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.