215 : Great Garden

To the west of Essling’s granary was Great, or Master’s, Garden (herrschaftlicher Garten – literally ‘the garden of a stately man’). It was a large walled garden, somewhat isolated, that extended about 200m north of the village. Its walls were loop-holed and crenulated by Boudet’s men prior to the Austrian assaults. 

The two defensive strong-points, the granary and the garden, were mutually supporting and were attacked simultaneously. This made it seem reasonable to mount them together on the same base as one built-up-area section. Separating them from the rest of the village would reflect their battlefield importance, but would ultimately enlarge the built-up area of the village – but by just a little. All things considered, the unit sizes that could assault and defend the terrain base – the built-up area section – according to my rules should be able to properly reflect the level of the actual engagement.

I designed my Master’s Garden as a brick walled garden just large enough to accommodate two infantry bases. I laser-cut the walls with engraved bricks from fibreboard and topped them off with some cardboard flag stones, all suitably moved around by the French defenders. I used several types of textured and non-textured modelling pastes, applied to the flat areas before painting the model. I was careful to avoid adding lumps of paste to where the figure bases were intended to stand. Therefore, a bit of an uneventful, flat garden! This I planned to rectify by creating a removable base of suitable vegetation.