Junction Jeopardy Campaign Part II - doing it!

 

Above - an AI image that I called upon for my own rule book. Thank you to whatever sources helped create it.

Campaign - The Pursuit of VI Korps.

A couple of days ago I posted (link below) about a new campaign booklet that Henry Hyde has just released called Junction Jeopardy.

I am about to kick off my 2026 campaigning using this book. I will use the book as written, other than changing the name of some terrain features to fit in with my choice of campaign location adding an order of battle and introducing an orders system. That story starts here;

Please note, this booklet is a new release and to protect sales and the IP of Henry Hyde, I am choosing to not use the rather lovely images in his book or direct aspects of the text. Unfortunately that leaves you with my own very bland schematic of this campaign area but it will be enough to illustrate unit positions and their movements and to give an overall impression of what is going on. Future reports will show ‘in game on table’ photographs so hopefully that will help with the story and create a visual. 

Historical fact - On 6th July 1809 the French defeated the Austrians at Wagram, forcing their retreat. The French were a little slow in pursuit, but once they got going, Masséna pursued with Legrand’s division at the head of IV Corps and Klenau retreated as a rearguard with his VI Korps.

Historical fact - On 9th July, Klenau made a stand at Hollabrunn. He outnumbered his pursuers, who had pushed ahead with Legrand’s 1st Division and some heavy cavalry. After a hard fight, Legrand (French) was forced to fall back and await the arrival of the rest of the corps.

Here is a ‘what if’ campaign (The Pursuit of VI Korps). We might assume that Klenau (Austrian) used the repulse of the French attack to continue his retreat, but that on the following day, 10th July, the French were once again in pursuit and he was compelled to make a second stand at a small village called Klein Stetteldorf, an important crossroads that also carried a stone bridge across the Göllersbach (a river), which was the intended route to secure the Austrian escape.

His orders are to act as a rearguard. To defend the village for as long as possible with a view to extracting as many Austrian units as he could from the campaign area by crossing the Göllersbach and retreating along the road in area 3 towards Laa an der Thaya (off map) and have them leave the campaign area on that areas table edge.

If Klein Stetteldorf falls too quickly, the French will be snapping at the heals of the retreating units and that will most likely constitute an Austrian defeat - we shall see.

This is my very bare bones map that I am sharing. Each area represents a 6x4 table. Obviously in the booklet it is rather lovely looking and full of terrain nuance. Importantly, the Göllersbach runs from area 1 into 2, through 5, 6, 9, 8 and 7 and is a significant obstacle. It can be crossed at roads and there is a ford up in area 1. I’m guessing that the French wouldn’t know much than this prior to their advance towards Klein Stetteldorf, certainly not the detail that is actually on Henry’s maps.

It might be a fun thing for the reader to sketch out the above map and then fill in some of the blanks as the campaign unfolds just as the French HQ might do.

At the start of play the Austrians will set up their forces in areas 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. So not in areas 2, 3 and 9. 

The campaign starts at 6 AM on 10th July. At that time French units will enter the campaign area by advancing along the road into area 1 (from Hollabrunn).

French orders are to prevent the escape of the Austrians and defeat them on the field of battle (our campaign area).

Success will be judged on how well either side do against the gains of the other.

Orders-of-Battle

Austrian (parts of VI Korps)

French (parts of IV Corps)

This gives us;

Austrian - 13 infantry bats, 3 cavalry reg and 4 gun batteries

French    - 19 infantry bats, 6 cavalry reg and 6 gun batteries

Special Rules - The Austrians fought a significant engagement only yesterday, each and all of their units will start the game with 1 hit allocated to them. Under my own rules, units generally lose their offensive capability after 4 hits and are removed from play after 8 hits.

The village will be divided into four Built Up Areas (BUA’s), each formed between the arms of the road that define the crossroads. Only one battalion (per side if locked in combat) can occupy a given BUA at any given time. This will not effect normal road carrying capacity for those parts of the road that run between adjacent BUA’s that are friendly controlled.

I will be managing the campaign using copies of Henry’s maps, glued to foam board with units represented by pin markers that may move each hourly turn. As clashes occur, the action will be transferred to the table. My solo play will use some random activation of formations / units just to mix things up a bit.

I will do update posts here that describe the progress of the campaign. I’m not sure how long this will take to play as it needs to fit in with life and other gaming, but I hope one way or another it entertains and perhaps highlights the value of this little campaign book.

My additional admin - Since I am trying to do this campaign some justice, I have produced a few posh play aids to help me as follows;

An order of battle that goes down to battalion level (as shown above).

A campaign board (part shown above) to manage the campaign movement of troops. In this image the flags show Austrian blocking forces on the road. Infantry Regiment 14 and IR59 between them have four battalions of infantry under the command of Adler, taking up blocking positions on the road.

I scanned each of the area maps in the booklet, each are 6”x4” (each replicating a 6x4 table) and printed them off. They have been pasted to a sheet of foam board so that units can be represented with flags and pins. The map gives a lot of detail and we will get accurate measurement of movement over that terrain with the pins. My printer went a bit skewy on the last map and has given me pink fields with stripes! I’m looking forward to that battle :-). The printer ink tubs are pretty full so I have no idea what that was about - saboteurs from the local population methinks.

A weather device as described in the booklet that might introduce some changeable weather …. or might not :-)

A casualty roster so that losses in a battle or minor contact will carry through the mini campaign, so we will start to see fatigue setting in and a benefit to having fresh units on hand, they will start to matter.

An order roster - Units will start the game with orders. I will put in a system for changing orders and using initiative that will be based upon distance from the commander. Orders will be things like ‘Advance to the ford and secure if possible’, ‘scout the area north of farm X and report enemy strengths’, ‘take and fortify farm X’, ‘capture the stone bridge’.

A Terrain Chart - This will be used to identify whether each terrain type is classed as clear, difficult or very difficult, which in turn will effect movement rates / costs.

Ready!

It is 6 AM on Monday 10th July 1809. The weather is fine and as daylight breaks, visibility on the table is noted as being at  three feet. The sound of 9000 pairs of French boots on the march from Hollabrunn cuts the air - Austrian outposts nervously prepare. 

Please keep an eye open for following episodes of this campaign if this sort of thing interests you.

Resource Section.

The previous post that discusses the campaign booklet - LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/01/junction-jeopardy-campaign-by-henry-hyde.html

 

Junction Jeopardy, a Campaign by Henry Hyde

I bought this as an Amazon order for £8.50 plus post. It is also available as a PDF download from Henry’s site for £5.

This is a 22 page, soft backed, A4 sized booklet that describes a campaign setting. Henry has called it a coffee break campaign, which is a nod that you can get this booklet for a price comparable to what you might pay on the high street for a coffee and a pastry in a typical town - I like that.

The booklet was recently reviewed on YouTube (by Ken at Yarkshire Gamer) and I will put a link in the resource section below. That video gives a very good idea of visual layout and content, so I can save some space here by not repeating or showing all of that.

If you look at the front cover of the campaign book (photo above) you will notice a map that is divided into nine partitions - each of those can be thought of as a standard 6’ x 4’ wargame table and so our campaign area is 3 x 3 linked campaign tables.

In the centre is a village called Vallée de Larmes which you will notice is important because it is built upon a crossroads and has a river crossing.

The booklet suggests three types of campaign for play - the encounter, the attack / defence and the retreat by stages and each is explained.

The forces used are a matter for the gamer to decide and obviously you would choose to fit your collection. Henry is thinking initially of platoon to battalion strength when discussing WWII, but really it is up to you.

The heart of the system is the campaign day. Each turn is one hour and in each hour a unit can move a given distance over the campaign area, depending upon unit type and the type of terrain crossed. Movement distance is generally 1 Movement Unit equates to a 6th of the table length, so on a 6’ table 1 movement unit would be 1 foot of movement.

As an example, a foot infantry on difficult ground can travel 1 Movement Unit in a turn, so travelling over constantly difficult terrain for 3 hours (3 campaign turns) a unit would travel 3 feet, in other words, on the campaign plotting maps, halfway down a campaign table.

As the day moves on, visibility increases with better daylight and then it slowly diminishes as we move towards dusk and nightfall. Good visibility might allow artillery on one table to fire on units of another table or spot for artillery fire against that table etc.

As units come into contact with each other on the campaign map (i.e. are present in the same campaign table), action will be transferred to the tabletop and they will fight a normal table top battle, using the rule set of your choice.

The booklet opens from a WWII perspective. It then has ideas for the Horse & Musket period and some notes on modern battlefields, but the essence of the campaign booklet is that it can be used as a template for any period, including fantasy and sci-fi.

It is a light read and not overly prescriptive. The last nine pages are given over to larger plans of each section of battlefield.

Overall, it is a fairly quick read and my immersion left me wishing for a little more by the end of it (a good thing). There are a couple of spare blank pages in the book and I would like to have seen them utilised in some way, but in reality, I am pleased with what I have and on the flip side, the light approach does not overwhelm and probably makes it more likely of getting something to the table. 

Edit - Henry has advised me that Amazon have inserted the extra blank pages likely part of their printing process.

The booklet also serves as a bedrock of system / ideas for moving on to develop battlefields of your own, perhaps of favoured locations or parts of bigger battles or even bigger campaign areas - it can all be very much personalised. 

Henry has described the system as relying on trust and that an umpire can be involved plus it can be played solo (good). He also sees it suitable to play as a ‘ladder’ campaign with each table individually being part of that.

I was really pleased to see him give a thumbs up to solo play as this can often be a hurdle for gamers (me) in campaign systems.

It does have an element of the Old School charm which I like. The actions, if kept to smaller forces, may develop something akin to Charles S Grant’s Table Top Teasers or give some skirmish level games such as say Bolt Action, a deeper context due to the interacting nature of the other battlefields and any forces that may be on them.

The player will play with the rule system of their choice and can  adapt the campaign to work hand in hand with the chosen rules. For example I might add in an element of orders transmission between tables.

Anyway, I am really pleased that I bought the book and I plan to start my own campaign for the battle of Vallée de Larmes!

This ready made campaign platform will conveniently kick off my campaigning for 2026. The setting will be 1809 and the forces will be French and Austrian. At the moment I am thinking perhaps of having a divisional sized force per side and doing a meeting engagement (the encounter campaign) with control of the village (also known as table 5) being the objective.

Obviously I will need to change the flavour for my chosen forces and period, so I shall be fighting the battle of Klein Stetteldorf, a small town in southern Austria that has a crossroads and sits on a waterway called Göllersbach.

As I play this out, I will return here to write up an ongoing narrative of the campaign over the course of however long it takes. I will be playing solo and I know that will specifically interest some of the readers that pass by here. I already own Henry’s substantial book ‘Wargaming Campaigns’ (Pen & Sword), but will resist visiting that for any ideas just so the blog reader gets a better sense of what can fall from this, the Junction Jeopardy booklet.

I feel my £8.50 (or surrendering my coffee and a pastry! :-) ) is about to bring me many hours of gaming fun.

[Note - as an aside, the comments section of this blog is being turned back on - also a special thank you to the gamers who have recently signed up to follow this blog and to those veterans that continue to do so].

Resource Section.

Yarkshire Gamer review - LINK

https://youtu.be/x8ZGCI1sdVs?si=WPrlaIoERu1bGzDs

I have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS that is a bit more magaziney than here and because of that gets updated more often - LINK

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

The Ambush of Fauconberg

In a recent playing of a boardgame called Warriors of England by Multi-Man Publications (MMP), covering the Wars of the Roses, Circa1461, a situation arose that looked suitable to transfer to the figures table.

The Yorkist, William Neville (Fauconberg), had advanced his relatively small army into Yorkshire (see the white circle shown above) to reclaim it from Lancastrian Edmund Beaufort (Somerset). By the time the two forces met, Somerset had been joined by Humphrey Stafford (Stafford of Southwick) and Edmund Tudor (Earl of Richmond).

Fauconberg was now compelled to fight against a larger force, with nowhere to retreat to as the surrounding area was now hostile.

In the boardgame, Fauconberg could fight with 3D6 needing 4, 5, or 6 for hits, while Somerset got 5D6 but needed 6's to hit. Somerset also had a small reserve to feed into the line and so managed to hold a superiority in numbers, even whilst both sides were taking heavy losses. [note in the boardgame, it was an unusual moment to have such a wide variance in attack values during a battle, making this an interesting example to bring to the table].

Fauconberg was eventually overwhelmed and died on the field, though it was a costly victory for the Lancastrians.

In re-creating this for the tabletop, the immediate points of note in terms of game dynamic is that the Yorkists are outnumbered by at least 5:3, but that their own military capability (noted by that generous attack value of 4+), was much better than the Lancastrian force. A typical Quality vs Quantity arrangement.

Secondly, because Somerset received reinforcements to swell his numbers that would frustrate Fauconberg, it seems a reasonable proposition to included in this battle a reinforcement / ambush element.

We don’t need to consider much more than this to create our figures scenario. The boardgame gave us three commanders for the Lancastrians, while Fauconberg fought alone. To create the tactical deployment on a tabletop, we need to give the Yorkists two more sub-commanders, so that  independent wings can be established and each side can have the traditional three bodies or wards of troops (Forward, Mainward and Rearward).

To find him some plausible fellow Yorkist commanders, I looked for a historical battle that involved Fauconberg, to find two more junior commanders that had fought with him. At the battle of Northampton, John Audley (Baron Audley) and Edward Neville (Baron Bergavenny) were the two names that I fell upon. So each side now has a commander and two sub-commanders.

Next a map. I decided just a generic landscape with a couple of low rolling hills and some woodland would suffice.

To represent the sense of ambush, the Lancastrians would choose which edge of the table (all 4 to choose from) they would set up along - they chose the top left edge (above photo), as this gave them a wood to anchor their flank on and a hill to give their artillery a vantage point.

Also the Lancastrians could if they wished, choose one of the two adjacent table edges to have one of their wings arrive as reinforcement to hit one of Fauconberg’s flanks. They decided to do this and was to have Richmond arrive during play on Fauconberg’s right flank (see earlier photo).

All that remained now was to create the forces that favoured the Lancastrians at 5:3 in strength and to give Fauconberg a notable quality advantage, At least some of his motivation must have come from fighting on his home turf in Yorkshire! 

Using my own home brew the rules, the Yorkist quality advantage can be done by selecting Fauconberg’s own ward (centre), plus the cavalry on the right (Audley) and giving them a command bonus of -1, which will help in both archery and close combat attacks. This is representing that in the boardgame Fauconberg’s attacks were very effective as they would hit on 4+).

The forces would set up at 24” apart, which is the maximum range for artillery. The longbow can shoot out to 16”, so Fauconberg will be forced to advance into bow range. 

Here we go!

Turn 1. Fauconberg advances his whole force.

Turn 2. The advance continues and the Lancastrians start their arrow shower.

Turn 3. This turn we start testing for arrow depletion and the Lancastrian reinforcement (Richmond) pass their arrival test and arrive on the Lancastrian left by the woods (see below photo). The trap is sprung and both Lancastrian flanks advance, while the centre (Somerset) remains in a defensive stance.

Turn 4. Fauconberg halts the advance to join an archery exchange. He manages to disorder Somerset’s ward (bad) and removes one enemy bow unit. This is significant as now Somerset does not have an advantage in bow units in the centre. On the Yorkist right, Audley turns the cavalry (below) to meet the new threat from Richmonds arrival.

Turn 5. On the Yorkist left, Bergavenny has hit ‘arrow depletion’. He is faced by larger numbers (Stafford’s wing) who have just reformed to put their billmen to the front …. they are clearly intending to advance. Bergavenny is in some peril!

On the Yorkist right, Audley’s cavalry pass their morale check and charge into Richmond, catching the archers still in the front ranks. Richmond takes losses, but his wing stands and his billmen push through the archers to engage with the cavalry.

Turn 6. Most archer units, especially in the Lancastrian force, are pretty much depleted of arrows now. Fauconberg advances with his billmen and men-at-arms in the centre, while on his left Bergavenny, falls back onto the forward slope of the hill.

Richmond (Lancastrian left) continues to take casualties from Audley’s cavalry and their morale rating drops from ‘C’ to ‘D’. But Audley’s cavalry have become disordered, which is a bad result in this system as it significantly reduces effectiveness against good order troops.

Turn 7. In the centre Fauconberg pushes Somerset back, causing his wards morale to drop from ‘B’ to ‘C’. However, overall, things are looking bad for the Yorkists mainly due to the Lancastrian’s greater numbers. The Yorkist left is being hard pressed (below photo). 

The centre now sees Somerset gain a flank advantage (below photo) and on the Yorkist right, Audley’s cavalry have endured 50% losses.

Fauconberg falls (a fate result), things seem to be going from bad to worse for the Yorkists.

Turn 8. It is still possible (just) for the Yorkists to hold on long enough to break an enemy ward, but the chances of a victory for them continue to slim.

Turn 9. With further losses, the Yorkist position is impossible and they collapse - totally defeated. 

Conclusion - well that was a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon game and a good outing for my Wars of the Roses home brew rules (Men of Piggy Longton) which are just going through a first draft. I will be commenting more about these in the future as they develop.

Once again, the idea of transferring a slice of action from a boardgame to the tabletop has worked very well, more because the encounter feels a bit more ‘justifiable’ as it has already been experienced in the boardgame i.e. the situation has already been given some life.

This playing has generated some new things for the rules, in particular an ‘Arrow Depletion’ phase, which over the course of the game, ensures that the action switches from arrow exchanges to going in for the gritty business of close combat.

I have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS, which is more snippet based than here and sees more regular posting, hopefully there is always something there that might just catch your fancy - its not a bad place to waste a cup of coffee on :-). LINK

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