Battle for the Centre (Post II)

The previous post set out a process for creating a Corps level battle set across three tables, but fighting the engagement one table at time.

This post covers the first action, which takes place in the centre, with roughly a division of troops per side.

Below - a schematic of this particular battlefield, which was created by the terrain chart in the previous post.

It will be noted that the battlefield favours the French, as the defensible terrain is on their side of the table and since they are both victory objectives, the Austrian side must work hard in this action.

You may recall that the Austrian Corps Commander is Lethargic. This means that at the start of each Austrian turn, a randomly selected Austrian infantry unit cannot move that turn. As it happens the dice were rather cruel to 3rd Infantry Brigade (on the hill) and so their early moves against the village were rather tardy.

Below - Out of interest, since I have already worked out the terrain and the forces for the whole three table battle, here is a plan of all three tables from the French perspective (today we are in the centre portion);

You will note that overall the French have a lot of defensive terrain on their side of the table, plus they also have the majority of the victory point locations. This is just what the terrain creator threw up. I rather like the fact that the battlefield favours one side (the French) and that their stance is almost certainly going to become defensive because of that.

I fancy that if I had ‘designed’ the table myself, I would have felt obliged to even out the terrain a bit so that both sides saw a bit of balance, but battle situations are rarely balanced, so I like what the random selector has done here, especially from a solo point of view, it has served up a challenge.

The system (previous post) requires that the first battle is fought in the centre. If I were a betting man, I would probably put my money on a French win …. we shall see!

Above - here is how the table looks with units deployed. The artillery of both sides has open views.

We dice for who is player 1. The French get an uplift for having cavalry, but despite this, the Austrian player will go first each turn (9 turns, plus a possible 10th).

Here is a brief overview of the battle;

Austrian guns target the French cavalry and cause them to fall back. 

The Austrians at the hill keep suffering from their Corps Commander being lethargic!

In the centre, there is an early charge by the French Light cavalry (above). The Austrian infantry fail their response test. The charge goes in and the Austrians are lucky to recoil with light casualties, but the Austrian centre is now tied down - they were intended to support the assault on the village.

Above - outside the village, a French column throws in a spoiling attack against part of the Austrian advance. The other half of the Austrian advance attacks the village, but is thrown back.

Turn 4 -   And then we come to turn 4, when we must roll on the Random Events Table as instructed and outlined in the previous post.

The French - get the ‘Ney type commander’ result and they are obliged to immediately launch their light cavalry to attack the nearest enemy, even if doing so takes more than 1 move.

The Austrians - get reinforcements as the Corps Commander calls upon support from his left flank - they arrive in the form of the heavy cavalry brigade, two regiments of dragoons.

The reinforcing cavalry (above) fall upon the flank of the French column in front of the village that just launched that spoiling attack …… they are swept away by the dragoons. 

This turns the table in that sector of the battlefield and a renewed Austrian assault on the village takes it (above), ejecting the French garrison. While all this has been a great success for the Austrians, they will suffer the absence of the cavalry when they play that battle on the Austrian left flank!

As for the ‘Ney’ type charge, once again the Austrian infantry fail their response test, but they manage to retain cohesion, while falling back.

Above - on the French left, amongst the fields, the French 1st Infantry Brigade have taken heavy casualties, but still hold the fields and as the clock ticks, it becomes clear that the Austrians will not be able to eject them.

End of the game - even though many of the units in the game have taken heavy casualties, with some wavering, the surprising truth is that only one unit has actually been removed from play (the French infantry swept away by the cavalry charge).

If we count up the victory points, the French get 2 VP’s for holding the walled fields. The Austrians get 2 VP’s for holding the village, but also get a VP for the destroyed French unit, giving the Austrians a win in this part of the battle.

That was a genuine surprise to me at least. Almost certainly the arrival of the Austrian cavalry was the thing that swung the outcome, though now that Austrian left flank must fight without the cavalry in the next battle.

I am thinking of tweaking the scenario builder set out in the last post, to have each flank battle on Turn 7 be influenced by the news coming from the battle in the centre.

On this occasion, both flanks will be told that the Austrians are winning in the centre and this will cause all French units involved in those two battles to test their resolve at the start of turn 7. Each French unit will take a Morale Test. If a testing unit fails, it will fall back 6” and take a disordered marker.

I think this helps knit the relationship between the three battlefields a little more and is gentle enough as not to be too dramatic.

Anyway, that’s it. A third post will cover the pending two flank battles. I did intend everything to be wrapped up in this post, but my play has been interrupted, so I thought I may as well do a more detailed account of the centre battle and allow the other two battles to follow in due course.

Once the other two battles are played out, I will put together a PDF of the process described in the last post and tweaked after the three plays and share it on my DropBox (thank you DropBox). I will put links for it in the Resource section of each related post.

RESOURCES;

The scenario creator process in the previous post can be found here - LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-three-table-battle-not-part-i.html

I also have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS which is a bit more magiziney than here - LINK

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