Borodino

A view of the battlefield

This week has been grueling as there have been four 14-15 hour days back to back. It's left precious little time for wargaming, but I am keeping on top of things in work and to be honest, I'm really enjoying my current course of study. I did manage to get in one last hurrah last week when we played Borodino and it was excellent. 

I suppose if I were doing it again, I would do some modelling work on the fleches and so forth, but the old saw that perfect is the enemy of good applies. If we'd waited until the perfect terrain pieces were available, we wouldn't have gotten a game at all.  

As it was, we were ably assisted by Old John who brought over some of his beautiful collection of vintage figures to add to my ranks.  While I was able to represent fleches and so forth by means of stone walls, sandbags, abatis and so forth, we would have been truly sunk without the half dozen units John brought. 

Donogh outlines his plan to his generals, General Sydney and that 

fire eating old Republican Citizen General Kerrigan. 

Donogh led the French in the first battle having announced that he would not command nor be commanded by OldJohn or General Du Gourmand, so they took up the cudgels for the French. 

The first game we played was the Shevardino & Utitza scenario.  As we had an odd number of players, I sat it out and scurried around making sure the score was right ensuring everyone remembered the rules. 

General Du Gourmand & General Lochlainn McHiberinia-O'Eireanneach

The games were hard fought and honours were even at the end of the day. I'll do a proper post on the battles once I get a chance, which may be a while - I have a considerable backlog of battles to chronicle. 

It was a good day and the pints after were just perfect. It was great to see OldJohn and all the boys before I ended up with my nose stuck in a book. 

A view of the battlefield from the Russian left

General Du Gourmand finally gives the order to attack

OldJohn is very happy. 

Actually vibrating with happiness in fact. 

We played the Borodino Village & Raevski Redoubt scenario second and as Mr. E came as a late arrival, I was able to play. Now Mr. E. particularly wanted to play the Russians, so I ended up playing the French for a change - which was interesting.  I faced OldJohn across the table and I think I will let hold off telling the tale of how that ended. 

General Du Gourmand oversees the swirling 

melee in the centre as General Sydney moves more troops in. 

So in conclusion, we got two big games in - played to a conclusion at a leisurely pace.  Set up was relatively painless and once we had OldJohns units sorted we were ready to go.  

On the whole, a very successful day.