What do flatboats do?

[Micah Goodman]

I can't find them in the manual. Anyone know?

[Ol' Choctaw]

They are a slower more limited version of transports.

Their main value is not as transports but as a cheap supply source for building supply depots in locations with waterborne movement.

[Micah Goodman]

Thanks

[elxaime]

They are a slower more limited version of transports.

Their main value is not as transports but as a cheap supply source for building supply depots in locations with waterborne movement.

Can Flatboats also be used to block enemy river crossings and movement? I am talking not where exposed to enemy guns or combat fleets, but in the rear areas to keep enemy partisans and cavalry from crossing rivers. They have a combat value, albeit low.

Thoughts? Or can you only block enemy with gunboats and ironclads?

[Ol' Choctaw]

Can Flatboats also be used to block enemy river crossings and movement? I am talking not where exposed to enemy guns or combat fleets, but in the rear areas to keep enemy partisans and cavalry from crossing rivers. They have a combat value, albeit low.

Thoughts? Or can you only block enemy with gunboats and ironclads?

Pretty sure it takes armed boats to stop fording rivers.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Flatboats' short build time is also a useful feature sometimes. I have used them to good effect moving small forces around cheaply and quickly in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma for example.

[Captain_Orso]

They most certainly cannot block river crossings; you need 4 fighting elements to do that.

If you view their transport capacity and cost and compare that to those of riverine transports, you'll find they are not cheap per se. For the same transport capacity as one 4 element riverine transport unit you will need 4 or 5 flatboats, and the cost for building one or the other is close to the same.

But, the rules say, you need 4 supply-transporting elements to build a depot, whether each have the capacity to transport 1 or 10 weight. So for 1/4th the cost of a riverine transport you can buy a flat boat, and ergo a depot.

Additionally, you can build a flatboat in any harbor location you control[SUP]1)[/SUP]; ANY; even in Texas if you are the Union; even in Dallas ....

That is the power of the flatboat

P.S. If you're going to use them to skedaddle down a river away from enemy troops, don't forget that gunboats will --as one cute girl once said-- "they'll kick your asp "


1) There is a loyalty cut-off for building units, even in "friendly" territory --EG Saint Louis as the Union-- but I'm not sure what that is at the moment.

[Pocus]

Also, very soon flatboats will have unique names

[Merlin]

Hopefully one will be named Titanic.

[Gray Fox]

Flat bottom boats make the rockin' world go round.

No wait, that's fat bottom girls. Never mind.