FPW 2.3

Set-up

The French player will receive 4 envelopes, marked 'Standard', 'River', 'Railhead', and 'Reserve'. He will write down on a piece of paper the formations and units he plans to commit to each battelfield.

He will then hand over the first 3 envelopes to the German player who will, without looking at the contents of the envelopes, similarly write down the formations he plans to commit to each battlefield, and then places the pieces of paper into the corresponding envelope.

(We can consider the option of letting the German player look at the contents of one envelope before committing his forces to simulate German scouting and intelligence.)

At the beginning of each session the umpire will randomly draw one of the envelopes and announce which battlefield is being played.

The French player will set up his forces first, but not reveal units which are out of line-of-sight to the German player.

The German player will move his units onto the tabletop according to the sequence given in the rules - he does not have to reveal the size of his total force.

Post-battle sequence

Units which have lost bases may roll to recover them.

German units recover each base lost on a 5 or 6 on 1d6. French units recover lost bases on a 4,5 or 6 if they have moved off-table before the end of the game, or if they can trace a line to their LOC; units which cannot trace a line to their LOC at the end of the game are considered to be captured as POWs and lost for the rest of the campaign. (This is given in the original rules - we can change the odds if we wish.)

It is not important to determine beforehand which units have sustained the losses (we can simply decide which units to name the units after the game so we don't have to label units on-table), but units may not be broken up to 'top-up' units to their full strength - i.e. you may not combine 3 units with 3 hits each into 2 units of 4 and 5 hits respectively.

The updated army list is then noted on the slips of paper and returned to the umpire - they will enter the 4th (finale) battle in that state.

4th Game

For the final game, the French player nominates one square at his 2nd row (we will use a 9 x 6 grid) as the fort.

The German player nominates 3 LOCs, and has the choice of which one to use as the entry point of his forces from one of the 3 battles. The French player then selects another as the entry point of the German forces of one of the two remaining previous battles. The third LOC is used as the entry point for the German forces from the remaining battle.

FPW 2.2

German OOB

VIIth Corps (Zastrow)

13th Div (Gluemer)
2 Bde Cmd
7 Jgr (1 Bn)
13 Regt (3 Bn)
73 Fus (3 Bn)
15 Regt (3 Bn)
55 Regt (3 Bn)
8 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

14th Div (Kameke)
2 Bde Cmd
39 Fus (3 Bn)
74 Regt (3 Bn)
53 Regt (3 Bn)
77 Regt (3 Bn)
15 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

VIIth Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty


VIIIth Corps (Goeben)

15th Div (Weltzien)
2 Bde Cmd
8 Jgr (1 Bn)
33 Fus (3 Bn)
60 Regt (3 Bn)
28 Regt (3 Bn)
68 Regt (3 Bn)
7 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

16th Div (Barnekow)
2 Bde Cmd
29 Regt (3 Bn)
69 Regt (3 Bn)
40 Fus Regt (3 Bn)
72 Regt (3 Bn)
9 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

VIIIth Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty

3rd Cavalry Division (Groeben)
8 Cuirassier
7 Uhlan
5 Uhlan
14 Uhlan

1 x Arty Btty

FPW Campaign 2.1

French OOB

5th Corp (Failly)

1st Div (Goze) *
2 Bde Cmd
13 Ch (1 Bn)
18 Regt (3 Bn)
96 Regt (3 Bn)
45 Regt (3 Bn)
1 Zv (3 Bn, elite)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

2nd Div (L'Abadie)
2 Bde Cmd
14 Ch (1 Bn)
84 Regt (3 Bn)
97 Regt (3 Bn)
49 Regt (3 Bn)
88 Regt (3 Bn)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

3rd Div (Lespart)
2 Bde Cmd
19 Ch (1 Bn)
17 Regt (3 Bn)
27 Regt (3 Bn)
30 Regt (3 Bn)
68 Regt (3 Bn)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

Cav Div (Brahaut)
2 Hussars
12 Chasseur
3 Lancer
5 Lancer

Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty

I propose for the purpose of the campaign we allow regiments to be cross-attached to other divisions. This includes the cavalry Division, whose component cavalry regiments may be attached to infantry divisions.

* - I have switched the units in this division with those of the 1st Division of 1st Corps so we can use the Zouaves unit I have...

A Franco-Prussian War campaign

Here's a re-post of the campaign I proposed:

I'm thinking the following will make a manageable 4-battle campaign.

We will pit 1 French Corps vs 2 German Corps - historically we can use the units from the French 5th Corps and the two corps from the German First Army (VIIth and VIIIth Corps), which clashed at the Battle of Spicheren.

This gives the French 3 Infantry Divisions (39 battalions), a Cavalry Division (4 Regts), and a Corps Artillery Regiment (8 batteries). The infantry Divs have a total of 6 gun and 3 MG batteries.

The Germans will have 4 Infantry Divisions (48 Battalions), a Cavalry Division (8 Regts), and two Corps Artillery Regts (12 batteries). The infantry and cav Divs have a total of 18 batteries. The Germans have bigger battalions (5 bases to the French's 4) and so have an overall 1.5X advantage in infantry, and have double the artillery, which also outclass the French guns.

For the operational situation I envision the Germans advancing along a 3-prong fashion towards a French fortress, which the French Corps is hoping to fall back on. The the preliminary battles represent the battles along the three prongs, and the final battle the battle at the fortress. Each player decides how much of their forces to commit along each prong - the French can sit some of his forces at the 4th table to avoid them becoming casualty. 3 standard battles (7 x 5 grid) are then fought, with each side using the number of units they have committed to each table. At the end of each battle, the attackers recover 1/3 of their lost bases. The defender recovers 1/2 of their lost bases for the units that have exited the table, or can trace a clear line to their Line of Communications - i.e. units which are surrounded by Germans are totally lost. Other than the usual timing, the game also ends if there are no French units left on the table.

The final game can be fought on a 9 x 6 grid table with bases counting as double strength, and with the Germans having 3 points of entry - one for each prong. The timing for the start of arrival of each prong depends on the time their brevious battle ended - so a German force that fought until 80 on the clock the previous game will arrive at clock 40, while one that ended at 60 will arrive at clock 20, and those that finished before 60 at clock 0. If at the end of the final game the French hold their fortress, it's a victory for them.

To add variety to the 3 preliminary games, we can have one prong involve a river crossing (French player may place river sections in the second and third row, German player places 2 bridges), one involving a railhead (German player may place a Clear column from one edge to another), and one standard board.

The final battle will allow the French player to place a small fortress grid (ignore 3 hits).

The players must decide how many units to deploy at each table from the very start - so it's a matter of guessing whether the other player will decide to put more forces at the difficult table (river for the German and railway for the French), or choose to throw that table away, hoping to delay and attrite the enemy at the table where the advantage is his. At each table there is also the decision for the defender to whether extricate more forces but accept faster German arrival at the final game, or to sacrifice numbers to delay them at the final game. Enough operational decisions to make it fun, I think.

New Year, New Beginning

For a start I would like to list the figures we have in the various periods and grouped in historical match-ups (arjun in blue, wahj in red, Martin in green):

Ancient

15mm Hittite Empire
15mm Sea Peoples
15mm Early Mycenaean

25mm Early Mycenaean
15mm Warring States China (Zhao)
15mm Warring States (Qin)

15mm Polybian Roman
15mm Later Carthaginian
15mm Nubians
15mm Attalid Pergamene (in progress)

28mm Marian Roman

15mm Sassanid Persian
15mm Early Imperial Roman

25mm Early Imperial Roman
25mm Gladiators

Dark Age

15mm Anglo-Danish
15mm Norman/Anglo-Norman
15mm Welsh/Scots
15mm Norse-Irish
15mm Viking

28mm Late Roman
28mm Saxons

Medieval

15mm Early Crusader (same as Norman)
15mm Saracen

15mm Saracen (same as above)
15mm Later (Palaeologan) Byzantine
15mm Mongol

15mm Wars of the Roses (Lancaster)
15mm Wars of the Roses (York)

28mm Wars of the Roses/Warhammer Empire

Renaissance

19th Century

10mm Franco-Prussian (both sides)

15mm French Napoleonic
15mm British Napoleonic and Allies

15mm Indian Mutiny (both sides)

1/1200th Ships

WW2

20mm Russian
20mm British
20mm German

Fantasy

25mm LOTR Dwarves
25mm LOTR Goblins
25mm Beastmen
25mm LOTR Gondor
25mm LOTR Uruk-hai
25mm LOTR Rohan

Blood Bowl Orc team
Blood Bowl Undead Egyptian team
Blood Bowl Fantasy Greek team

15mm Skeleton
15mm Fantasy War-Wagon, dragon (to match either Later Byzantine or WOTR)

Sci-fi

3 fleets
1 fleet

6mm Space Marines

20mm Star Wars (both sides)

20mm Gear Krieg German

25mm Space Marines
25mm Space Marines
25mm Imperial Guards
25mm Droids Army

Terrain
Hills
Rivers
Trees
10mm European (paper)
15mm Adobe
15mm Medieval English
15mm Mediterranean (paper)
28mm Village