Manoeuvre orders and enemy skirmishers

[Adrian Steer]

Dear All,
I had a query from Jim Gibson which make me think we may of been interpreting this wrong.
Troops on Manoeuvre orders are not allowed to approach troops within tactical distance and this has led to the slightly strange outcome as we have been playing it, in that skirmishers can approach troops and take pot shots as them without the division having recourse to going onto hold automatically next turn and if your troops move it must be to get further away. However Jim points out to me Skirmishers do not create a tactical distance ( page 12) so you would be perfectly free to advance on them and flush them away even if you are on Manoeuvre orders, however you are restricted by other troops except irregular cavalry . This seems a better solution to me, what do other people think?

The only counter argument I can see is the last bullet point on manoeuvre orders that say that a unit that starts its movement withing 4 UD of enemy must move away, it would seem more reasonable that this should mean tactical distance.
Adrian

[RogerGreenwood]

Agreed, tactical distance to enemy should exclude skirmishers and irregular cavalry.
This will also affect rallying. Not unreasonable that a few skirmishers cannot prevent rallying as they present no threat of shock attack or dangerous fire like artillery.

[Adrian Steer]

Thanks Roger,
Unfortunately this does not apply to rallying as skirmishers and irregular cavalry are specifically mentions as stopping rallying on page 64. But I'm sure it will impact on other things.

[RogerGreenwood]

Oh dear, should have read that before posting.