The Battle of Friedchikun - The French Plan

Before I get into the battle report, just a brief comment on status markers for Volley and Bayonet. The most common markers we use in our games are Stationary, Disordered, Permanently disordered and Division Exhaustion. Instead of using printed chits, dice or other colored markers, I mounted some extra figures on old German 1 pfennig coins and spray painted them different colors.

Yellow is disordered, Red is permanently disordered, Blue for Division exhaustion and "painted" is Stationary

We also found it useful to use dice to keep track of the turns. Below is a die in a village denoting that it is Turn 6.


On with the plan . . .

The French Army commander, Honorable Son #2

The French Army commander on the tabletop

For our (The French) deployment, we decided (okay, I made a bad decision) to attack with our infantry on the right in one line to force the Imperials to thin their line or give up a flank in order for us to punch through with our reserves wherever he was weakened. We outnumbered him in cavalry so we thought this plan would work and would be flexible in allowing us to take advantage of any opportunities that came up.

Honorable Son # 4 as the Imperial commander redeploying his infantry in response to my advance toward his left flank

The Imperial commander on the tabletop

To pull off this brilliant maneuver, one of my close order, linear infantry divisions advanced through the forest on the French right flank.

IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: Do not advance close order, linear infantry through the woods to attack. I obviously forgot what era this was. Look at the following picture:


On the right flank is my brilliant advance through the woods. Since all of the stands were touching I used one disordered marker to show that the entire division on the right is disordered because woods disorder close order infantry. One regiment of the Infantry division on the left and slightly behind the first division is also disordered. Please notice that Honorable Son # 4, the Imperial Commander, is patiently waiting for the slowly advancing French to emerge from the woods so he can blast me with his stationary line.


Whenever units are within close fire range or are in contact, they must check morale. If you are disordered, it adds a -1 to your morale check. The French infantry were M5 so they normally needed a 5 or less to pass morale. Add to that the -1 and they needed a 4 or less. If you are already disordered and you fail morale, your unit routs. See where this is going?

Ready . . . Aim . . .

The French infantry emerged from the woods, took one look at the Austrian Gray Line and effectively took themselves out for the rest of the game! Half of the regiments routed leaving gaps in the line.

Run away! Yellow + Red means rout!

Okay, I promise next posting will have a narrative of the battle with lots of pictures!