Borodino 2002Convention Recap

Courier Dispatch News

by Pete Panzeri and Brandon Musler

Of March Routs and the Great Redoubt

I noted this report in the newsletter of the Connecticut Game Club submitted by Brandon Musler - it was the best synopsis of the even I have seen to date. They have given me permission to re-print it. Connecticut Game Club; P.O. Box 403 Fairfield, CT 06430 Website http://www.concentric.net/~Los/CGC/cgcindex.htm. (Note: Address is case-sensitive).Active since 1979, CGC has been running its annual Crusades convention since 1991. - ED.

The 90th Anniversary of the Battle of Borodino was commemorated in early September with an enormous historical miniatures (25mm) recreation at JodieCon: Borodino 2002. Over 100 miniatures enthusiasts gathered at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia to stage the epic battle of 1812 as the Russian Army tried again to defend Moscow from the tender mercies of Napoleon and his Grande Armee.

Borodino 2002 was a special four day event sponsored by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS), those wonderful folks who bring you COLD WARS, FALL IN! and HISTORICON. Earlier JodieCon Campaign Conferences have reenacted Austerlitz, Crete, Gettysburg, Kanev, Market-Garden, Monmouth and Waterloo in lead. Borodino was staged once before in 1992; perhaps it was this prior practice that made for a nearly perfect gaming experience in 2002.

War and Pieces

Borodino 2002 was a full-scale historical convention that included a Napoleonic conference (courtesy of MagWeb.com), historical re-enactors, vendors and a museum tour, but the main-feature was unquestionably the Borodino wargame. Gamers acted as Army, Corps or Division commanders. Each Russian and French unit was represented at a scale of 1:50 by employing literally thousands of lovingly detailed Old Glory 25mm Napoleonic figures. The battlefield terrain, arrayed over the equivalent of about 30 Ping-Pong tables, was built on an ambitious scale of 1 inch to 25 yards and compellingly rendered the Great Redoubt, Fleches, Kalatasha river and Borodino village itself.

The tactical scenario, including the complete historical 1812order-of-battle, employed Nigel Marsh’s Carnage and Glory II (C&G2) computer moderated rule system. It was a feast for the eyes, but the operative question was how would a wargame on this scale play?

C&G2: Plays Great, Less Filling

Coordinating the activities of 100 competitive, and occasionally sleep deprived, lead pushers is a daunting challenge. Many rules systems can handle a basement-scale game of 10-20 units per side over an afternoon, but the task here was 50 times greater. Organizers estimated that between 12 and 20 turns might be played during the weekend. With a game scale of 15 minutes per turn, this represented only 3-5 hours of historical time. While a reasonable goal, the Battle of Borodino was fought for 14 hours. Despite the complexity of coordinating so much carnage, C&G2 covered itself in glory by allowing 33 turns (over eight hours) to be played in full. A decision was reached.

After Action Report

Historically, Napoleon’s Grand Armee chased two Russian Armies across the Russian steppe towards Moscow. The armies of Bagration and Barclay combined at Borodino, 70 miles West of Moscow, under the overall command of Kutusov. Fearing the Russians might maneuver away again; Napoleon eschewed the flank attack urged on him by Davout. Instead, he sought a battle of annihilation through attrition leading to extraordinary unit densities and the bloodiest single day of the entire Napoleonic period, including Wagram, Leipzig and Waterloo. Quite a challenge to recreate.

At Borodino 2002, although initial deployments were not historically mandated, Napoleon followed Davout’s plan of a sweeping southern hook. In addition, after taking the village of Borodino, the French also embarked on substantive tests of both the Great Redoubt and the Fleches while demonstrating with cavalry on their northern flank. Kutusov (played by Charlie Elsden who led the British to a decisive victory in the Peninsula during a visit to the CGC in August) anticipated the French maneuver but underestimated its ferocity.

Despite tenacious resistance, the French eventually stormed Utitza and the Fleches, substantively turning the Russian left flank. The morale of Barclay’s First Army collapsed as French cavalry fought its way through the opposing screen and rode down the Russian gun line beyond. Exhausted from killing so many dispirited Russians during the heat of the day, French impetus ran out just short of a key road juncture.

In the center, the Great Redoubt changed hands with multiple charges and countercharges, before the Russians prevailed by substantial margin with a “death or glory” ride to victory by the Empress’ Guards Cavalry. Maneuvering under the mouths of cannon belching death and flame from the Great Redoubt proved extremely costly to French manpower and morale. As the battle waned in the center, Constantine was contemplating sending in his Guard on the morrow, to retake Borodino, where Napoleon’s Guard Corps, the flower of the French Army, surely waits.

On the Northern flank, the initial demonstration by French cavalry was met with a ferocious Cossack counterattack. The Cossack commander, who flew in from Turkey with his fiancée and had never played miniatures before, bedeviled the French throughout the day. He turned the French flank with the help of Bagration’s line troops who forded the Kalatasha and drove the Wurttemberger Division back on the village of Borodino again. In the end, the battlefield had shifted from an east-west to north-south alignment, using the Great Redoubt as its pivot point.

And the Decision Goes To…

In 1812, Borodino was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat for Napoleon. The Grand Armee marched on to take Moscow but never destroyed Kutusov’s army. What followed is perhaps the most notorious retreat in military history, as the French army was first depleted by callous logistics and then destroyed by General Winter and marauding Cossacks.

The results of Borodino 2002 were similar. The French managed to turn the Russian flank in the south and slay 15,000 troops but they suffered 15,000 casualties themselves in the shadow of the Great Redoubt. More importantly, although the Russian Army was battered, it retained control the Main Post Road — i.e. its lines of communication. In other words, the Russian Army survived to fight again.

Why It Went So Well

There is no doubt that the overall JodieCon convention was a triumph due to the considerable logistical planning, expertise and hard work of Pete and Jodie Panzeri as well as the volunteerism of the HMGS faithful. But Borodino 2002, the wargame, played fast and true primarily due to the Carnage & Glory II moderated system.

C&G2 brings three distinctive innovations to Napoleonic miniatures, all of which improve play dynamics by helping gamers appreciate friction and fog-of-war. C&G2’s chief innovation is its built-in assumption that army morale and fatigue are the key determinants of battlefield performance. Far from a “bolt-on” afterthought, successful leadership is primarily a function of how efficiently these factors are managed. Low-key computer moderation, the second innovation, makes it possible to keep track of the myriad variables impacting morale. Not removing figures when casualties are incurred is the 3rd innovation. The interaction of these ideas improved historicity and streamlined the gaming during Borodino 2002.

C&G2 is, at heart, a morale management system. Its primary unit of measure is the human heart. Muscle endurance (human and equine) is a related consideration. Mammals are not machines. As they grow tired, their capacities diminish and determination wavers. Napoleon tacitly recognized this with his comment that ‘morale is to material as 3 is to 1’. Gamers accustomed to commanding mechanized armies often learn it the hard way — after pushing their men and horses too far, too often. C&G2 models and measures the limits of leadership by punishing those who fail to husband available muscle energy and morale.

Computer moderation, especially a “black box” approach, offers many benefits. Foremost is the offloading of calculation and endless recalling of minutia. The system prompts players to consider modifiers and remembers past events accurately. This not only enables a genuinely morale-based system, but it’s invaluable when gamer fatigue sets in after about four hours of real-world playing time. By doing the math, it drastically reduces friction between opposing camps over whether a modifier was factored correctly. Moreover, it abstracts the role of Game Master (GM) away from each individual player and makes them think in terms of general tactics. This dynamic manifested itself at Borodino 2002 where most arguments were about appropriate tactics (amongst allied players), instead of across the table, between opponents.

The practice of not removing casualties (lead stands), combined with computer moderation, creates an element of uncertainly from which miniatures gaming benefits. Historically, when men in the front ranks fell, their place was quickly back filled, continually presenting a full line to the enemy. With black powder smoke and dust covering the battlefield, even a general situated on a hill would have a hard time discerning unit casualties precisely, never mind communicating them to subordinate commanders below. So, it is important to offset the computer’s ‘perfect’ memory with players’ fallible (and often convenient) recollections. The fog-of-war aspect incites the hyper-aggressive to ask too much, and the timid too little, from their troops. Best of all, when you beat somebody, they can’t blame it on bad dice because they never threw any. If they beat you, on the other hand…

Other Observations

CGC members Tom Cusa and Frank Luberti served alongside Nigel Marsh and Dave Bonk as able GMs; these guys were integral to the success of Borodino 2000. They worked every minute of the battle and attended pre- and post-session meetings besides. At Borodino 2000 the GMs provided an absolute minimum of granular data. This was disconcerting to those accustomed to seeing every modifier, and result, spelled out — as in other Napoleonic rule sets. Some diecast grognards found it difficult to accept the uncertainty inspired by C&G2, at first. This is because the role of the GM in C&G2 is more akin to a soccer referee than an American football official. Bear with me here.

Americans expect referees to be intrusive — stopping games frequently and not restarting play until the infraction and violator are identified, remedies discussed, and an accounting of the incident delivered up to all players. Indeed, in many games far more time is devoted to dealing with technical distractions than actually playing. The GM mechanics of C&G2 produce a very different experience in spirit and practice.

C&G2 is designed as a fast-paced game with few interruptions. Players request a GM service (change formations, fire unit), rather than the GM overseeing their activities, per se. Because C&G2 does the bookkeeping, GMs are free to apply their understanding of history and precedent rather than apply modifiers by rote. Minor miscues can be overlooked if the GM considers them to have marginal impact. The GM can also “play through” trivial transgressions, especially if doing so negates the opponent’s advantage, like when a maneuver technically stretches the rules, but allowing it will exhaust the army that is artificially extending play boundaries. In other words, the GM can let you do dumb things…if you insist.

It is especially easy to fall prey to obsessive rules lawyering and neglect surrounding context in a heated contest. Rather than argue, most players prefer to “get on with it” after they realize the extra turns afforded by smooth C&G2 game play influence final results far more than any one isolated situation or modifier. As a general rule, players focus on “the bigger picture” better. If not, a GM can render an argument moot by entering his decision into the computer and continuing, leaving bitter enders to debate in the wake of a progressing game. With 50 players per side facing off all weekend, this helped move things right along.

Of course, GMs like Bonk, Cusa, Luberti and Marsh strive for uniformity of interpretation as strenuously as us players strove for command excellence. Everybody did their best and the inevitable human variations were in keeping with the pre-industrial eccentricities of the Napoleonic battlefield. C&G2 enabled an exploration of line tactics on a gaming scale never before possible. It was a glorious experience!

For further convention information visit www.jodiecon.org and for a more detailed accounting of Borodino 2002 game events check out The Great Redoubt Newsletter available there. A complete description of Carnage & Glory II is available on http://home.att.net/~npmarsh/index.htm.

Borodino 2002 was a success because of the hard work and dedication of all who contributed. Jodie Panzeri, Fred Hubig, Russ Lockwood, James Curtis, JT Thomasovich, and Game Masters: Nigel Marsh, Frank Luberti, David Bonk, Tom Cusa, Paul Crouch, and the “GM SWAT Team” Pete English and Tom Balou and many many more. With Players on both sides contributing in a big way, I salute them all!

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