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Our Journey To Borodino Part 3
Welcome back to the third, and possibly final (hurrah I hear you scream) episode of the Lead Commanders march to Borodino. Hopefully you’ve read and enjoyed (endured?) the two previous parts. I know some of you have at least read them, and a slightly smaller number even said they enjoyed them. Most surprising of all one or two even came to see our precursor demo game of Shevardino at Partizan as a result of reading the earlier writings. Dissappointing huh? If you haven’t read the previous stuff, quite a bit of the following will be meaningless. So please try and take a look elsewhere on the Baccus website. In truth even if you have read any of the earlier stuff quite a bit of the following will be meaningless, if you haven’t read any then pretty much all of this will be meaningless…….. Well, here we are, as I write this (September): Mike has been working hard on the overdue Russians, in fact he’s just returned from fishing in the North sea. Apparently its full of mackerel…. His Russian army has, despite this, got (a little) closer. Although, strangely, the mackerel haven’t helped speed things up. Anyway, not many to go, but the remaining 10,000 opolchenie is still daunting him. We’ve all been very helpful here (its important to try and support ones fellow gamers) and reassured him that they will all need painting and basing and representing on the table as they played such a crucial part in the actual battle. And he wouldn’t want to let his fellow Russian commander down by not doing them, and finding that near the end of the game we really needed them….. Ian has finished and based all his troops for the French side. Actually he’s taken delivery of the painted army and Barry M has based them for him. (1) I’m about finished, and soon need to start on the scenery, I’ve been volunteered to do the Grand or Rayevsky Redoubt. And as I’m playing the Russian side I will make it completely true to scale. I’ve even managed to find a reference that proves the redoubt had 6 feet thick reinforced walls with moat, wolf pits, punji stakes, trip wires, mines and the first experimental ..(...here, I've been provided with a multi-word polysallabic pharase in Cyrillic which I cannot get my computer to render properly so just use your imaginiation - The Editor) (2) That’s covered all the players, except one. You may remember Barry C? The one finishing the flags as we set Shevardino up at Partizan? The good news is his wife’s helping with the rest of his flags…so expect to see her at Derby at about 10am. Her name’s Ann if you want to say hello. You may also remember that he was having a bit of trouble painting such small fry as 6mm after years of 28mm monster figures. I’d like to report that he’s settled on a style and is in the groove with the painting. But not even my journalistic licence can stretch the truth that far. Undercoating has been a particular trial for him with almost terminal indecision over what colour to undercoat: black, white or blue. Well, all three were tried with varying degrees of satisfaction. His latest batch were undercoated in blue, they’re French line so that’s perhaps reasonable. Unfortunately the blue spraycan ran out half way through. No problem get the second can…oh, he only bought one. That’s alright, finish off with the black can. Bit of overspray. No problem..its only an undercoat that’ll be covered by the skilful paint job. Oh dear, the black paint runs out, and no extra can of that either. At this point our gallant painter toyed with the idea of finishing with the white undercoat spray. For some reason he decided not to, and hand painted the remainder with black wash. I’m fairly sure this is all a scientific experiment to evaluate the merits of differing undercoat methods. He’s tried, black, white, blue, blue with black and very nearly blue with black with white. Try and see if you can spot which figures are which at Derby. There’s a prize for the first correct answer. (3) It may have struck you that probably the main theme of our programme so far has been the lack of planning, coupled with a healthy dose of individualism . (4) Just to set the scene, we are about 6 weeks away from the Worlds, still with a few figures to paint, in fact still with quite a few figures to buy, never mind paint. We’ve got half the terrain boards and some terrain. And no plan to meet to sort this out never mind getting things agreed and actioned. It’ll come as no surprise that no one in the group is a project manager, or at least no ones admitting being one…. While I’m on the subject of planning. You remember Mike? Yes the one who’s idea this originally was. His son is getting married and in a masterpiece of forward thinking it’s the day before the Worlds, and apparently being responsible for getting us in this mess isn’t a good enough reason to miss the wedding reception. Family are so unreasonable at times. Of course its only now that it comes to light and now 50% of the Russian command team, and he is the commander in chief will turn up late: with a massive hangover, having had little sleep and expecting others to set up for him. I originally thought this was bad planning, now I realise its prescience of the first order, and an impressive attempt to role play Kutuzov to the last detail. A few comments have been made within the Lead Commanders (5) about the accuracy of the last report, particularly when it relates to the Poles who felt they were not given complete credit for the dynamic role they layed in the French grand plan. Hmmm, I have the photographic evidence lodged with my legal team so I’m happy about any challenge. Nevertheless, because of this unfounded concern there is a rumour that, faced with the damning evidence, the French and/or Poles may write their own account of Borodino to ‘present a fair and balanced picture of the battle and preparations’. It appears that the definition of fair and balanced is taken from the Pol Pot Primer: ‘Propaganda for Dummies’. Anyway my opponents have resorted to the News of The World approach. If the published truth doesn’t align with your reality then make it up yourself and get it in print. You have been warned: there is only one accurate, truthful, balanced account the rest is subversive tosh. (6) As I have alluded before the size of Borodino took us a bit by surprise, hence the last minute rush to paint figures. If we manage to get all the figures painted and ready they will need a suitable setting to be seen at their best, in other words a big table with loads of terrain. The terrain should get done, and we reckon that a 16 foot by 6 foot table will just about be enough. 18 foot would be spot on, but 16 will just about do at a squeeze. We’ve got 12 foot……so do we lose the village of Borodino and whats north of that or Utitsa in the south where the Poles attacked? In view of the Poles previous reluctance to leave the woods we originally thought it reasonable to exclude that bit. But on reflection, and in the hope that the Poles might venture out we decided to keep that flank and lose part of the northern flank where there was less action. Although recreating the Cossack’s flank march is a bit of a poser at the moment. We also thought that as the only part of Barry C’s French forces that are actually ready are the Poles, excluding them might be a bit harsh as he might not have anything else ready in time. Well I’m off to start the redoubt, see you in October? 1) Note to self: Why didn’t I do it this way?
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