Jena - Auerstaedt 1806 (boardgame)

At the moment I am looking at the Jena-Auerstaedt battlefield, with a view to designing some scenarios for the DBN rules (figures). A trawl of the game shelves reveals 4 titles that cover the battle. Today I have pulled down the Napoleon at War Quad, as recently republished in a deluxe version by Decision Games.

As a game, I thought it would better help me to understand the flow / tempo of the battle from a top down perspective.

The battles of Jena and Auerstaedt were fought on the same day, just a few miles apart as separate actions between Napoleon’s French and the Prussians (with some Saxon allies) and so it is that our game board (below) is divided into two areas of action (Jena on left, Auerstaedt on the right).

Between the two maps you can see a pair of ‘Transition’ tracks. These allow the French (only) to move between one battlefield and the other, although that does take a few turns.

With some confusion as to French positions, the Prussians had divided their own army into two parts. Five divisions were to cross the Saale River (this force is on the Auerstaedt map), while a smaller force of 48,000 men under the command of Prince Hohenlohe was left at Jena as a rearguard to that movement.

At the start of play we get two options. Fours days earlier, Prussian and Saxon forces (8,000 men) were routed at Saalfeld. Had Prince Louis been more cautious, that force would instead have been available to Prussians on the 14th and Saxon morale would have been better. The option is to include those routed units in the game.

The second option allows the Prussian player to decide against splitting the army, resulting in the Auerstaedt map not being used.

For this playing, I have ignored both options, so as to go with a more historical based game.

Turns 1 - 3 are night turns, units move normally but cannot move adjacent to an enemy unit. The combat part of the sequence of play is ignored. The effect is that the Prussians are able to take up positions that largely contain the French on the Jena map.

Turns 4 - 5 are Fog turns, unit movement rates are halved and rounded down. Since the Prussian infantry and artillery standard rates are three movements points, they get reduced to 1 MP and this hurts them. At Jena 2/Tau (Prussian) are surrounded and destroyed. At Auerstaedt, just one division of French enter the map and hold Hassen-Hausen. A Prussian juggernaut approaches, but they are of course plodding at just 1 MP per turn!

Photo below - it is turn 6, at Auerstaedt the French division ( Gudin of Davout’s III Corps) is still alone, but Friant’s Division is about to enter play … just in time. The situation at Auerstaedt is quite delicate / nuanced as both side have low demoralisation levels, so some caution is needed by both sides.

Below - The Prussians put their initial attack in against Hassen-Hausen. They have been forced to act quickly, before they can get their artillery into support positions, in order to strike before Friant engages. The attack fails.

Photo Below - it is still turn 6, across at Jena the French are ready to push westwards towards Lutzeroda. There is a situation here that has the potential to be lifted and used at a future point in a figures game. With units representing brigades, this is a good fit and size for a basic DBN figures game. I have marked the units with a black rectangle to set the scene for a future game (watch this space).

Turn 7 - Decisive moments, the Prussian / Saxon forces at Jena are badly mauled, they take enough losses to become ‘Demoralised’. This is serious, it allows the French to start exiting the map for VP’s and in all future combats, the Prussian / Saxons will fight at a disadvantage of a 1 column shift against their favour.

Over at Auerstaedt, Morand’s Divison have arrived to support Gudin and Friant, this dampens down Prussian enthusiasm for aggression, the forces are now broadly equalised and the French are still anchored on  Hassen-Hausen.

Turn 8 - at Auerstaedt, Gudin gets trapped and loses one brigade, it is only luck that saves the other brigade!

Turn 9 - At Jena, the Prussians continue to suffer heavy losses, a tipping point has been reached and they are getting overwhelmed …. However the French have also lost units to two Exchange results.

Turn 10 - At Jena, French reinforcements continue to arrive, the Prussians face utter destruction. At Auerstaedt both sides have had an opportunity to turn the battle and failed, the stalemate continues around Hassen-Hausen.

Turn 11 - Photo below showing Auerstaedt. Here the French have had the worst if it and have now gone ‘Demoralised’.

     

Turn 12 (last turn) - The French have total dominance at Jena, but they only manage to exit 46 strength points from the map - not enough for the 125 needed for the victory points. At Auerstaedt, the Prussian take Hassen-Hausen. With the French over here demoralised, they are now on the back foot.

Victory Points;

Prussians lose 73 points of strength, the French lose 48 = no VPs

Prussians Demoralised at Jena = 1 French VP

French Demoralised at Auerstaedt = 2 Prussian VP

The French didn’t get 125 strength points off the Jena map and the Prussians didn’t keep their losses below 48 so neither of those two things give VP’s

So 2 Prussian VP’s to 1 French VP = the Prussians win a Marginal Victory.

Conclusions;

That was an enjoyable, fast paced game. The system is quite simple, more game than simulation, but it does its job in being fun, telling a story and being accessible enough to actually get to the table!

The number of requirements by both sides keeps the game varied and a good competition between both sides. 

I would like to play the scenario again as I now have a better idea of what is required from both sides.

The three concepts that I would like to test explore are; How can the French get 125 strength points off the Jena map in the scenario time available. How likely is it that the French will use the transit track to get from one battlefield to the other. How do the Austrians at Jena engage in a rearguard without getting destroyed as zones of control are sticky.

It was nice to see a situation naturally occurring on the Jena map that can be taken to the figures table. I will at least investigate the order of battle it threw up and draw up a suitable map. 

Resources;

I have another bit of web space over at COMMANDERS that is a bit more snippet base than here - LINK

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

I recently played Marengo from this same package and did a loooong blog write-up - LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/marengo-june-1800-napoleon-at-war.html

The Formidable KV1

 

I came across a couple of accounts that reflect the formidable nature of the KV1 tank and the surprise of German tank crews as they came across these  behemoths of their day.

24th June 1941, the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, near Raseina. A lone KV1 held up a German combat group for a day at strategic crossroads.

20th August 1941, near Leningrad, a single hull down KV1, held up 8th Panzer Division, destroying 22 German tanks and receiving 156 hits!

I have recently re-bought back into the boardgame series Panzer, designed by James Day and published by GMT. 

To re-familiarise myself with the tank part of the rules, doing a few knock-about games with just a few tanks would be a good rules intro and an opportunity to do a lone KV tank defending against the odds!

The expansion modules do include an early war KV, but I have not punched those counters out yet, so staying with the core title, I do have a KV-1S (42). There is a scenario in the box that has them in use in late '43. For the Germans, the same scenario has Pz IIIM's, so that's that!

A few notes .... both sides are counted as seasoned. The lone KV is worth 64 points and a platoon of four Pz IIIM's is worth 212 points - so that's fair :-) 

The German tanks with ordinary AP shells for their 50/60 guns cannot penetrate the KV frontally, though they may get a lucky track shot. If they get a bit closer and have APCR rounds (random test), they can knock a KV out frontally.

In contrast, the Soviet 76.2 / 43, can likely see off the more lightly armoured Pz III's.

At Start

Above - in our game, the lone KV-1S is on hill A.17 (map A), a low feature, the four Panzer III's with enter the board (above left circle with grey counters) 1200 metres away.

The game does come with beginner / advanced and optional rules. I will be using the beginner rules, but as I have played before, the gun / armour / shooting system will be swapped out for the advanced rules and command rules will be added.

We shall resurrect our old east front veterans, who we have previously met, Junior Lieutenant Ivan Sokolov in the KV and 1st Lieutenant Otto Müller in the tank marked 100.  

Above is the data card for the Panzer IIIM. It will either scare you or delight! 

The first time that I ran this, the German tanks got badly mauled, this is the second run.

Turn 1 - The Panzers enter play in a single stack. The KV is on an Overwatch order and fires at the moving target, causing damage to Müller's tank! The Panzers are under Move orders and even now at 900 metres distance they cannot harm the KV, even their APCR is unlikely to do the job.

Turn 2 - The Germans win the initiative, not that it matters as they just want to move ahead as fast as possible, so they won't be firing. The KV selects another German tank and fires - a miss!

Muller has been allocated two orders, he and another tank will edge a little closer with the hope that next turn, they have enough APCR to start engaging the KV frontally, while the other two tanks will move towards the bottom of the hill, which is a blind spot to the KV (due to the plateau nature of hill levels).

Turn 3 - The Soviets win the initiative, this is important now because they want to fire first. They hit one of the two tanks moving towards the blind spot and get a knockout. The Germans fire second.

Müller has APCR but misses.

Tank 101 (that stayed back with Müller) in haste, load up AP and miss.

Tank 102 was brewed up at the start of this turn.

Tank 103 Moves to the lower side of the hill (see below).

At this point, I would be inclined to pull the KV out, it is about to become compromised, but in our opening accounts, the crews stayed at their post. Retreat / retire was not a practical option to them ... so Sokolov tells me that he is following their great example and staying put!

Turn 4 - This time it is the Germans that get the Initiative and they choose to fire first. Tank 101 has put APCR into the spout, fired and hit the KV front hull. At 700 metres the APCR penetrates with a value of 20, the KV, with a slight benefit from the higher ground has an armour value of 18, so is penetrated. Rolling on the results table gives us a knock-out.

Well that was short and sweet! The German platoon starting with 4 tanks has one destroyed and one damaged, a better result for them than in the previous game and tank 103 didn't have to risk exposing themselves when climbing the hill to get to point blank range (I did this in the last game and in the next turn, the Soviets won the initiative and fired first ..... knocking out the German tank.

This could be re-run a few times, easily getting different outcomes. The Germans need to have enough APCR to engage frontally, not a certain thing here as they need to roll 5 or less on a D10 each shot to get it, or get behind the KV to fire at the weaker armour, again not a certain thing, but perhaps help their chances would be helped with a track hit on the KV ...... not a certain thing :-)

So a very simple action and I am now back up and running with the core tank rules. It is time to add in some other rules and that is how this system works, you bolt rules on as and when you are ready to explore that part of the system.

I will go for scenario 1, which gives around 10 tanks per side, T-34's and Panzer IV's in a meeting engagement, Perhaps Otto Müller and Ivan Sokolov will grace us with another appearance :-)

The core Panzer module has just gone out of print for the third time. It is on the P500 list at GMT to hopefully be reprinted. In the meantime, the only new copy that I am aware of is at Second Chance Games (UK). I believe it is their last copy ...... because I was told that I bought the second to last copy - phew!

Resources.

I have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS, it is more magaziney than here and updated frequently. LINK

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

There is another post about Ivan and Otto that highlights their respective tank training schools. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2018/09/panzer-and-tale-of-two-tank-platoons.html

                                                                                                                   

All things Jena Auerstaedt

Starting out with the Epic scale for DBN armies, I have something of a blank canvas. My Napoleonic 28’s are French / Austrian, so I wanted to take the opportunity to field something different and the Prussians are where my gaze has fallen. So the Epic project will see a pairing of newly formed French / Prussian Pocket Armies.

Rather than just going with some generic forces to fight some generic actions (which is fine), selecting a theatre / battle might just impart some extra flavour on the play and so my shelves were scanned for inspiration. 

‘Boom’ as the cool generation are saying! Jena - Auerstaedt 1806.

I have a rather beautiful book on the subject, Jena Auerstaedt - The Triumph of the Eagle, from the pen of E.G. Hourtoulle and published by Historie & Collections. 

A 120 page hardback, it is chock full of illustration, including lovely full colour uniform plates and nice clear maps of the actions, while also supported by a very readable text on the battle and good orders of battle and organisation notes - it is a dream book for the wargamer!

Alone, that would be enough for me, but my beady eye noticed that I also have four boardgames on the Jena Auerstaedt subject;

The Coming Storm by Kevin Zucker from Operation Support Studies.

Trois Batailles en Allemagne by Didier Rouy from Pratzen Editions and Legion Games.

Jena - Auerstaedt, one of the old Napoleon at War Quads (SPI), recently republished by Decision Games.

Deux Années de Gloire, of the Jours de Gloire series, published by Vae Victis

If nothing else, this offers a ton of play opportunity and will allow me to really get a detailed appreciation of the battle(s) and also, there will be that thing of some situations created in the boardgame playings, being suitable for transfer to the figure table, where they might generate some interesting set-ups for the DBN armies.

Despite all of this marvellous detail in front of me, of late, I have enjoyed prioritising theme and flavour on the figures table above exact replication of history and so I will be using the Jena - Auerstaedt arena to that end.

Having a quick look at the characteristics given in DBN of my two 1806 armies, The Prussians get a -1 to their command point allowance, their musketry range is reduced to reflect their lack of skirmishing capability, they get a bonus in close combat and cannot use column for assault.

The French get a +1 to their command point allowance and an additional bonus when using column attack.

These differences might bring some additional interest to the table.

Anyway, this all seems fertile ground for a lot of near future napoleonic gaming on my table.

Resources;

I have other web space at the COMMANDERS site, where more on this will be written about over the coming weeks. LINK.

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html