“Dad, which Great Northern War battle are you doing at Joy of Six this year?” asked the Little One.

“Gravelotte / St Privat!” I exclaimed with some excitement.

“That doesn’t sound like the Great Northern War, does it?” he said, thinking hard to remember the battles from that era.

“No, it was fought in 1870,” I replied, getting ready to tell him more.

“Oh, the Franco-Prussian War,” he said, sharing some excitement.

“Yes, indeed,” I said even more excitedly. “Let me show you more!”

I have been working on some Franco-Prussian war miniatures for a while in the background and have found the period interesting and intriguing. Following a discussion with Nick and the potential that he might not be able to attend when we had our last catch-up at Salute I decided to put some pressure on me to finish enough miniatures to put on a battle for Joy of Six. I reviewed a number of rulesets and settled for Big Bloody Battles (being about 2 weeks away I am doing my first play test tomorrow and as always the project completes to late for me to get properly prepared on rules – missing my wingman Nick who always picks that part up).

I showed off the table in the post last week (see link here) and have been working on some handouts this week for the battle itself.

In contrast to the Great Northern War era I could find a picture of each Commander. So using the Gravelotte Map (from the BBB discussion group, link here, as a basis I wanted to get a feel for the “Named Commanders” for the Gravelotte Scenario. Seeing the faces gives me a better immersion.

In the scenario the Korps/Corps arrive at different times and there are special rules that are situationally dependent. I also did a Turn Tracker as a checklist for what is happening in each turn.

I also shared an overview and scenario notes as well as some labels for the units on the BBB group page you can find it in the files sections in this folder.

I will share some shots from our playtest tomorrow with the Shed of War Crew.

In the interim here are some photos of the miniatures we will use for this battle.

It is a Colonel, Colonel Sanders

Saxons!

Ok that’s all for now, will post up some pictures of the play test tomorrow at some point next week, hope that was some interest.

See you at Joy of Six?

/Keep on toysoldiering!