Preparing to play Fontenoy using Might & Reason part 2

One of the many issues with playing a fairly large battle with individual units all being present is at what level should Leaders be introduced?  While many rules these days have 'Brigadiers' for every 2-3 base units this is partly because they have typically less than a dozen battalions present to move on the table.  These might be called 'Brigades' or 'Divisions' or some such but they seem too artificial for me.

The French army of the period expected Generals commanding brigades to oversee somewhere around six battalions or a dozen or so squadrons.  These are often not to be confused as tactical commands (as in you bunch go over there and do this) but rather simply administrative groupings to keep the line of battle in order.  At Fontenoy the French entrusted the command of tactical groupings to the various Lieutenant Generals who were held at Headquarters and directly assigned troops for a particular action.  The Obscure Battles map shows clearly the commanders assigned out for the French army.  The Comte de la Mark, for example was tasked with the defense of Antoing and was assigned a mere five battalions and a number of light guns.  The LTG Chabannes, by contrast was assigned the French Guard of six battalions plus the brigade Aubeterre of four more battalions (1 Aubeterre and 3 from the Swiss Regiment Courten), to cover the gap between Fontenoy and the Barri Woods.

Going with the Order of Battle we have come up with the following commanders for the French at the start of the battle:

Comte de Saxe	Marquis d’Herouville	Comte de Clermont	Marshal d’Estrees	LTG Chabannes	LTG Lutteaux	LTG Vauguyon
GREAT	AVG	POOR	POOR	AVG	AVG	AVG
+2	0	-1	-1	0	0	0

LTG Montagne	Duc de Richelieu	Comte de la Mark
AVG	POOR	AVG
0	0	0

These are shown with purported values for their skill level and abilities but most have been 'written in' as Average and no plus or minus since the listing in the M&R rules simply doesn't include a lot of French leaders of the War of the Austrian Succession.  The author admits that there is a lot of scholarship still to be done to try to identify and rate many of the French generals of the period but that is a separate thread altogether.

So, having determined where to place leaders and their ratings we can see how the battle field might look with the French army deployed for battle on the morning of 11 May (New Style).

Hopefully you can click to enlarge the photo.  The river Scheldt would be to the top left (just off the table) with Antoing at the top left, Fontenoy in the center of the French deployment and the Barri woods on the left.