BlowGunners

[Howard Mahler]

These special units for Malay replace skirmishers.
I attacked with blowgunners over a dozen times, and never saw any evidence of their special ability:
poisoning enemy units.

Am I missing something?

Without that special ability, they are skirmishers who do no collateral damage and have an increased chance to withdraw; overall worse than skirmishers.

 

[Xyth]

There's no message about their incapacitate ability, but there probably should be. It's a guaranteed ability that will prevent 2 units in a stack (but not the unit attacked) to be unable to take any actions for 2 turns.