Originally Posted by
McMuffin
Revolvers have two purposes in this game right now (Sergeant majors fall into this category also)
1) For an officer to defend a smaller unit from an attacking force. Whether that attacking force is two or three soldiers sneaking up on the line or an enemy unit charging the position, both require an officer to be successful and for anything to happen on the map. The same goes for if a unit is charging, an officer can make or break these charges because a good one can significantly aid in the charge and result in a win. This may sound stupid, and further reason to change the officers' pistols, but, in these small skirmish game modes where clumps of units will fight clumps of units and result in a stalemate, an officer can break this deadlock and result in anything happening and let things move along. Until people start to try and use other strategies than just 'flank over and over no matter how useless it is,' only an officer will break that deadlock or a MASSIVE, overwhelming force.
2) Self-defense of the officer, but this ties into function one.
Cutting the damage in half would make officers not as efficient at doing function one, and for the small skirmish maps we have right now, this function is essential because often the strategy for an attacker or defender is to break up their forces and have an officer lead that force. However, when we get out into the much bigger maps in the future, I would argue that you don't need to do this even then because I doubt an officer will sprint all the way to the enemy line on a massive map just to get a kill or two before being spotted far far away. In fact, I think in the bigger maps you could allow for an officer to reload (only once though) for the aforementioned reason.