Wargaming Borodino 2012 (4)

We have now 95% completed our terrain for Borodino and are pleased with the result.

Cutting and painting the hills

Casualties of wargaming

The last five percent to complete includes:

• one last check of any areas for re-flocking,
• re-doing a couple of hills for which we stuffed up the scale—the Utitsa Mound is currently a grassy knoll!,
• add the Borodino Church (we’ll try a scratch built one and will purchase one if we don’t get it to our liking), and
• place the woods.

We will get together sometime over the next couple of weeks to finish this.

Terence Wise's article about his refight of Borodino at 1:100 in Battle Magazine circa 1978

Easily the best single-volume treatment of the subject in print

Book Review: Napoleonic Artillery by Anthony L. Dawson, Paul L. Dawson and Stephen Summerfield

This book is like an encyclopaedia of artillery in the Napoleonic wars. It is all there. The book begins with an introduction to Napoleonic ordnance, and follows with chapters on Austrian, Prussian and Russian ordnance, French and French-allied ordnance, British and Hanoverian ordnance, foreign and captured ordnance, light and mountain ordnance, siege, coastal and garrison ordnance, moving the guns, colours of artillery pieces, effectiveness, characteristics and supply of ammunition, artillery tactics and artillery organisation.

It is not a book that one is likely to read from cover to cover, rather "dipping" into it to check a particular aspect, to read a section or chapter of interest, or to answer a question. (I'll confess here that I have not yet read all of the book). That said the text is eminently readable.

Do you have a question regarding the colours of the artillery guns and limbers of various nations, the range of cannon of different calibre, or regarding artillery tactics? The answer is here. Perhaps you want to know when the British adopted the block-trail carriage? You guessed it. Better still, the information does not consist merely of a statement, but with dates, references and supporting evidence.

The text is accompanied by clear and detailed diagrams of artillery carriages, barrels, limbers and equipment, photos from museums and re-enactors, paintings and line drawings, plus numerous tables.

This is a feast of wonderful information for the wargamer or general enthusiast. Turn to any page and you’ll find interesting information, well presented and clearly written. Highly recommended.

(There are known errors in the text which are chiefly typos and errors in the headings of plates. Some of these are fairly significant, but have been published by the authors on the Napoleon Series website: http://www.napoleon-series.org/reviews/military/c_NapArtyCorrections.html).

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

More Bicentennial Activities

While I compile a report about our latest games at the ANF—two versions of Bailén using two sets of rules—I have put some more links to bicentennial games that have been organised by wargames groups across the world on the Wargaming Waterloo 2015 blog.


Our own contribution to things bicentennial, and in particular 1812, will step up a notch this weekend. We are going to settle on our game map and begin to build the terrain for our Borodino game in September. There's a bit to do to cover the 4.8 m x 2 m table that we'll be using. Another enjoyable 'chore', like all those in our wonderful hobby!

In readiness for terrain-making: foam sheeting at ANF HQ

What I love about these blogs

I am just so impressed with this blogging business and with all of you 'blogger friends'.


I think it is fantastic that we have a medium that allows like-minded people who share a common interest, nay passion, across the world to easily share information, ideas, photos and to 'discuss' topics of interest. Like the one below: "An attack of Zaporozhian Cossacks in the steppe" by Franz Roubaud, which is from Wikimedia Commons. Isn't it a great, evocative painting?

I also appreciate the civilised discussion that we have, where alternate views and ideas are put in a reasonable and polite manner. Of course, this is nothing startling as it is just how mature adults conduct themselves, yet it is not the norm in e-land.


We could teach other, less civil 'discussion' groups a thing or two couldn't we?


Thanks all. Long may it continue.

Another view of Shako

You have read a lot of positive comments from me/us about Shako. In fact Julian was only musing on the weekend as to whether we are in a “Shako bubble” and that it would be good to hear from other wargamers who have used them, especially if they did not like them, to get their feedback.


Well, Vive l'Empereur has come through and has posted a detailed, critical review of the Shako II rules from his experience/perspective. It is great to read his comments. I do have a few responses from my/our opinion and experiences, of course! I do not intend this to be any kind of "battle of the blogs" and had originally tried to publish my comments on Vive l'Empereur's blog. Unfortunately, it did not go as I have come up against the character limit!

So, I am putting them here, as an extension of the discussion.

Ouch! Comparing Shako with DBA. That’s a set that I like a lot being compared with a set at the other end of the spectrum IMHO. I think perhaps we are at a slight advantage as we came to Shako II after using Shako. Shako II added some good ideas and amendments, but also stuffed up in many areas and added a ‘fast play’ feel. We suspect that Arty Conliffe was little involved, but could be wrong. In Shako ANF have taken the approach of using Shako as the basis, adding ‘good bits’ from Shako II, plus our own gems(!!).


To me, Shako are like an “Empire-successor” set; one can see the influence of Empire in several aspects. Commencing a turn with artillery fire is one of these. This makes sense for bombardment. Of course, Shako includes all artillery fire here, but it still seems to work well. The defense of battery fire is covered in the mêlée factors; a stylised approach, but not one that has troubled us.


We have not had a problem with slow movement rate in our battles, some of which (e.g. Eylau and Fuentes de Oñoro) have involved significant movements of troops across the battlefield. The exception to this was when we realised in our Eylau game that l’Estocq would not be able to intervene as he had historically if we had him enter towards the north-east end of the table. Our solution was to have him come on more towards the south-east end. We have considered introducing a ‘march move’, but we reckon that is fraught with problems of troops suddenly ‘appearing’ at another part of the table, so we have dismissed the idea (at least for now).


Personally I like the restriction of infantry changes of face to wheeling. This restricts gamesmanship by wargamers. I have been in too many games, especially in the Empire days, where a unit did an echelon move, wheeled, moved by echelon again and then was on the flank of defenders that had sat and watched it all happen! Besides this, my reading of accounts of Napoleonic battles over 30 year suggests that they did attack more or less straight forward.


I really like the way skirmishers are handled in Shako. They allow for a few ‘pixie tricks’ without being too ridiculous. It is stylised, but less so than merely having a skirmish factor. Shako II reduced the no. of hits that a skirmish base could absorb to one (it was originally three), so that was a really good change!

Fire zone from Shako. I had not really realised that we don't use this by the book!

Vive l'Empereur's comments about infantry fire being restricted to straight ahead really got me thinking, as we have not noticed it as a problem! I think it is a combination of the fact that straight-ahead fire is the most appropriate in many/most cases, because a unit has friends on the flanks and foes more or less in front. We have not noticed it under other circumstances, as we use a volley zone of up to 45º to a flank, while keeping it as a rectangle of unit frontage X range. We just seem to have adopted this change without realising that we had.

I reckon Shako handles towns and fortifications well. These are difficult nuts to crack, which is entirely appropriate--think Borodino, Albuera, Fuentes de Oñoro, Waterloo, Aspern-Essling to name a few.


I think that perhaps Vive l'Empereur may have mis-read a couple of aspects.
• Artillery bouncethrough is modified for reverse slope (-1). This is a significant modifier when the chance to hit is generally 1 in 6 (a ‘6’) or 2 in 6 (a ‘5’ or ‘6’).
• There are options to reduce or remove bouncethrough due to mud, rough terrain and woods that are provided under the terrain rules.


In the end rules are “horses for courses”, with the ‘courses’ being a combination of the scale of game (unit size, figure size, table size, size of game, duration of time to play) and personal preference for a style of rules. For our ‘course’ Shako (morphed into our Shako ANF) is the best we have found, by a long way.


I had thought that Grande Armée were too stylised for us, but I reckon we must give them a go, at least, based on Vive l'Empereur's comments to my original comment under his post on  New Spanish Unit: Estremadura Regiment and his further comments in his review of Shako II.


So, Vive l'Empereur, thanks again for posting this review of Shako II.


How about others of you? What are your preferred rules for Napoleonics? What is it about a particular set of rules that makes them the 'horse' to suit your 'course'? I know that Lee is looking closely and seriously at the best set of rules and overall game system to use with his 6 mm figures. Grande Armée has been suggested to him too. What about others out there?

Pont du Bois

Capture that bridge!

This game was the battle that we used in our nostalgic re-test of the Bruce Quarrie rules. Unlike our usual historically-based scenarios, 'Pont du Bois' is a fictitious battle that has been Julian's 'standard' play-test scenario for many years. As the name implies, the game involves a bridge (over a river that divides the battlefield) with nearby woods on either side (Photo 1).

Photo 1: View of the battlefield showing central river and the crucial bridge. The Prussians were allowed an extra move initially to ensure the distances were equal.

The game began with the race for the bridge, which the Prussians 'won' by a slim margin, placing hussars to cover the road, sheltered by the farmhouse and with infantry able to provide fire down the road from the bridge (Photo 2). In an attempt to prevent them from establishing their defensive line in depth, the French immediately sent their chasseurs à cheval in a desperate charge over the bridge (Photo 3). The chasseurs were met with a devastating volley and then charged in the flank by the Prussian hussars and sent back reeling from whence they came (Photo 4).

Photo 2: Prussians form a position in defence of the bridge

Photo 3: French chasseurs à cheval charge across the bridge...

Photo 4: ... only to be met by an infantry volley and flank charge.

The French had brought their infantry in support of the chasseurs and these now formed up to attack across the bridge and to hopefully succeed where the cavalry had failed (Photo 5). The légère lead the charge, but suffered the same fate as the cavalry and were forced to retreat (Photo 6). These were followed by the lead battalion of line infantry, which reached the end of the bridge (Photo 7).

Photo 5: View of the French infantry attack lead by the légère...

Photo 6:...which went the way of the chasseurs

Photo 7: High point of the French attack as the line infantry reach the far end of the bridge

After those failed attempts and some ineffectual firing across the river, the French called off the attack. That, combined with our fatigue from struggling with the rules, lead to the end of the game, which was deemed a Prussian victory.

We decided that we had moved on from the old Quarrie rules and they were best left as a fond memory of how we began in the hobby all those years ago. We also concluded that Julian was “evil” for having devised such a horrible scenario!