Borodino, 1812

This was something of an hommage to one of the most epic encounters in military history - the battle of Borodino on 7th September 1812. In what became a gruesome slaughter fest, Napoleon obtained what could, at best, best be described as a Pyrrhic victory for his Grande Armee. 

The battle and 1812 campaign have remained in the public memory like few others, in part because of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Tolstoy's War and Peace, the 1967 Soviet film that utilised 12,000 Red Army soldiers as extras, the huge masterpiece Panorama of the battle; not to mention the occupation and burning of Moscow and Napoleon's catastrophic retreat in the winter of 1812.

In this refight of the actions in the South-Central part of the battle, around the Bagration Fleches and the village of Semyonovskaya, the French were making slow progress on their right flank, but were having difficulties on their left. Nevertheless the French juggernaut in the centre was probably about to overwhelm the Russians defending the fleches. That said, this game was grossly overly ambitious for an evening's game and we never had the chance to play it out to a conclusion.

Napoleonics - A Prussian and Russian Victory

An allied force of Russians and Prussians drove the French from a strong position on high ground. In reality the victory was achieved through the hard work of the Russian infantry, who successfully took the hill, whilst a regiment of Prussian Hussars routed two regiments of poorly deployed French Dragoons. The Prussian infantry, in contrast, just went on some parade ground manoeuvres, managing to avoid firing a single shot in anger.

Unplayable Napoleonics Scenario

The challenges posed by this completely unplayable scenario were exacerbated by the sheer bloody-minded incompetence of the respective commanders!!

Joking aside, this was actually a really enjoyable scenario which posed the French versus the Spanish, who faced off against each other across some very rough terrain of hills and woods which represented 'difficult going' and cover. 

Eventually the Spaniards forced their way across the intervening terrain more effectively to deliver several knock-out blows, which forced a couple of French units to rout, setting off a domino effect amongst the French units, leading to the collapse of the entire army. It should be pointed out that the Spanish had an extra battalion, for some unexplained reason, so this might have helped. Also the author of the scenario was commanding on the Spanish side, so this might have explained the 'thumb on the scale', as it were....

Pre-Christmas Napoleonics

As is traditional, we had a large Napoleonic game on the last Monday meet before Christmas. I think that the allies cracked the French centre in the dying minutes of the battle, but can't quite remember, although I do remember one of the players rolling a triple '10' on 3d10 - a 1,000 to one shot!