That's a double-edged sword though. In the instance Stu is referring to, I'm the culprit. In a random GCM battle (me and Seal v Willard and Stu), I decided to test the attack march command (I had never used it) that Seal has been using so often lately. I sent 7,500 men (4 brigades) into a 100 yard section of Stu's line. It was quite beautiful; all 4 brigades hit at the same time. Stu had maybe 8 regiments to my 20, I managed to get around 12 of mine in melee against his 8, that left 8 in reserve just behind the action. So even if there were a big fatigue hit, I still had a second line ready to finish him off, and the fatigue hit would have applied to any of his regiments that managed to win their melees, so they would have been at a disadvantage too.I was actually thinking about something similar to this. Instead of messing with the formation or creating a new one, we could just increase the amount of fatigue penalty for melee. So this way after a melee, you are going to be pretty much used up until you have time to rest again.After a regiment gets a certain amount of fatigue they can't charge any more. It's also possible to some extent to change the effects of fatigue on regiments' combat ability.
Now, unlike Seal, as Stu brought up reinforcements, I withdrew back across the creek instead of pressing with my whole division until I won or was destroyed (basic Seal 101). But I had racked up over a 1000 points so the battle was basically over points wise after my assault.
How to counter the massed attack march assault:
Stu and I talked about this after the game, and really, he was in a good position to do what I've been considering doing to counter the Seal assault, using multiple lines and falling back to keep from being engaged in melee. The weakness of the attack march is that none of the units will fire, so you should form a defense in depth and time your front line withdrawals so that you stay out of melee. If the attacker keeps coming, your second line will fire until they get close and then withdrawal behind the next line, and so on. The tricky part is knowing when to fall back.
We've used a different tactic a few times the last couple of games, allowing Seal's massed division to break through a weak line and then forming a sort of bag for them to fall in as they advance. But this was 3 divisions or so working together to destroy the menace. And it worked well.
But defending against the massed attack march assault on your own is a much more difficult task.
I don't think we need to add a fatigue hit to regiments which melee. I think it's fun trying to counter the evolving tactics of the Pennsylvania butcher.
