Confused on game mechanics

[agmoss99]

It's not in the manuals that's for sure. The same feature is in the Battleground games so it must be deliberate.  I think I learned about it many years ago from somebody else. Similarly if you stack a high quality Guard skirmisher with a crappy D or E grade unit, that prevents the unit receiving a negative melee modifyer in defence. Not that the allies have many such high quality units in most games.

Yes, the only way is to use zoom in 3D and keep rotating the thing (no movement cost) until it faces the right way and it's difficult to see in a stack. With ADF on there's a good chance it will orientate itself. So the motto is to try and melee a unit in both flanks. And as defender have several skirmishers stacked so as to prevent that tactic.

Meleeing a skirmisher in flank is also more likely to rout the thing, as even individual skirmishers have a facing in melee.

Skirmisherology is a subgame in itself.