FRENCH COUNCIL OF WAR, 11 am

Napoleon - apparently confused and clearly ill from the strain of battle - enters his coach to consider his faltering position. With him are Ney and Eugene. Caulaincourt is way too busy to attend.

In light of the Russian's unbelievable luck in the center, he considers a retreat to the gully and woods opposite the redoubt to reorganize his troops. This retreat will be offset by an offensive toward Gorki with units freshly regrouped from IV corp. Eugene is shocked to hear that Ken 1er resolve is weakening an implores him to commit the Middle Guard and Guard Cav. to the center instead of waiting and reorganizing.

Ney frowns in disgust as he knows an even greater burden will fall on his shoulders if the Emperor implements his plan. Ney points out to the Emperor that he is now developing the V corp assault against the teeth of the Russian guns. Ney urges Ken 1er to commit all the Guard to the center to give the Poles a chance to knock out the guns. Ney slams his fist on the Emperors writing and rises to leave. Ken 1er is too taken aback to respond. As Ney opens the door to leave, a messenger arrives with news from Caulaincourt.

Hey I'm getting my ass kicked over here. How about sending me some frickin troops. - C

Ney storms out while firing a parting shot. I'm on an express mail carriage to Hell - going down!

Inspired anew, Ken 1er shoots a glance at Eugene and yells, "What are you doing here, go out and get some!" The Emperor then orders that more dogs be thrown on the grill and that somebody get that "hard stuff" out of the freezer.

THE GAME FINALE

THE RIGHT

Ney passes 6 batteries of horse guns to Warren on the extreme right. Warrens force is stopped cold at the stream just beyond the Utitsa. The Russian II cav. swings into action against Warren's troops and sweeps away his newly placed batteries. The French line is thrown back over 500 yds. here and the only reinforcements they can expect now are a few regrouped units per turn. If Warren retreats to the edge of the Utitsa with an intact line then we will be OK here.

THE RIGHT CENTER

Ney throws the most of the V corp against the Reserve guns with NEY, LOBAU, and PONIATOWSKI leading the troops personally. Terry transfers a reg. of V and 1 bat. of VL and MG to Warren to keep their forces in contact. Terry also send a reg. of V to tie our forces together around Semenovskaya since our Cavalry reserve was slaughtered there. After three turns of trading hammer blows with the Russian guns the batteries fall for the lack of enough infantry support. The cost is high though with 9 of the 12 V corp battalions either routed, sent to regroup, or vaporized. The V corp cav. is thrown into the line with the rest of III corps remnants. The Russians are just too thin here now do anything offensively and with French foot guns from the Grand Battery starting to arrive, Terry will be able to regroup and renew the drive in a few turns. There are now NO intact Russian guns South of the Redoubt.

THE LEFT

Platov pulls the Cossacks back into the woods along the Moskva. Eugene orders Grouchy to screen this force while swinging the rest of his cavalry around the woods to support the IV corp, Junot's remnants, and the YG in crushing the retreating Russian infantry west of the river. Platov learns a valuable lesson here. The Russian infantry can stand still or advance in the face of French infantry but they usually get chewed up when trying to run. Platov's leaders abandon the front to start regrouping and organizing troops behind the river. Its a cold dirty business but somebody has to do it.

THE CENTER

Encouraged by my subordinates willingness to overcome or die trying, I resolve to commit all but the Old Guard saving them as a last resort only. After composing some hasty orders for Davout, I mount my faithful charger ( Oh my bleedin piles! and spur him onward to the cheers of the OG. We finally get some accurate howitzer fire from Borodino and sweep the Russian Guard off the hill North of the Redoubt. FINALLY! Now the fun begins or so I think. I've carefully held the Emperors Dragoons and a couple I corps cavalry units in the gully near Borodino for nearly the entire game.

These units were saved to either blunt a Russian attack in the center or to exploit a weakness at the right moment. With the zero morale Russian guard gone, Rowdy has to plug a regular infantry unit into the line here. CHARGE! DAMMIT! Rowdy's unit needed a 64 or better to stand and he rolled a 66. Far to the rear Kutusov is heard to yell "We're loving it!". The poor battalion that stood is wiped out but they give the redoubt guns time to reply. The French cav is wiped out by the guns and a Russian counterattack retakes the Northern part of the hill.

While this drama plays out, the MG FG reg. pushes its way onto the southern part of the hill and fails to take the Guard guns positioned beside the Redoubt. This is going to hurt.

After the FG reg is blown away the French are once again clinging to the slopes below the Wolfpits. The IV corp regroup assault toward Gorki is just kicking off now but not in time to stop the transfer of Russian foot guns to the plateau in the center. "if those guns reach the Redoubt hill, then we'll be in some really big shit now." Ken 1er proclaims.

Ken 1er orders the howitzers of the Grand Battery to cross the stream at Semenovskaya and move into position just below the Redoubt hill. The last two 20sp regiments of I corp have patiently waited in support of the battery. They are now ordered to form below Semenovskaya and cross the hill slopes and cut a path through the Russian center.

The last of the Middle Guard storms the hill to the left of these regiments. Russian and French stand face to face in a titanic death struggle for over an hour with no troops routing. The Russian batteries from the North are nearly in position when a devastating double-whammy hits them.

First. Ney's troops Southeast of Semenovskaya send a Russian unit to the regroup chart with defensive fire that breaches the line. Second. Rowdy commits his last full strength reserve, the LG Jager reg. to the hill South of the Redoubt. This unit was poorly positioned and is immediately routed by an overstack with a retreating cavalry unit. Our advance brings a MG reg. under Roguet next to the guns adjacent to the redoubt.

Ney exploits the gap with the few free cav units he has and a bat. of MG. Terry fills the hole with Legion of the Vistula remnants to keep it open. Roguet survives a 6 hit defensive fire and captures the guns beside the redoubt. Although Roguet will probably bite the dust in the Russian turn the Russians have no infantry to send up on the hill. The routed Jagers were literally their last free units in the center. The Russian do have several unsupported foot batteries ready do deploy behind the hill but they could not last more than 1 or 2 turns assault. It will be 2 or 3 turns before a solid assault can be mounted on the Redoubt, but when it comes,it will come from the rear. The Russians offer their surrender and the French gladly accept. We feel like we stole this one.

AFTERMATH

A rough count of the points revealed that the Russian Army was devastated in the VP ratio. This would have been a Level 2 French victory. Part of the reason for this was that the Russians used their Guard early in the Center against our regular troops. This gave us a 2 to 1 vp advantage when losses were equal. On the flanks, the French probably lost a few vp in the South and though we were way behind early in the North, we made up for it with the disastrous rout of the Russian Cavalry. Our pursuit really hammered Platov's troops after the Russians started retreating in the North. Another key to victory was that we used our Guard less frequently. Our idea was to use the guard only to stop a Russian push or when an attack was really important. This is sort of realistic, isn't it.

The Russians played well tactically, but their lack of an overall plan was probably their ultimate downfall. By not keeping a large reserve, they were not able to easily react to our unexpected push in the center. When their drive in the North stalled, they had trouble shifting troops to the Center and South.

This put their guns in more peril than usual. At the end, the Russians had NO guns south of the Redoubt. The French still had over 20 batteries in this area. The Russians felt at the end that the game had been over for some time, but they really had no idea how close I came to calling off the attack in the Center. I was thinking at the time that our artillery advantage would whittle away at their army, even though they would get stronger in the Center. I believed we could drive in their flanks and cut off their regroup. I'm glad that my Generals propped me up at the right time and that Ney was so adamant. By the way, Ney's force at the end had only about a fifteen infantry and cavalry units left, but he did have about 20 batteries of foot guns under his command.

NEXT: DEATH AND DESTRUCTION - THE PLAYTEST FROM HELL or something else