The Battle of Fraustadt Times Two

This is a short description of events during two different re-plays of the Battle of Fraustadt. We used the Commander in Chief optional for both games, but no other optionals. We decided against using line commanders, but that is certainly something that could be discussed. A slight calculation error made the Swedes somewhat short on cavalry, so that will have to be amended for our next try.

The first battle was a scenario test before a game show, and the second was the actual participation game during the show. Interestingly enough the two games had a lot in common.

Swedish Left / Saxon Right

In the first game the Swedish cavalry wing on the far left got bogged down, and only managed to get to the Saxons late in the game. When it finally did it hit them rather hard and drove the Saxon cavalry before them. In our second battle the Swedish player on that flank missed a few vital rolls and the cavalry headed towards some Saxon dragoons in a village. After this he seemed happy to let them mix it out with these dragoons and decided to focus on his other group, heading for the Saxon Right Infantry wing. This ensured that the Saxon right flank was safe since the cavalry were effectively tied up for the rest of the battle. The other part of the Swedish left, despite getting the lions share of the wing commanders attention, never manage to coordinate its attacks and was more or less destroyed by the Saxon guards. In our first encounter this part of the field became a stalemate.

The Russians and the Saxon left

In both games the Russian infantry put up a stoic fight. In the first they got heavy help from the flanking batteries, but in the second they managed quite well without this help. The main reason for their successful was the fact that the Swedes, in both battles, never managed to attack with their flank infantry, and pike armed infantry, behind obstacles, are rather hard to take on frontally with cavalry.

The far right was another story. In game one the Saxons broke, but managed to put up a delaying action which prevented encirclement, in game two, the right wing suffered heavy losses, but somehow held its ground, while the Russian infantry caused enough losses to cause a wing break roll for the Swedish player. He rolled a 12 and his wing began to flee…

The Centre

The centre saw the heaviest fighting in both re-fights. In both cases the Swedish infantry attacked more or less without stopping to wait for the cavalry. (In the second game the Swedish player actually ordered a halt, within canister range but outside musket range, to reorder his ranks that had been disrupted by the terrain in front of the Saxon lines. This gave the infantry the time it needed to make a coordinated, ordered, assault, which cut right through the Saxon lines.  In both games the infantry assault went well, at least at first. Outnumbered as they were, they could not take much beating however and in the second battle a failed TQ roll for receiving fire caused a battered unit to flee tipped the scales. By that time both Swedish flanks were heading for safety and one more fleeing unit meant that the army had reached its army break level. The early, and heavy, assault in the first battle resulted in heavy casualties for the Swedes, but they held out, and some really bad wing break rolls for the Saxons, sent the centre running away at full speed, leaving the Russians and the guards with wide open flanks.

Summary

All in all it was two interesting fights, and more importantly everyone seemed to have fun. The pictures are all from the second encounter. Please not that not all flags/uniforms are 100% correct; we had to rely on what we had when it comes to painted miniatures. I hope to publish a full OB and map soon.

Note that in our scenario the cavalry had already moved out to the flanks when we started the battle.