La Bataille de Aspern-Essling 1809

Player’s Aide: The Troops at Aspern-Essling

Austrians Must Look At La Bataille From a Viennese Point of View, To Succeed

To fully prepare for the design of La Bataille d’Aspern- Essling , I decided that I would exclusively play the Austrians in the many playtests in which I participated. I was already comfortable and familiar with the French, but I knew I must understand the Austrian perspective. I knew the Austrians would be plagued with slower infantry; sparse or even bad leadership; and limited artillery and cavalry to support the massive Austrian regiments. So what was the best way to move forward with an Austrian command? First, the Austrians must have an idea of what they want to do. The Austrians are not flexible like the French and able to change their plans on a whim. The Austrian player

must be thinking several turns ahead. The Austrian player must at least mentally plot out both a reasonable plan of what the Austrian forces will want to do; and then have a plan to get the forces where you want them to be in order to accomplish the plan. Because the Austrian formations are large, this can be a tricky proposition. Second, the Austrian player must understand that the Austrian army moves slowly. The temptation will be to move the army forward in a piecemeal fashion, so the faster forces move more quickly towards the objective, but an Austrian player must not succumb to that temptation. The forces assigned should be moved together almost as one unit. Because some of the forces may be in the necessarily slower Masse formation, this will mean the whole Austrian body should be kept together and slowly move forward. The masse formation will protect the Austrian from the French cavalry. This will provide protection to the whole group and discourage the French from picking off isolated Austrian formations. In a playtest of La Bataille de Neumarkt , I saw an Austrian move in a strung out manner towards the objective. They also did not use the masse formation extensively. The French cavalry, of which is almost always superior in both number and quality to the Austrians, was able to blunt the Austrian advance well short of the Austrian objective by attacking the isolated Austrian contingents, even though the Austrians had almost a two-to-one advantage in troops. Third, the Austrian should never feel compelled to engage in assaut a melee with the French. The Austrian attack can be led by a ferocious fire fight with the French. Because the Austrians are so large, the French will almost always find themselves in a disadvantaged position when it comes to exchanging volleys with the Austrians. The Austrians can easily pin the French, especially in the towns, with their firefights. In one playtest of Scenario 8---Rapp Resolute, the Austrians only made one melee assault (when taking out the French guns at point blank range from two hexes) as their fire made it difficult for the French to maintain their positions.

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