Wargaming Borodino 2012 (3)

Preparing the Terrain, Part 1
At our most recent ANF session we forewent a game to spend the day working on our terrain for Borodino.


We had eight 1 200 x 1 200 mm² sheets of foam to use to cover the 4 800 x 2 000 mm² table. At first I envisaged that we’d cut them into 400 x 400 mm² squares, but saner heads (i.e. Mark and Julian) prevailed and we decided to cover the area using four of the sheets as they were, while cutting the other four down to 1 200 x 800 mm² rectangles; thus reducing the amount of cutting and less-than-perfect straight edges.

Our next decision was the extent and orientation of the map. Our ground scale of roughly 1 mm to 2 m gives us an area of about 9.6 x 4 km². We orientated the table to run roughly north-east to south-west on the longest axis, so that it extends to take in the woods north-east of Gorki and stretches south-west from Utitsa. We’ll keep the table-top simple, representing only the key features.

Map of our Borodino tabletop

Having marked these on the foam sheets, we commenced by roughly painting on the base colours; green for the majority and red-brown for roads (we would have done blue for the Kolocha Stream, except that I forgot to bring the blue paint).

Step 1: marking on the roads and Kolocha Stream

Step 2: base colours painted on some of the sheets

We had a range of flocking materials (commercial flock, coffee grounds and dried tea leaves) in greens and browns, so sprinkled these on one of the sheets on which we had sprayed a dilute PVA spray. This gave a clumpy effect, so we made up a mix and then repeated the process for another two of the sheets.

Step 3: flocking

We got about half-way there before we ran out of paint and flock, so will finish it at our next session on 1st July.

Borodino terrain; about half-way there

We gave some of the troops troops preview and were happy with the result. 

Russian cuirassiers and French infantry testing the terrain (Mark and Julian’s figures)

A closer look at those Russian cuirassiers

Lifeguard cossacks (more of Mark’s great painting)

Three units of French légère (figures from P.T. Hine, one of our ‘benefactors”; scratch-built ‘duck’ (eagle) and touching up by yours truly)

Saxon heavy cavalry with the relevant page of the Histoire et Collections book “Borodino–The Moskva: The Battle for the Redoubts” as a backdrop