Slitherine

Running Austrians I used to not want to take the poor drilled Grenzers, well actually I didn't want to take any at all, however sine Blathergut started running the Army of Italy our first few tries with that army we stuck to historical and I had to take them. Now I see them as being regular troops in any of my armies. However the only time they have ever skirmished was in their first appearance, had woods and steep hill fall in my deployment so they deployed in skirmish and stayed that way for the whole game. Since then I have strictly kept them in tactical since the table has had more open spaces in our last 3 or 4 games.

I keep wondering how or if you can use them effectively as skirmishers either as defender or attacker. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Blathergut has suggested putting a skirmish line in front of my advancing troops to screen his artillery as an attacker but still not seeing many chances of breaking out the skirmish line.

I agree that poor drilled LI are useful, cheap LI.

Uses in skirmish formation:

1. Start them in skirmish formation when defending, to allow them to move in the first 2 turns. Run them forwards to stop enemy double moves, then move/evade them back before the enemy.

2. Skirmishing LI are great against artillery.

3. If you need to get our of a tricky situation, flick into skirmish. You can then reduce shooting, can evade when charged or move them full distance to the rear in your movement phase.

4. A single deep line can screen your own troops from enemy fire.

That's about it I think ...

Cheers
Brett

5. They enter buildings without taking a CMT and can hold them as well as any other unit can. (although can't fire very effectively from it.)