Tips for dealing with enemy skirmishers?

[Bobby Fiasco]

Hi all, I'm early in my first ever UG campaign as the Union and I'm having trouble getting bogged down by enemy skirmishers when I'm on the offensive. They always seem to be pretty thick and can pin down my attacking units, either by distracting them or drawing their fire away from the units I really want to kill, or giving pesky flanking fire.

I send out my own skirmishers to fight them but it never seems to be quite enough. Do you have any general strategies that you use to deal with enemy skirmishers? Do you just plow on through to engage the enemy's main body? Particularly I'm thinking about needing every brigade to fight confederate main line units in my front, but having multiple skirmisher units on my flank. Can I just not make that attack?

Following advice, I have only infantry and artillery in my divisions this early in the game (just started fighting Shiloh). Can cavalry eventually kill these guys when I have it?

[Albert Sidney Johnston]

I'm in the same boat. Trying to win Shiloh as the CSA, I always got bogged down by skirmishers on the way to Shiloh Meetinghouse. Eventually I adopted the tactic of trying to herd them all together and leaving a single infantry unit to pin them down. I'm very interested to see how other people handle pesky skirmishers.

[Col_Kelly]

Just push the bastards. As soon as you advance towards them they retreat, it's indeed all about herding them, just make sure they don't end up in your back. Eventually you'll push them in the open and from there you can gun them down. 

If they are already on your flanks the best option is a temporary one : detach skirmishers, place them in cover to protect your sides and buy time.

Cavalry is obviously the best counter but as the OP pointed out they ain't always available.

In the end it's all about having wide solid lines that can act as a bulldozer to push the ennemy back. It's the real secret of the game. With a compact army you can push skirmishers sure, but most importantly you'll deter ennemy charges and multiply your offensive options. 

[Wright29]

First of all, nerf your own skirmisher weapons so enemies don't have snipers. Sniper units aren't worth it in the campaign since enemy can match weapons but with far greater numbers. 

the default tactic used to be to have your melee cav chase them down right away. That's not as efficient since they nerfed melee cav. Still sort of works if you can do it en masse. 

But for most battles, you can't afford to devote 3 melee cav units solely for chasing down skirmishers while they sit around for the majority of the battle.  Infantry brigades are efficient at fighting skirmishers head-on when both are in open field. Use your own detached skirmishers to flank and you should fight very profitably/ should drive them off easily. 

But what if the skirmishers are in lots of cover like Gaines' Mill (Union) or Chickamauga (Union)? Do a right click move command with your infantry brigades beyond the skirmishers even when they're within firing range. Keep advancing and the enemy skirmishers will fall back. When they've left cover, engage in a sustained firefight. 

[Bigjku]

I am not sure melee cav has been screwed up as opposed to fixed.  Yes if they can press through a charge to catch skrimishers in the open they should crush them.  But horses are huge targets for any rifled weapon.  If you have 150 skrimishers or so that's a lot of dead horses to press over and continue a charge through.  If they are in the woods or on broken ground forget about it.

So far to deal with them my focus has been on making sure in push them all out of woods and cover and into the open.  If I can't do that I just try to mask them off with my own skrimishers while I decide the real issue.  It's fairly accurate historically.  Sometimes line infantry had little choice but to stand there and suffer from such things.

[A. P. Hill]

Usually at Shiloh, just direct your divisions past the skirmishers, they'll fall back. But they become P.I.T.A.s on the other side of the creek. I usually assign a brigade to wear them down.

 

On a different note, infantry, skirmishers, cavalry, and supply wagons all surrender if circumstances fall in place.  The only organization that never surrenders is artillery. It would be nice if they would eventually surrender as well.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I definitely have had artillery surrender (both mine and the enemy's) a few times, but that was a few patches ago near the game's release.  I haven't had a lot of time to play, but I don't recall seeing artillery surrender recently.

[XCLBR]

run skirms right down...like sheep...but dot let em get your flanks

better to roll striaghte over em at a run...kill them quickly with a line then follow with skirm pursuit

 

 

[XCLBR]

or pop skirms of your own to deal with em