A friend tried to breakaway to use sidestep.

He rolled a 1. The question is next: Does failling a breakaway give you an action token even if the purpose is to give a free action?

If you're trying to break away with a Free Action like Sidestep, you will not get an action token. If you try and break away as part of a costed action, be it a Move Action, or a Power Action that includes a move, like Hypersonic Speed, you will receive an action token.

Failing breakaway immediately ends the action.

For Side-Step, the FREE action ends as normal - except no moving.

If your friends wanted to use Charge, he'd give the POWER, roll for Breakaway and if he failed, the POWER action immediately ends and since a POWER places an action token, your friend would do the same.

So failing breakaway does not place an action token, the type of action given determines if a token is placed or not.

Hope that helps.