The other night I played a game versus Keith using his Russians v some French. Keith had painted up the Russian 27th Division to be part of the Russian 2nd Western Army at our Borodino refight. Unfortunately due to ill health, he was unable to join in but is now up and about again so we had a game.

I set the table up using 2 of the Borodino boards, namely the 2 southern boards that have Utitsa village on them where Keith was to play and probably will in the refight later this year. Russians on the right…French pretending to be Poles on the left. Keith had 12 bttns foot(8 musketeers and 4 jager), 2 batteries and 4 regts cossacks. I fielded 9 foot bttns, 2 foot batteries, 1 Uhlan, 1 hussar and a horse battery. All commanders were 8 except Poniatowski who was a 9.

And here is the man himself, all smiley.

Early stages and Keith skirmished with his jager across the front. I formed a gun line supported by columns to counter. The French column out in front was ordered to advance through a shot up line and form line in front of them…they managed to move through them. The yellow dice records a unit disordered…. my pack of disorder markers have disappeared…..probably in the Druid mist that turned up in 2nd Battle of Troyes.

It just keeps getting better…..I ordered the 2 columns on my left to charge through the front line and chase off the skirmishers…they only rolled 1 move…so used Poniatowski to give them a reroll…rolled 12…great…a blunder…so they moved 1 move to the right… oops.

A view from behind the attempted charge….I had to send my Uhlans racing across to cover the open flank.

If you look to my left flank the Uhlans are gone…they got Cossacked to the front which would not have been an issue normally…except for the Jager unit that then hit my flank..pop went the Uhlans( in my defence here…was feeling generous and suggested the ploy to Keith).

On the right, Keith has taken out my horse battery with counter battery fire and the disordered column is no more. Its not looking good for me.

A turn on and Keith has gone onto the attack…..his left flank brigade has charged forward to wipe out my last 2 bttns of small right hand brigade…..before this I had offered to concede…but was only 9.15pm so Keith decided to carry on.

Unfortunately his attacking columns didn’t quite make it into contact and stopped just short….. his jager moved to shoot my flank….but missed all their shots! Things are looking up!!

A look across the table….dreaded yellow disorder dice on my units…..I have seen off some Jager but 2 Cossack units moved up to cover Russian flank. Notice the Russian columns in centre in front of my line.

Woohoo…. French strike back….managed to get front and flank attack on the Russian column which popped…….moved my left flank bttns up in line to shot up the Cossacks on hill……my centre battery wheeled to shoot up a column…right side bttns shot the columns that failed short in the charge…and cavalry general grabbed the Hussars…said  ‘Follow me lads’ and ran down down the fleeing Jagers then burst on to the battery on hill and ran down the battery!

Hot damn!!

End game position. Keith charged my right battalions……one popped…I did manage to shoot and destroy one incoming bttn with artillery fire and musketry. Keith then charged his Jager into my unloaded battery…and ..the Jager didn’t do any wounds…but…I did! So they lost and retired!!

So at game end….I had one broken brigade where 2 of 3 bttns were destroyed, the 2nd brigade was intact. My cavalry had lost the Uhlans and the horse battery, but being marauder cavalry, the Hussars don’t care.

Keiths Russians had lost the jager brigade and 1 bttn from each of the other 2. Both batteries were destroyed as was 1 Cossack with another shaken.

So from the closing jaws of defeat I grabbed what looks like a draw to me