Colours 2024 - Borodino

 

The Colours wargames show in Newbury is probably my favourite show these days. For a start, it's one of the closest and easiest to get to and therefore the one I get to most regularly. But also it's a nice venue - Newbury Racecourse - with loads of parking, decent refreshments available, and enough space for games and traders and everyone who wants to see them.

We (Oxford Wargames Society) always lay on a participation game. Last year we did Isandlwana, which proved very popular. Everyone knows about it and wants to say "Zulus, sir - fahsands of 'em", and Bruce's gorgeous 28mm figures and terrain drew plenty of people to the table. This year we went to the opposite extreme, from a battle of a few thousand men represented in 28mm, to a titanic contest with a quarter of a million men on the field in God's own scale (6mm): Borodino. This is one of the scenarios from the newly published scenario book, "Napoleon's Bloody Big BATTLES!".

Borodino is just as famous as Isandlwana, of course, so again there was a lot of interest. Numerous people joined in to command a corps or three for an hour or two. Best result of the day was a Warhammer 40K player looking to get into historical gaming, who we tempted into playing on the Russian side mid-morning and who then fought through to the finish (well done, Bart!).

Interestingly, there were two Borodino games at Colours - at the other end of the hall, Dave Brown was running a General d'Armee game focused solely on action around the Raevski redoubt. Hopefully a few gamers appreciated seeing these complementary games offering different approaches to the same battle, one "zoomed-in" and the other "zoomed-out".

I was on my feet for seven hours, talking virtually non-stop to all the folks who stopped by our table. Thank you to everyone who came by to get their ears bent. It was great as always to catch up with a number of old friends (let's give a special namecheck to Steve Johnson, since he's already done his own report from Colours 2024). I was so busy chatting that I wasn't able to pay much attention to the actual game (let alone do much more than a swift lap of everyone else's beautiful tables). Apologies, therefore, to Alan Millicheap, who'd asked me to take lots and lots of photos of the battle's progress. I did manage a dozen snaps of it, which I offer below with commentary for those interested.

In summary: a great day at a great show, highly recommended, many thanks to the organisers, and see you all in Newbury same time next year!

Most of the Grande Armée arrayed at the start. Eugene's corps on the left; Ney and Davout on the central heights; Poniatowski's Poles on the right; Junot about to arrive. The Imperial Guard will show up later. Figures are Baccus 6mm from Mark Smith's collection. We don't normally bother with unit labels as they aren't necessary, but we made the effort for the show.

Close-up of Davout's 1st Corps and the grand battery set up to pummel the Russian redoubts, backed up by some of the cavalry reserve. Right at the back we see Murat, facing the wrong way for some reason ... waiting for Napoleon and the guard to turn up on Turn 4 onwards, perhaps?

Aerial view of the whole battlefield (bar a few more inches either side). The labels show clearly which side is where: the French tidily divided into a central mass and two wings; the Russians grouped around their redoubts, with a flanking force in Utitsa and the woods behind it, a large central reserve, and a refused right wing behind the river.

Attacker's-eye view of the Russian fortifications: the Raevski redoubt left of pic, the Bagration fleches on the right.

Close-up of the defenders of the village of Utitsa. This brigade of regulars is backed up by some fragile cossacks who quit the field on Turn 2, some beefy grenadiers (the column on the road with two flags, our code to indicate a veteran unit), and a lot of pike-armed opolchenie militia.

Utitsa and the fleches from the Russian side. Lots of tough veterans defending the vital fortification.

The Russian central reserve. This is a mix of veteran grenadiers (two flags), trained regulars (one flag) and raw militia (no flags).

Russian view of the French centre and left wing. Lots of 2-flag veteran units and Skirmisher bases!

Battle is joined. The Russians are about to be emphatically booted out of Utitsa, having suffered severely at the hands of French tirailleurs before the assault. A different story on the adjacent heights, where an early French assault on the fleches is about to be repulsed.

On the French left, Eugene has cleared a Russian delaying force out of Borodino and is working his way around the flank of the Raevski redoubt. The Russian right wing is not allowed to move in the initial turns of the scenario. Malcolm has a hand in matters on the Russian left.

Protracted tussle on the Russian left. Grenadiers counterattack at Utitsa but are forced back, while the French hammer away at the fleches. Ding-dong see-saw action here all day.

The Russian right wing starts to rumble forward to counter Eugene. By the end of the game, the French (actually, on this flank, mostly Italians, I believe) had been forced back far enough for the Russians to retake the village of Borodino (the grey patch by the bridge upper right).

There are nine objectives on the battlefield, representing key terrain, lines of communications, flank positions, etc; the French needed to take five to draw, six or more to win. I'm not 100% sure how it turned out but I think it went like this: on the last turn, three objectives were vigorously and violently contested (Borodino, the Raevski Redoubt, and the next line of heights just behind the Russian fortifications). All three results were possible: French victory, draw, Russian victory. And, of course, the last dice of the game decreed it was a gloriously bloody draw. How very historical!