Bloody Monday

About this board game

Bloody Monday is a two-player board game about the Battle of Borodino, playable in approximately 120 minutes. Set on Monday, September 7, 1812, it recreates the single bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars period, when about 250,000 troops were involved and the two armies suffered approximately 70,000 casualties.

The battle followed Napoleon’s invasion of Russia with more than 500,000 troops. After the French victory at Smolensk, the Russian armies retreated and burned, eventually making a stand near the village of Borodino under Marshal Kutuzov. The location offered only marginally useful defensive terrain, but it was the best place to stop the French before Moscow.

Using the game engine from Moscow ’41, Bloody Monday delivers action, challenges, and the joy of die rolling. Its design focuses on the major confrontation that followed two days of skirmishing and probing, placing players in the midst of a battle marked by intense losses and determined resistance.

• Players: 2
• Playing time: about 120 minutes
• Components: large 20mm blocks with colorful PVC stickers
• Gameplay features: different unit types, die rolling, and fog of war

The large blocks provide enough detail to distinguish different unit types while keeping the game playable in one sitting. Colorful PVC stickers and an easy fog-of-war mechanism give players the information and uncertainty needed to command their forces without making the system unwieldy.

For players interested in Napoleonic history, Bloody Monday combines a focused historical setting with accessible table presence and decisive battlefield action. The result is a compact recreation of Borodino’s extraordinary clash, released in 2017.