Scourge of War Boards

We have been playing MP and I don't see how you make the Union side competative. Even with a larger number of players the South just wipes the Union off the map. Am I missing something?

I am not sure what specific OOB you are playing with, but if it is stock you really have to know your troops. If you want to fight offensively, as Union, the best corps are the 5th and 6th. And even then you have to manage them properly. The Union has the advantage in artillery so you must let the guns do their work. That may take 10 to 15 minutes to soften up the Confederates. You should never attack with the 11th and 12th corps. I have never won offensively with them (and not very often defensively either).

Key points are:

- This is a great game

- The Unions' advantage is in their artillery, let them do their work (Read Willard's maxim on artillery)

- Know your troops and the troops of your enemy

- Use terrain to your advantage

- Understand something about Civil War tactics

One more point, the confederate player, with the advantage in infantry, should look to attack early, before the Union gets set up. The Union player must set up on good terrain and then use his advantages to formulate a plan to get at the Confederate player.


At Gettysburg the Union faced the ANV at its peak. The Confederates are in good numbers, generally well lead, and very high moral.

If you're playing sandbox with the OOBs that come with the game, most of the union troops are inferior to most of the confederate troops, so yes the confederates will have the advantage. Sandbox games give a roughly equal number of troops to each side, but they don't take the troops' experience into account, so often it will be very imbalanced.

You can still win with union if you place all your artillery in front of the line and use canister properly to keep the confederates from getting close. Using canister to keep the enemy infantry out of range neutralizes the effect of their better infantry, and then the union do have an advantage because their artillery can actually kill at medium or long range while the confederate artillery (mostly) cannot. If as the union you knock out their artillery from a distance, then you can advance with your guns in front of your infantry, and they'll have nothing to do but fall back as you approach since your canister outranges their rifles.

Most of us think this is dumb, but it works for both sides when playing the unmodded game.

(To any confused readers, this all applies when using the normal OOBs that come with the game, with modded oobs most of this can be different.)