Playing blind battles created as a result of playing in Col Berdan's war or 3 Stone and Cleburne's war is a pure joy for someone like myself who really enjoys blind battles with units of much more varying capabilities than the standard CWG2 battles.
As a result of having played several 'blind' battles created for Berdan's war specifically, I have encountered some new challenges that need to be addressed when playing these battles. These challenges include adhering to the 'mission', handling green troops and the importance of intelligence in blind battles.
The most important concept for everyone to remember is the importance of completing the mission! If the President instructs you to hold the city you are in at all cost because reinforcements can get there next turn by rail, that is exactly what you do! You sacrifice every last unit if you have to, to ensure that
the city is still in your hands by the end of that battle. (Well every unit but one, since you need one unit to be in the city at the end of the battle for it to be considered yours. If you are capturing a city, all enemy units must be ejected from the city in order for it to be considered yours. Also, you don't go gallivanting off trying to capture 'stray' enemy units when you feel you have the opportunity. (Well you can, if and only if you can do that and still accomplish your mission!) Remember, points and flags no longer matter in these battles, only accomplishing the mission matters.
Another thing to keep in mind is the building of unit 'experience'. Every time a unit you have engages the enemy in such a way that it garners a bullet hole, experience is gained and will be added to that units experience level for subsequent battles. Thus, artillery gains a hole every time it fires and infantry gains a hole every time they attack or are attacked. Withstanding enemy artillery fire also gives your units experience! Since subsequent battles will often be fought with these very same units, building experience for them is important, but not at the expense of the mission! Balance here is important to remember.
Green troops with morale that is naturally around 50 pts require very special handling. Keeping unit integrity is much more important here than with experienced troops. Units in the same brigade must be within 3 hexes of the Brigade commander or their morale will drop. Units of a Corps must be within 3 hexes of a 'parked' CC to maximize their morale. Units within 6 hexes still receive a morale boost, but, it is about half as much as when they are within 3 hexes. Check out the numbers under the unit commanders pictures to witness these effects. Unparking a CC will make units begin to lose these increases, thus the use of a CC as a scout in these battles is usually not bright. Also, concentrating your artillery fire on an enemy CC can greatly enhance your attack if you are able to rout or severely lower the morale of the CC so that it cant move properly. Try to unpark and repark your CC in the same turn to continue to receive maximum benefit from the morale boost of parked CC's.
In addition, when first digging in, low morale troops morale drop by 3 to 5 pts! Never fear, the dug in troops will stand up to shelling and attacks even though their morale may be in the low 60s or even the 50s. This goes for artillery units as well as infantry. So, IF your troops are dug in and able to rest a couple turns, anticipate that they will take some damage without retreating, even though their morale is only 55-65.
Low morale troops can charge! I have found some able to charge even though morale was 66 in one case. So keep trying to charge even if it doesn't look possible. (And it only cost about 1000 morale pts to charge with the 66 morale regiment.)
Moving troops off major roads or on minor ones caused morale to dip rapidly, creating a need for rest every 3 turns or so. Try only to do this with a parked CC nearby to negate the effects of the morale drop.
