"If it's an encounter battle, is it really FPW?" Topic

I've seen a few reports lately of Franco-Prussian War games that are typical tabletop meeting engagements: both sides advancing towards objectives in the middle of the table, both sides bringing on reinforcements from their table edge.

These prompted me to run through in my head all the FPW battles I'm familiar with. The only one that comes close to being that kind of battle is Mars-la-Tour, and even then, although the Germans are rushing reinforcements forward into the line, they are really on the defensive.

Hence my question in the subject line: if our FPW troops are fighting a battle of a kind that never really happened that way, is it really FPW? Or is it just a generic wargame in different hats?

NB – this is not meant to disparage. It's always good to see FPW on the table and the games in question were attractive spectacles and evidently good fun, which is surely the primary objective and there's no "wrong way" to do that. I'm just curious about people's views on the more abstract question.

Hmm. My opinion isnt binding, but I'd say it's a plausible brigade action or so, but not how FPW "Big Battles" were conducted, which means other things won't feel right either.

I'm afraid dual-attack battles, like symmetrical terrain, are the wargaming defaults--the way to obtain an indisputably "fair" or "balanced" game. Attacker-defender battles are much harder to balance. Me for either (1) a flat historical battle, or (2) a plausible hypothetical. Either way, one player designs the game and the other picks which side he plays.