this mean? You will be way better in melee. 

It's a risky maneuver, but try to equip some low and medium level troops with Farmers or other high-melee weapons and be aggressive in one direction and ONLY that direction. Have your reinforcement be top-quality 750 man cavalry brigades. Hit them hard from the rear, turn around, and then retake the objective toward the end of the mission. Customize a corps for this mission to ensure the cavalry is your reinforcements. 

Another school of thought is to have mass artillery and crappy infantry to be the meat shields. You can focus your artillery fire by just swivelling around. Since the Confederate brigades are small, a good hit of Shell or Grape will kill a much higher percentage of enemy troops. Good Luck!

[Hitorishizuka]

Parker's Crossroads is kinda dumb because the AI gets to field so many skirmishers that are basically invulnerable in the woods and you have a terrible starting position to boot.

Ignore the VP and the fortifications, run into the woods to the SW. You can set up there and just hold for awhile until your reinforcements start hitting the map, then you can start pushing out. You should be able to catch one of their brigades crossing the river between forests on the northern side while you're sitting in the woods and get good damage on them. You can also kill one of the artillery brigades in the far NW for free since they just run their infantry to the VP but their artillery will stop to shell you to no effect. Once all the CSA forces make it onto the field and you can afford to stop watching your southern side, you can swing your forces out, contest the forest directly NW of the VP, then use that to push them all the way off to the east as your other forces make their way onto the map from the north.

I only managed a 2:1 kill ratio which isn't very good considering the manpower advantage you have overall but I got greedy/lazy and had my guys melee near the end to try for captures when you should basically never melee with infantry after a certain point in the campaign IMO.

[RoverGrover]

I agree this battle was ridiculously frustrating. First one I skipped totally.  It wasn't that I couldn't win it. It's that I didn't want to... extremely annoying to fight an enemy you cannot see or shoot.  Especially considering they were shooting my own skirms to pieces in the same field.  How could they see me then?  If I wanted mini-challenge maps instead of normal strategy I'd go play starcraft. 

[Wandering1]

In my playthrough of this minor battle, I ended up heading East instead of SW as Hitori did. No enemy reinforcements come from the East, they come from the West, SW, and South.

If you play aggressively, you can wipe out the entire infantry force in the NE along with the artillery, and just leave a unit staring at the VP to shoot anybody that tries to cap the VP, by using the house on the SE of the base as cover or if you have to in the open (under the assumption that your squads are bigger than the enemy squads).

[CaptainKanundrum]

I actually greatly enjoyed this battle. I didn't do fantastically, but it really felt like I was being raided/ambushed which was the point of the mission! It felt unique and the AI seemed to "play smart" which it doesn't often do. 

The LOS stuff can be a little bit annoying, but i felt that it made sense since they were the ones attacking me through the forest.

My strategy to win this battle (at brigadier general difficulty only) involved not using the fortifications, but the forests just outside of it. I used melee cavalry and melee infantry to dispatch lone infantry/skirmisher regiments. I used detached skirmishers to get flanking bonuses and just reduced morale of enemy units. A melee charge from my cavalry usually broke them, and then I just systematically wiped the enemy out. One unit of artillery was placed at the crossroads to fire shell on whichever enemy was closest. I don't know how well this works at higher difficulty levels.

[vren55]

So you essentially set up a defensive line in E or NE and then move out only at the... 1 hour mark?

[Hitorishizuka]

51 minutes ago, vren55 said:

So you essentially set up a defensive line in E or NE and then move out only at the... 1 hour mark?

More or less. Pick a direction, hide in the woods (watch your rear if necessary), then start moving out either as or shortly before your reinforcements are hitting the field. Depending on area you may be able to take out a brigade or two early without much risk just with detached skirmishers. The only directions I wouldn't go in would be W and SE.

I went SW so that I could automatically pincer the enemies. Going E or NE lets you try to concentrate weight instead. Whatever works for you.

[vren55]

10 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

I went SW so that I could automatically pincer the enemies. Going E or NE lets you try to concentrate weight instead. Whatever works for you.

It worked! Thanks.