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• weaknesses in the game's AI mean that the computer defends better than it attacks, making it more of a challenge to be the French
• players will probably find it more interesting to probe, attack and take ground than to sit and wait for things to happen

The most challenging scenario is Kutuzov Turns To Fight (Scenario 7) in which you, as the French commander, have full control over the release times for your units, including your cavalry and other reserves and most crucially the Imperial Guard, released too late into the real battle. Equally your opponent, player or AI, can order the full weight of his defenders into the fray at any time and at any location.

We will look at each area, examining the crucial ground, disposition of forces, Russian weak points and problems facing the French advance. To assist in command control it is recommended that Corps be allocated to one area only, as fighting tends to concentrate around a few main points. Splitting Corps forces across area boundaries tends to leave them pulled further and further apart. The one exception is Eugene's IV Corps, who so outnumber their opponents that some forces, notably artillery, can and should be spared to move into Area 2 and assist in the attack on the Great Redoubt.

As the in game maps, the paper maps and other material all use different spelling I will use the standard transcriptions from the Cyrillic in the hope that most people will be able to identify the villages and other geographical features named. Please remember that pressing SHIFT in game will bring up the names of these places.

The two threats to you, both relatively minor, come from the Borodino bridge and from Russian crossing at the Novoe ford to the East, the latter unlikely if playing against the AI but possible if you are facing an aggressive human opponent willing to commit a few cavalry units to unsettling you. Unlike the French the Russians can take the riverside road, so expect them to arrive fairly soon. You can remove an element of uncertainty by destroying the bridge in melee, but it hampers an attack along the ridge to Gorkii later in the game.

Control of the Fords is therefore one of the keys to Area 2. There are too many French troops north of the river and the eastern ford allows them to cross and attack the Great Redoubt head on, without doubling back over the bridges to the rear. The Ford allows cavalry, artillery and fresh infantry to pour across to take the Redoubt and defeat the counterattack.

Against a human player, however, things can become more difficult. If the Russian defender squares the troops on the flanks of the position, exerting greater ZOC to prevent the position being outflanked and changes the infantry in the centre to line formation to add firepower things can get difficult. The Russian player should concentrate his artillery fire on the advancing infantry columns and ensure the bypass is blocked with whatever spare troops or reserves one can find. If the French player neglects to use it himself the Russians can send a couple of Battalions along the trail to appear on the right flank of the French attack on the Fleches.

The picture below shows the open ground immediately to the east of Semyonovskoe and shows a Russian counterattack as shown by the green arrows in the picture above, with Russian infantry reserves on the lower ground. Because the French player has moved too fast he has left his infantry very exposed. While the French artillery and cavalry are still in the Fleches area, French infantry on the open ground, disordered by ranged fire and unable to change from column formation, are easy pickings for charging Russian cavalry. It is still only 07.45 am and the infantry should have held their ground in Semyonovskoe and waited for back-up.

The Area 4 battle around Utitsa is fairly straightforward  in that it is geographically separated from the rest of the battlefield by a largely impenetrable forest. The attack stands or falls by the forces each side bring to bear here and no artillery balls will come hurtling from the flanks. It is here therefore that an early commitment of French reserves (I prefer the Old Guard) can drastically change the odds and turn the tide of the battle by turning the Russian left flank. Most of us have played this battle before when we learnt the game - this time we prefer to fight fair: at least 3 to 1.

If you have followed all of the above through carefully you will have gathered the essence of the plan already:

• There is not much to be gained in Area 1 - Borodino
• There is not much movement to be had in Area 2 - Great Redoubt - because the woods hamper artillery and cavalry support and the Redoubt is a very strong position
• Therefore commit as much strength as possible to Area 3 (Fleches) and Area 4 (Utitsa) in the hope of winning the French right flank battle quickly, outflanking the Redoubt and getting French cavalry and artillery onto the plateau east of Semyonovskoe. Defeat the reserves then press the remaining Russians against the Kolocha river.

Two last points:

• Remember to reconnoitre. There is plenty of time. The Russians have units on the map that you can't see and they are closer than you think. Get some light cavalry squadrons and skirmishers up there before you move a whole Corps in stroll formation. Remember too to check your flanks with a skirmisher screen. There is a lot of empty space to each flank.
• Secondly, remember the value of psychological warfare. If you are playing as the Russians you can stall a divisions advance by having cavalry appear in the south near Artemki or to the north of Borodino. If there is dead ground nearby the French will not know if it is a single unit or more. Put some units in the wood between Areas 3 and 4. The French player is unlikely to find them and will be disconcerted to find two good order infantry battalions to his rear. It might take him several units and three or more turns before he is confident enough to press forward again. If you are playing as the French there is value in a small probe towards the Maloe Ford. It may let you know if he is coming the other way and it may tie down troops he would otherwise commit at the crucial middle stage of the battle.

I will also include some matters that appear in the manual but are often overlooked, such as parts of the disorder rules. Furthermore the nature of the various headings means that several rules or pieces of information are included under more than one heading.

Zone of Control (ZOC) is extended by units (not artillery, supply wagons, lone leaders or skirmishers) into the two hexes they face. This is different to the threat zone exerted by units. A unit in square creates a Zone of Control in all adjacent hexes. Moving into a ZOC of line, square or column infantry or of cavalry or adjacent to a ? unknown unit marker reduces your unit's movement points to zero. It is therefore important to change facing and/or formation before moving into the ZOC and also to avoid being "caught" in unexpected ZOC.

 Zones of Control are very useful in eliminating whole battalions. If you can exert ZOC on every possible retreat hex during a melee, whether or not that hex is occupied by enemy troops, your target battalion(s) in the melee will be completely destroyed.

Just before coming into contact with the enemy, i.e. at 2 or 3 hexes range, change into line formation (unless directly threatened by cavalry). You get ranged fire bonuses and ranged fire protection. Once in contact with the enemy there tends not to be much manoeuvre so the reduced movement rate doesn't matter that much. Also once in contact with the enemy it is usually hard to change formation as most units become disordered.

When changing formation remember to change the formation of all units in the hex at the same time, otherwise there will be disorder.

Be very wary with line infantry facing artillery positions: if the artillery can fire through the front facing of the line infantry it can attack ALL line infantry in that hex, more than offsetting the ranged fire protection enjoyed by line infantry.

Sometimes it is useful to keep infantry on the flanks of the advance in column formation to use their higher movement rate aid in the outflanking and surrounding of enemy units.

If cavalry charge your line of infantry battalions, infantry units adjacent to the one attacked can usually move and trap the cavalry with their ZOCs. Ranged fire then destroys the enemy cavalry. Ranged fire is more effective against cavalry than infantry, receiving a +2 modifier at 1 to 6 hexes range and a +1 modifier at 7 to 12 hexes.

See also:

Move your artillery as close to the enemy as possible, especially if that enemy is in static defensive positions. Remember to go no closer than three hexes, leaving you the ability to shoot at the target but leaving you (with very few exceptions) out of range. Close range greatly increases the results on a massed infantry target.

It is a good idea to plan the artillery positions for your attacks in advance. There are a number of good positions offering elevation and field of fire advantages at crucial stages of the battles, including Utitsa village and the rises to its north and south, the area on the Eastern side of the wood just to the south of the Fleches, Semyonovskoe village and the rise north of the river west of Borodino (for supporting attacks on the Redoubt). Don't clog these areas with infantry - allow your guns to get there, get set up and start firing.

Artillery is one of the biggest killers of your men and large hits will likely cause routing. It is therefore worth making the enemy's guns a prime target, but melee is the only way that can be described as very effective in attacking an artillery position. Therefore if you can reach the enemy guns in a cavalry charge or a burst of movement it may be worth firing your artillery at infantry in the same hex as the problem guns. Good hits may significantly change the melee odds in your favour and a successful melee will remove all enemy cannon in the hex.

Artillery can be used to damage and destroy an empty bridge. This is unlikely to be of much practical benefit, especially to the French player. The Russian player may choose to destroy the Borodino bridge if pressed, allowing him to concentrate on defending the fords.

If you are faced with multiple infantry units in line formation in the same hex fire on them - artillery can attack ALL line formation infantry units if firing through the front unit's front facing.

If playing as the Russian commander you may wish to consider splitting your large batteries into extended line, effectively allowing you to fire at two different targets. This may be enough to kill, disorder or rout large numbers of advancing French infantry, especially if in column.

Only one leader can affect a melee, increasing the attack/defence strength and improving morale. Why risk more than one?

Losses against skirmishers are reduced by 80%

Unlimbered artillery forced by the melee result to retreat is eliminated instead. This (especially by cavalry charge) is the most effective way to attack artillery.

Infantry cannot initiate a melee against cavalry. This rule prevents the player from using the turn system to diminish the dynamic power of cavalry but can be abused, using "static cavalry " to greatly delay the capture of a position.

Melee can be used to damage and destroy an empty bridge. In practice this is likely to be used only by the Russian player against the Borodino bridge.

• Lancers and Heavy Cavalry attack +25%
• Disordered Units attack -50%
• Charging Units vs Skirmishers, Line or Column infantry, artillery attack value tripled
• Units that did not fire in preceding Offensive Fire phase +1 modifier
• Cavalry attacking over unobstructed hexside +1 modifier
• Units with low fatigue -1 modifier
• Units with high fatigue -2 modifier
• Units through any obstructed hexside - maximum modifier applies to all
• Units with leader +1 modifier
• Units attacking uphill -1 modifier
• Enfilade melee +2 modifier

• Lancers defend -25%
• Routed Units defend -50%
• Units with leader -1 modifier

The Actual Tables containing the probabilities of different results of ranged fire can be found in Section 10 "Parameters" of the file NOTES.HLP (Windows Help Format) in the NiR directory on your Hard Disk.

• Infantry in column is reduced by 50% (Russians) and 66% (French)
• Infantry in square is reduced by 75%
• Disordered units is reduced by 50%
• Units that moved in the movement phase of that player turn is reduced by 50%
• High Quality Units (6+) - increase
• Low Quality Units (2-) - reduction

• Infantry in column or square is increased by 25%
• Infantry in column or square BY ARTILLERY is increased 50%
• Skirmishers is reduced by 75%
• Cavalry at 1 to 6 hexes +2 modifier
• Cavalry at 7 to 12 hexes +1 modifier  

Why would you form a square? They have only 1/4 of the firepower of infantry in line.

However:

If you have to hold a position and think you have the odds against you it might be worth squaring one or more infantry units on the objective (e.g. Utitsa Mound hill top) before the enemy arrive and it becomes disordered and can no longer change formation. It may just win enough time for reinforcements to arrive. It is also worth doing this with battalions stacked NEXT TO gun (artillery) positions, to prevent melees resulting from cavalry charges from sweeping the guns away. The protection squares offer artillery (which is completely destroyed by melee losses) more than offsets the relatively small increase in firepower that the rifles can bring. Your cavalry can be kept a couple of hexes to the rear to counterattack any disordered attackers.

Squares cannot be formed in obstructed terrain, meaning all terrain except clear or building hexes.

Opolochenye Militia Units and non-Jager Musket-armed Militia cannot form squares. This is worth remembering when you have taken the Fleches or Utitsa and see a couple of thousand militia on the open ground to the rear. Send in the lancers!

Skirmishers are a blessing and a bane. They are very resistant to ranged fire as they employ open formations and make better use of cover than troops in column etc. However they are useless at melee due to their low numbers and can be completely eliminated by cavalry units during the charge phase before the phasing player even bother to melee. If the enemy has cavalry that can sweep across your front or has lines of infantry in contact then skirmishers are a way of presenting him with easy victory points.

So when do we use skirmishers?

• To hold individual buildings and especially the Wolf Pits in front of the Redoubt - skirmishers get a -2 protection bonus
• To give advanced warning of enemy intentions - a thin screen far forward of a defensive line gives good warning of the enemy's strengths and intentions
• To see over that hill - if you are going to advance vulnerable units such as infantry in column or limbered artillery over a rise send some skirmishers or, better, a small cavalry squadron over first. Seen the enemy Guard and Cavalry Reserves?
• To protect our flanks - a flimsy screen, but if it hampers the movement of two enemy battalions into our rear it may save hundreds of men from ZOC Rout Elimination.

Enfilade fire is fire from the side and is especially powerful. It represents fire with an element of surprise against unprepared defenders. If a unit is fired on or meleed from an enfilade position and any casualties are caused there is a good chance that the unit will rout as enfilade attacks cause a -2 modifier to the morale check. Most units, especially if already fatigued and/or disordered are at serious risk from enfilade attacks and the rout of one unit can easily become a chain rout, leading to the capture of a position or the collapse of an attack. In effect enfilade fire and melee attacks can be made against artillery, line or column infantry and cavalry. They cannot be made against skirmishers or squares.

Enfilade fire and melee attacks are the only ways for infantry and cavalry to attack "second row" line infantry. Sometimes a defender will move a severely damaged and fatigued battalion in line formation to the top of the stack, using the game mechanism to allow these 50 men to artificially shield perhaps 1300 other defenders beneath from the fatigue and casualties resulting from ranged fire attacks. Enfilade attacks can target all available units.

In addition to the effect on morale above, melee enfilade attacks are resolved with a +2 modifier for the attacker.

Be open to opportunities presented - the cavalry get, in effect, two movement phases and can be held back a bit behind the infantry to exploit weaknesses, for example attacking and meleeing a defender that suffered heavily in your offensive fire phase.

In the example below the French are attacking the northern Fleche from the Kamenka ravine and find a gun battery positioned with a single light infantry battalion of 150 men. Although the area immediately behind the Fleche is packed with Russian troops and there is no guarantee of success two French cavalry units are sent thundering up the hill and over the top into the Russian position. The ensuing melee is won, the light infantry unit is forced to withdraw and the Russian guns are destroyed. Immediately thereafter the Russian AI withdraws the surrounding troops and the French have taken the guns, gained a foothold in the Fleches and gained valuable objective and artillery victory points.

Cavalry are only really much use when not disordered. Disordered cavalry cannot charge, have low movement rates and melee very ineffectively. Therefore pamper them by:

• shielding them with screening infantry units - this has the added bonus of giving the cavalry at least one hex to move during the charge phase so gaining the charge bonus during the melee phase. The AI will often attack the nearest units only, and disordered infantry face less of a reduction in effectiveness than disordered cavalry.
• avoiding the crossing of disrupting terrain, like steep hillsides, marshes and streams, which result in the cavalry becoming disordered
• saving the cavalry for effective charges/melees and for cutting off enemy units and capturing vulnerable targets such as lone leaders and supply wagons
• moving them in the movement phase into dead ground close to the target, leaving them protected against the enemy's defensive fire, then sweeping up over the ridge/slope during the charge phase.

Remember to use the serious threat zone that cavalry produce out to six hexes from their position, with the effect doubled at four hexes and quadrupled at two. This threat zone can be utilised by keeping a cavalry unit behind attacking infantry, hampering the defender's ability to change formation and affecting morale checks. 

Cavalry are very vulnerable to ranged fire, which receives a +2 modifier at 1 to 6 hexes and +1 at 7 to 12.

It should be remembered that cavalry must be in good order to begin the charge. If they become disordered though crossing poor terrain they may nevertheless continue the charge providing sufficient movement points remain. Becoming disordered during the charge does not cut the movement allowance for that charge.

Cavalry that has charged automatically becomes disordered at the end of the charging player's turn.

Cavalry are especially useful against skirmishers in open ground (i.e. on clear hexes crossing unobstructed hexsides). If the cavalry is twice as strong as the skirmishers they have a 75% chance of completely overrunning and eliminating the skirmishers. This is a good way to clear a line of skirmishers quickly. It is almost as effective if you charge then use the Cavalry Can Continue to Melee function (up to four times), although the skirmishers sometimes partially survive if there are hexes to retreat to.

In the example below the French are trying to move a build-up of infantry from Area 1 (Borodino) to Area 2 (the Great Redoubt) over the west Borodino ford. They were being prevented by a line of skirmishers on the south side of the Kolocha river and ranged fire was not doing much to shift them beyond depleting ammunition stocks. At this point three cavalry units arrived on the west bank of the Semyonovka stream. The first charge of two units (see illustration) cleared the skirmishers from the south bank in THREE successive successful melees. The second charge combined with infantry (pink arrow) to attack another skirmisher unit then meleed again to beat another one on the high ground it occupies in the picture. Two cavalry charges had completely changed the tactical situation in the area.

Before charging split your cavalry units into smaller groups (by using the Skirmisher button) - it reduces the effect of counterfire following the melee, allowing more to remain undisordered and so charge again sooner. It also allows more creative use of ZOC, either to eliminate enemy units or to channel them in their retreat.

• A unit loses a fatigue point when it is fired at resulting in fatigue loss, when it takes casualties or engages in melee
• A unit with low fatigue has a -1 modifier to all morale checks, -2 with high fatigue.
• A unit has a chance of recovering fatigue if it has not moved, fired, been fired at or engaged in melee for two player turns.
• Any unit with a fatigue of 9 that loses another fatigue point takes a morale check.

• To be resupplied a unit must be within 5 hexes of a supply wagon
• The supply path must not cross impassable hexsides or pass adjacent to an enemy unit.
• Melee attacks by any troops, even 25 disordered skirmishers, automatically result in capture of that wagon
• Resupply of Skirmishers is free - the S# of the wagon is not reduced
• Players may instinctively wish to keep the supply wagon near their artillery - this is pointless as artillery has its own independent supply mechanism. Keep the wagons near the infantry
• Avoid wasting ammunition by firing at small groups of skirmishers - 25 or 50. The fire is very unlikely to have much impact and melee is much more effective. You can get melee bonus modifiers by not firing in the previous offensive fire phase.
• Avoid firing if possible - it raises fatigue levels and brings the battalion closer to maximum fatigue and regular morale checks. Fire at large groups of enemy infantry to disorder them then get stuck in there with the numbers needed to melee successfully. To hold a captured position (the computer loves to counterattack, human opponents love it even more!) you will need your low fatigue and ammunition.

• It is sometimes possible to move units during the defensive fire phase - this is a bug but I am not sure what causes it. The two suggestions that have been put forward are either that it occurs when the optional rule Cavalry Countercharges is checked or that it sometimes happens when a player uses the keypad to move units. Furthermore there have been suggestions that in PBEM games this bug only applies to one side, unbalancing the game.
• I don't know whether this is a bug but it can wreak havoc on the unsuspecting player, especially if you are defending. Let us suppose you have a line of defending units closely pressed around a hilltop, village or what have you. The attacker advances his battalions around your position and melees with superior numbers and one of your defending battalions has to fall back. You think you are safe because you have another battalion adjacent and estimate your probable losses at 50 or 75 men. However if all the hexes you can fall back to are in Zone Of Control of an enemy unit EVEN if occupied by a friendly unit ALL defenders are eliminated, often with minimal or no loss to the attacker.

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