cossacks yet again

[deadtorius]

Question about Cossacks. In the rules irregular light cavalry is treated as skirmishers. Does this mean that Cossacks can move beyond their start area before the end of turn 2 like infantry skirmishers?

[KeefM]

Yes, irregular cavalry are 'skirmishers' and can move out of their deployment zone in the first two turns if a defender. Regular light cavalry in extended line cannot.

[Sarmaticus]

Just out of curiosity, if it's now clear that regular light cavalry in extended line aren't skirmishers, what are they? I mean what real world napoleonic thing are they supposed to represent?

[Blathergut]

p. 107: skirmishers...reg. light cav deployed in single rank (ext. line)

Has there been something posted somewhere along the way to say the reg. light cav cannot move out?

[Sarmaticus]

p. 107: skirmishers...reg. light cav deployed in single rank (ext. line)

Has there been something posted somewhere along the way to say the reg. light cav cannot move out?

I was taking my lead from the final point of this thread http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 99#p436899 but now I look at FOG(N) Errata and corrections - 13_01 , I see that Light Cavalry are as if skirmishers for some purposes: "Page 107: GLOSSARY OF TERMS: RH column - Skirmishers – 3rd bullet point. Add at the end “act and react as if skirmishers during the Assault and Combat phases – They do NOT move as skirmishers during the Movement Phase”.
Note that this means that the defenders non-Irregular Light Cavalry cannot move outside their deployment area during the first 2 moves of a game even if in single rank – if using the initiative rules."
So they clearly cannot move out according to FOG(N) Errata and corrections - 13_01 .
I'm still curious as to what one is to imagine Light Cavalry in Extended Line to be doing in real world terms.

[hazelbark]

Just out of curiosity, if it's now clear that regular light cavalry in extended line aren't skirmishers, what are they? I mean what real world napoleonic thing are they supposed to represent?

I think you have to be careful to not conflate game terms with history.

Light Cavalry filled a number of roles. They were used as pickets and screens for observation and to detour enemy. Now so did Dragoons btw. Then they also formed up and fought in battle formations and led proper charges and all that.

For example in the Russian army Hussars and Uhlan regiments were often attached to Cossacks for operational maneuvers, probes and scouting, but these formed up on the battlefield while Cossacks really didn't.

In the French army the Corps Cavalry was nearly always Chasseurs or Hussars. They were the local cavalry reserve on the battlefield and the scouts and eyes and ears for the Corps as well.

[Sarmaticus]

Yes, quite so. I'm not confused about that: I'm aware cavalry performed various roles. I'm just wondering what is supposed to be happening when our Light Cavalry bases are arranged in an extended line. I can see that not all the troops in a unit would be doing the same thing: infantry in skirmish formation presumably have some close order supports and reserves? They are, I assume, simply deploying a lot more of their strength as skirmishers than normal. Unreformed infantry are, again I suppose, not without skirmishers (those Prussian Schuetzen of 1806) but aren't deploying the sort of numbers that their reformed oponents can put out. I'm simply unclear as to what sort of thing is meant to be going on when FOGN Light Cavalry units are in extended line formation.

[BrettPT]

I'm with you Sarmaticus.
I don't think that there is much justification for Regular LC skirmishers on the battlefield at the scale we are playing. It would be a useful simplification of the rules to simply do away with Regular LC skirmishers altogether.

In game terms, my guess is that the intention is to allow LC to scamper away from heavier opponents. However this seems to be importing a dynamic from FoGA that shouldn't be part of a Napoleonic Corps battle (except for irregular cavalry). If regular LC don't want to go toe-to-toe with enemy heavies, then they shouldn't be in the deployed in a front line where they can be charged. If they do find themselves opposing HC, then they can always CMT to move to backwards 5MU in their turn and try to avoid combat that way.

Cheers
Brett

[hazelbark]

Ah I get your points and largely concur.

The exception would be to give them the express ability to leave the defense zone in this "scouting" formation. Now that is not where we are, but that does allow a useful and perhaps needed function. Similarly falling back before a flanking move.

I suspect you are right it is one of that many things that followed into the rules from early design ideas that could be chopped.

[Sarmaticus]

I agree. It would still leave extended line as a useful formation for any cavalry, heavy or light, to use on occassion: to minimise long range casualties; rear support two units; block more frontage; scare more skirmishers; etc..The skirmishing aspects don't really belong in a corps level game.
I very much like the way these rules work as they appear to shed most of the DBx baggage of fighting by file and balletic movement of bases within units that clog up FOGAM to some extent: perhaps the shape of FOG to come? But they badly need polishing and tightening and the structure of the rulebook unscrambling.
Btw are Eclaireurs and Krakus candidates to be skirmishers? Would they have to be high quality irregulars to be contra-cossacks?

[KeefM]

Hmmmm . . . if there is to be no on-table role for skirmishing light cavalry, then can we also do away with on-table Cossacks (and the ilk) while we are at it . . . you can't have one and not the other IMHO - that is a logical inconsistency. If there is a battlefield role for Cossacks at the scale we play, then there is an equal role for skirmishing regular light cavalry too.

If there was any move in this direction then let's go further and re-examine the role of regular infantry 'skirmishers' formation also. Bear in mind that the 'medium' range firing activity is already assumed to be representing (in historical terms) the skirmishing activity.

I think another thing to bear in mind in isolating the debate to being about regular LC 'skirmishing' in extended line is that there are now some disadvantages to that with the changes brought in by the last amendments. I see nothing broken with those amendments that needs fixing - no one is consistently wining games through using regular LC in extended line !

Also, what we play is a GAME. After all, show me the historical battle between equally sized armies ? The 'reality' is an exercise in organisation, logistics and economics that is simply never reflected on-table.

This is very complicated chess with much much prettier pieces. Game mechanisms are just that . . . leave this particular one alone - it's okay as it is .

[Sarmaticus]

Cossacks did have a battlefield role: think Borodino. They also had roles off the battlefield, as did light cavalry. The difference is that Cossacks in FOGN don't have one formation where they're doing battlefield stuff and another where they're doing stuff they did away from the battlefield: regular light cavalry have. Cossacks didn't operate as a chain of vedettes on the battlefield anymore than regulars. They operated in swarms. Their FOGN performance models that. Showing them in open order is a convention that's left over from WRG (it might be less misleading to mount them irregularly on a deeper, square base).
I would have no objection to the skirmisher-like option for Light Cavalry if I had some idea what on the Napoleonic battlefield it is meant to represent. As it is, it does seem to be a hangover from FOGAM where it allows the flexible battlefield tactics of cavalry of that period to be represented.
If you don't care at all about the plausibility of the rules, I'd guess you're in a minority of historical wargamers.

[KeefM]

Not the best of examples to make a point. At Borodino, the actual composition of the show-of-force on the Russian right also comprised more troops than just Cossacks. In that regard then, actually, regular light and heavy cavalry also acted as "skirmishers". So, using that example, extended line skirmishing on the battlefield should by allowed to both regular HC and Shock HC as well.

[Sarmaticus]

Not the best of examples to make a point. At Borodino, the actual composition of the show-of-force on the Russian right also comprised more troops than just Cossacks. In that regard then, actually, regular light and heavy cavalry also acted as "skirmishers". So, using that example, extended line skirmishing on the battlefield should by allowed to both regular HC and Shock HC as well.

have you read Clausewitz's account?

[Sarmaticus]

Not the best of examples to make a point. At Borodino, the actual composition of the show-of-force on the Russian right also comprised more troops than just Cossacks. In that regard then, actually, regular light and heavy cavalry also acted as "skirmishers". So, using that example, extended line skirmishing on the battlefield should by allowed to both regular HC and Shock HC as well.

Yes there were other troops involved in the Russian flanking manoeuvre. It wasn't meant to be a demonstration but by the time they reached the French left flank there was no feasible target for it. Being part of a demonstration would not in any case equate to skirmishing.

[hazelbark]

The Cossacks were on several battlefields. Always on the edge. And always mugging the unsuspecting, tired, stranded and outflanked forces.

[deadtorius]

OK so I tried Cossacks out for a second time today, ran them out front of the French infantry in extended line to maximize their annoyance factor. then I discovered that they need a test to charge into anything and their competent commander was out of range of them with a Russian infantry unit
All went well until a sneaky unit of lancers amongst the French infantry just managed to be within charge range of the very end of the extended line and drove them into other friendly troops and things went kind of bad on that flank for most of the rest of the game until the turn the French sprouted mass wavering markers and a unit of Chevaux Leger broke the entire flank with a single charge and caused mass cohesion test failures that collapsed the French left entirely.

However the cossacks were broken and had recovered and were wavering at this time so they couldn't do anything other than run away behind their friendly lines.
So any other cossack advice out there other than put them in front of lots of infantry so they can block shooting, reduce dice and movement but keep them away from enemy cavalry? This time they actually did something which was better than my first try with them.
Thank you for any and all advice.

[KeefM]

Kendall is THE master of cossack-use. Bar none !!

[Blathergut]

They were a pain. [Dead.: Did we class them as skirmishers when I shot at them, needing 6s? Only infantry skirmishers get the -POA.] My line of infantry and artillery could do nothing to them. And my lancers, the only unit of cavalry in the centre, took a while to get at them.

[terrys]

They were a pain. [Dead.: Did we class them as skirmishers when I shot at them, needing 6s? Only infantry skirmishers get the -POA.] My line of infantry and artillery could do nothing to them. And my lancers, the only unit of cavalry in the center, took a while to get at them.

Cossacks can be elusive, but don't allow you opponent to make the 1/2 move in any direction when they are within 2mu of you (as I did in one game - they kept dancing around my regular LH).
The benefits that light cavalry have in extended line are in moving slightly faster, and being able to retire a full move if threatened.
Their disadvantage is in having a -POA in combat.

Think of them as being more of a picket line than a combat formation, normally used to protect a flank from unexpected attack. (or to defend it from Cossack attacks.)