Preparing for Fontenoy using Might & Reason

Gaming has taken a back seat over the last few months and my postings have suffered as well.  Hope to get more active as the New Year rolls out.

First off we begin planning for a re-fight of the Battle of Fontenoy from the 1745 campaign by Maurice de Saxe.  Instructive as a battle since de Saxe 'forced' the allies to attack him in what he felt was a strong position in order to relieve the siege of Tournai being conducted by Lowendahl.  Even though the strength of both sides were similar on this battlefield, the French had the larger army in the theater and acting on the strategic offense they called the tune.

There is plenty of readily available source material and orders of battle for this conflict and the very detailed map by Obscure Battles blog shows the positioning down to battalion and squadron level:
https://obscurebattles.blogspot.com/2017/09/fontenoy-1745.html

The only feature of the battlefield not highlighted completely by this view is the low plateau that the French established themselves upon which the map below shows much better.

Also it should be noted that the ends of the Bois de Barry between the two Redoubts d'Eu had been cut down as abatis to clear the fields of fire from both redoubts onto the plain of Vezon.

Our approach to the Might & Reason rules makes one significant change to the written rules.  Each 'unit' in our armies is a 'battalion' on a single base 60mm x 30mm for all foot cavalry and artillery stands.  Thus an infantry unit is a battalion (600-800 men) while a cavalry stand is about two squadrons (300-400 troopers) and a battery is about 8-12 medium or heavy guns.  We do not model smaller battalion or light/very light canon models but MAY add an additional firing die for infantry so equipped.

With this basis we can play many battles such as Fontenoy on a battalion/squadron basis on a single table.  Here is an example from a test game we played last year:

Four players with about 60 battalions and 100 squadrons per side and it took us 3 hours to come to a conclusion (French making a fighting withdrawal with about equal losses to both sides).

M&R gives some advantages to Anglo/Hanoverian armies of the period in both firing and combat but not overwhelming (an added die or two in shooting and a reduction to the 'flanking' penalty) while the French get a slight advantage in strength point recovery (can recover up to their original SP total while others can recover only to original minus 1 SP).

The chief issue for the Allied players at Fontenoy is how can they beat an equal sized army in a prepared position when there is no option (or time) for a flanking operation? 

Next posting we will look at the leader ratings and OBs for this battle.