One thing that immediately distinguishes Line Of Muskets from most board games or table top miniature battles (for those of you who have played either) is the way visibility is handled. Line of Muskets brings you genuine “hidden movement” for the first time in war games. You can only see the enemy troops that your troops would actually see. You cannot see all of the enemy’s brigades that are facing you if, for example, they are hiding behind a hill or a wood. Normally your brigades can see any opposing enemy unit that is in the open up to a range of 5 hexes, which is approximately half a mile, with a chance to see opposing units up to 10 hexes.

Scouts

Each unit deploys scouts. These do not appear on the board but have an ability to report the presence of enemy units that are not in your line of sight. For example, a scout may report an enemy brigade that in on the other side of a hill from its brigade. Although the brigade is out of line of sight, the enemy unit will still appear on the board because your brigade will know of its presence. Scouts patrol out to a range of 10 hexes from their brigade (about 1 mile).

However, the chance of seeing an enemy unit is very small for any enemy unit that is beyond a 5 hex range, and becomes smaller the further away the scouts are from their brigade. Scouts are blocked by the presence of enemy units. So if, for example, an enemy unit is 5 hexes away from one of your brigades, then your scouts will not be able to make any reports as whether there are any enemy units more than 5 hexes away.

Line of Sight (LOS)

This is what an individual unit can see and not what their scouts report. In order for a unit to shoot at an enemy, the enemy has to be in the “Line of Sight”. For example, if an enemy unit is on the other side of a hill, but visible because the scouts have reported its presence, the brigade cannot shoot at it because the enemy brigade is not in its Line of Sight.

Line of Sight is blocked by more than 3 hexes of light cover (light trees, corn fields, etc.), and more than one hex of woods. You as the commander do not have to remember this, however. What your units can shoot at will be shown to you on your screen.

The Confederate brigade to the left is visible to the Union player, even though it is in woods.

To see how elevation will affect your troops' LOS, turn on the elevation menu.

Here the elevation menu has also been turned on. This is good for checking how elevation is going to affect Line of Sight (see visibility)

The following list shows how the ranges for scouts and Line of Sight. Visibility (what is seen by the brigade itself and its scouts) is different to Line of Sight (what the brigade can see):

These rules make Cavalry, although usually not in large numbers, very important. Cavalry units would send “out riders” to scout out the enemy and find them. So you don’t want to loose your cavalry as you will loose your eyes.

Be aware that when a unit fires it will just about always be seen by the enemy. Yet, units that are in difficult terrain have a higher chance of not being seen.

Be aware that if your scouts do not report the presence of any enemy units within your scouting range, this does not mean there are no enemy brigades present. It just means that your scouts have not found any. Conversely, you have no idea which of your brigades the enemy can see. So be aware. The enemy might just lay an ambush for you.

When you do see an enemy unit you will not automatically see the entire unit. For example, you see an enemy unit with 5 strength points in a hex, and this unit is in woods. And that is all you can see. However, this element might be part of a 14 strength brigade, but you don’t know this as you cannot see the other 2 hexes containing the rest of the brigade.

If an enemy unit is in your Line of Sight you will not be able to tell the morale or quality of these troops. However, you can tell the name of the enemy brigade by passing the cursor over the top of the brigade. The name will appear on your screen.

So be careful as you might not know what your opponent is up to until you see his troops appear in front of you (or behind you).