Reconnaissance by leaders

[Eckerslyke]

Fellow Battlers:

A thorny problem has emerged in a battle in which I'm currently engaged.  It is the four-day Waterloo scenario, number 7 I believe.

One of my opponent's leaders has travelled, unaccompanied, far beyond his front line, deep behind my lines.  He is able to determine the strength and deployment of my carefully-concealed defenses from a position to the rear of that defensive line.

The leader is so far to the rear of the my own forces that he has no LOS to any friendly unit, but due to the way our software works, full details of what he can see is transmitted, as if by means of telepathy, to the overall commander of his side.

I could assign two or three cavalry units to follow this leader, in the hope that they might catch him and trample him into the mud as he deserves, but the nearest units I have are at least two turns away.  That leader can easily outrun them, since his movement allowance is double that of cavalry.  The wretch has now taken refuge in a patch of woodland, which I now must surround with my cavalry (probably taking six more turns, since it is that large wooded area to the SW of Gosselies).  They will need to maintain a cordon sanitaire while I send in a bunch of light skirmishers to eliminate him.

All in all, it ties up a minimum of three units.  I have now noticed that he is doing the same with two other officers in other parts of the map.

My opponent is an honorable battler.  We had a lot of fun fighting this same battle on opposite sides last year.  But he seems not to understand how unrealistic, unfair and inauthentic this new tactic appears to be.

Unless I am the one in the wrong, of course.  Perhaps I am the one with an incorrect notion of the appropriate use of leaders for reconnaissance.

So I thought I'd write to the forum here and invite the viewpoints of other members on this topic.

I am contemplating a house rule which would permit an officer to ride ahead of his unit to determine the lie of the land, but with the proviso that he remain within LOS of a friendly unit at all time.  If LOS to a friendly unit is ever lost for any reason, he must immediately move to re-establish it.

Does that seem reasonable?