Towards Moscow Trilogy (TMT) – Part 5, Swedish Cavalry at Lesnaya

On 14/05/201714/05/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Great Northern War, Polemos GNW, Towards Moscow Triology1 Comment

I do apologise if you are a follower of this blog and got sent an update earlier this week. I did a draft based on what I intended to do this week and instead of saving it to add some more text and pictures to over the weekend (when I actually had something to show) I pressed publish. Anyway here is the real update, hope it is of some interest.

Back to basics again and a update on the progress with the Lesnaya battle, this time the hard-hitting Swedish Cavalry. All based in a wedge formation. This formation represents the way in which the cavalry (and dragoon units) attacked (knee-behind-knee) as part of the overall Gå–På–method focused on aggression and shock.

Svensk_Kavalleriformering_1707

Picture by Krigsarkivet (Swedish War Archives) from 1707, Public Domain (link here)

All these miniatures were part of a commission I received from Chris at Marching Colour (link here), this is the third batch he has done for me and I have nothing but praise. I know I said it before, but it has given me time to explore some alternative stuff I normally have no time to do.

My remit to Chris was “Block painted neatly not with layers, hightlight, varnish or basing”. I also asked for the flags/standards to be left blank.

My job is the pleasurable task of doing some final touches (including flags), ink them, some highlight and base them up. Before I show the individual overall units, I will go through these steps. The models from Chris are more or less ready to be based without doing these additional steps – but to me it makes a difference and adds some satisfaction in having provided some kind of input into the overall production process, whether you can actually see it on the table when you stand up and look down at them. A kind of flat pack approach to miniature painting, but hopefully more enjoyable than those Billy Bookcases from IKEA. I am using the brave riders of the Åbo och Björneborgs Kavalleriregemente as an example. With regards to painting guide there are some reasonable information but a lot of gaps (see the discussion here, on the Tacitus webpage that also shows a reasonable interpretation of the material available for this and many other battles). I am also lucky enough to have copies of the eminent Acedia Press books The Great Northern War 1700-1721 : colours and uniforms Part 1 and Part 2 that contains a lot of further information. The books are long since out-of-print.

Step 0 – Done by Chris – block paint miniatures neatly (the longest step)

Step 1 – do the flags and any repainting (e.g on some occasions I have changed the colour of a horse etc)

Flags (a orangy standard for these guys)
Trumpeter (or drummer) details
Light Silver on the swords (adds to the overall effect)
Highlight the hat lace (in this case yellow)
Horsetails in dark grey (german grey)
I changed the schabraque and pistol covers to Orange although I had told Chris something different (no information and perhaps unlikely but Orange it will be).

step2

Step 2 – Paint the bases of the miniatures brown (I use a burnt umber or chocolate brown for this – same as for my base terrain colour)

Step 3 – Apply Nutbrown Ink – let it dry. Apply generously, avoid the metal parts (no soldier would keep his, mostly men in this case. sword rusty). I sometime add some highlights if the ink makes it to dark or messes something up.

Step 5 – Prepare base. I paint the edges brown as it saves time later. I use 2mm laser cut 60 by 30mm bases.

Step 6 – glue to base. Well first you have to cut the strips into the individual riders, make sure each of them can stand on a flat surface so they do not fall in the glue later. Apply glue all over the base when you are ready to put them on the base. Note: The miniatures forms a shallow wedge shape (in line with the picture above) with the trumpeter on the right and the Kornett in the middle and furthest ahead holding the standard. The Kornett, or Cornet in English, was the lowest commissioned officer rank equivalent to a Second Lieutenant (or Fänrik in Sweden) . The rank was also used in the British army up to the late 19th century. It has nothing do with the family of wind instruments with the same name.

Step 7 – Apply sand as soon as possible. Carefully flip it slightly so that excess sand falls off. If any bare metal still shines through or the bases are too obvious apply a little bit more of glue in these places and apply some more sand, “flip away” the excess carefully and then let dry.

Step 8 – Paint the sand brown (I do not as I have some chocolate coloured sand)

Step 9 – dry brush Colour 1 to 3 (decide on a set and stick to it, all your stuff will look the same whether you do them today or several years ago. The picture does not really come out well. The colours are a very pale brown, a little more yellowish brown and fnally a light yellow. But try out your own combo.

Here are the colours I use.

Step 10 – add PVA glue where you want the static grass. Apply Static grass and shake off excess (same here get a lot of a brand and stick to it, I use Busch light and dark grass. Mostly the light) I then stick on some flowery tufts when I feel for it (they are a little bit overwhelming scalewise, but I like it!).

step11

Step 12 – Add base to your collection (here with the other three bases of the regiment).

step12 step13

Anyway here are the other ones I have done this week in no particular order,

Cavalry Regiments

Karelska Kavalleriregementet (4 bases)

Adelsfanan i Sverige och Finland (1 base) – a company was part of Lewenhaupts army. So a base may be excessive. But why not.

svenska adelsfana.jpg

Adelsfanan i Livland och på Ösel (1 base), this is the Cavalry Corps of the Nobility in Livonia and Ösel. Strictly speaking Adelsfanan means the Nobel Banner.

livonian

Dragoon Regiment / Squadrons

Skogh’s Dragon Skvadron (1 base)

livland dragon

Karelska Land Dragon Skvadron (1 base)

Damn, forgot to this one. Well…..

Schreitterfeldts Dragonregemente (2 bases)

Schlippenbachs Dragonregemente (2 bases)

Upplands Ståndsdragoner (2 bases)

uppland

Öselska Land Dragon Skvadron (1 base)

oselska

Light Horse Regiment

Vallack / Vollosh Regementet (2 bases) – light cavalry unit formed from Polish and Lithuanian Free Companies. I have plenty of these from the past already so I will be using a few of those on the day.

I did the Swedish infantry before (see here). So all that remains for the Swedes are some commanders and that dragoon base I forgot!

/ Have a good week

Pruth Campaign Skirmish Action in 6mm using Pikeman’s Lament – Part 2: The painting and the basing

On 06/05/201708/05/2017 By The OneIn 18th Century Rules, 6mm, Books, Great Northern War, Painting, Pikeman's Lament5 Comments

Russian5

In the previous blog entry (see here) I set out the forces and the miniatures I intended to use for this project. I have just completed these units this week and hope to get a game with the Little One in the near future. Same approach as always in trying to achieve reasonable results not individual master pieces. The units I planned to do were as follows, based on some possible small encounters during the Pruth Campaign 1711.

Ottomans	No	Pts/ unit	Total Pts	Unit Size	Total Models	Baccus Pack
Veteran Shot	5	6	30	12	60	OTT02
Trotters	4	4	16	6	24	GNP05
Total	9	–	46	–	84	–
Russians	No	Pts/ unit	Total Pts	Unit Size	Total Models	Baccus Pack
Dragoons	4	4	16	6	24	WSS12
Forlorn Hope	3	6	18	6	18	WSS03
Raw Trotters	4	3	12	6	24	WSS08
Total	11	–	46	–	66	–

I am very happy with the result and I am tempted to make a small Swedish “force” from the same era (with some pikes).

Perhaps something like this.

Swedish	No	Pts/ unit	Total Pts	Unit Size	Total Models	Baccus Pack
Shot	5	4	20	12	60	GNS01 (Tricorne) or GNS02 (Karpus)
Pike	2	4	8	12	24	GNS03 (Tricorne) or GNS04 (Karpus)
Aggressive Elite Gallopers	3	6	18	6	18	GNS05 or GNS06
Total	9	–	46	–	102	–

Sorry trying to avoid drifting, back to the Pruth stuff.

Russians

For the Russians I decided to go for units with red as a common denominator and painted them as based on units that took part in the campaign (based on a list from the draft of Nick Dorrell’s upcoming book – discussed in the previous blog, here). All these are from the “new” Baccus WSS range – I had not yet painted these but I must say that they are a joy to paint. I have so far used the old WSS range for my GNW stuff as I have a fair few of the ones lying around from previous purchases with hybric flavours.

On the subject of the Russians of this era I did notice a book currently on pre-order due out in November this year. The book is titled The Russian Army in the Great Northern War 1700-21 with the subtitle Uniforms, Organization, Materiel, Training and Combat Experience. I hope this will have some more information on uniform colours than what is currently available. Although I have to admit that I pre-ordered it based on the title, what is really interesting is the background of the author. I let you read it yourself.

Boris Megorsky was born in Leningrad, USSR in 1978. He lives in St Petersburg, Russia with his beloved wife Olga and three-year-old son Vadim. He did his PhD in Political Science and works in Human Resources, but his true passion has always been military history. As a scholar, he specializes in the everyday life of the Russian Army, its uniforms and siege warfare of the Great Northern War period; he has written dozens of articles and theses on these subjects. His book about the siege of Narva in 1704 was published in Russia in 2016 and, as a re-enactor, he is a member and sergeant of the Preobrazhensky Life Guard Regiment, 1709 ( Russia’s leading re-enactment society of the early 1700s). His passion for miniatures makes him pay great attention to details both in research and in reconstructions, be it re-enactors’ kit or graphical illustration consultations. He has consulted on a number of films, museum and publishing projects, and has worked with miniature manufacturers and artists. – From the Amazon Webpage

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Here is a link to it at Amazon (but there are probably other places where you can buy it too, like the book depository). Worth having on your radar, but a long way from being out. Would of course be useful for the Pruth campaign too. Back to the key thread again.

Permski Dragoon Regiment (Dragoons)

The Permski dragoon regiment were present in the 1711 campaign so I decided to make my dragoon units represent a detachment from this regiment. They had white coats with red cuffs. I have already painted some of these for the Lesnaya Battle but they are based on 60 by 30mm bases. As these represents the Dragoon in the traditional role of being more mounted infantry than cavalry they have been based with unmounted figures but with a horse present on each base. I have used the 1-2-3 system (shown in the Pikeman’s Lament rulebook), modified to fit the 6mm scale, and as discussed in this blog entry if you do not have the book at hand.

4 units of 6 dragoons, based with the 1-2-3 method (15mm, 20mm and 25mm bases)

Russian3

Repnin’s Grenadiers (Forlorn Hope)

I painted these to represent Repnin’s Grenadiers that had red coats with (speculative?) blue cuffs. Named after the Russian General, and eventually Field Marshal, Prince Anikita Ivanovich Repnin who commanded one of the Russian centre commands at Poltava in 1709 (you can read more about him here). These were also based with the 1-2-3 system.

3 units of 6 Forlorn Hope, based with the 1-2-3 method (12mm, 15mm and 20mm bases).

Russian1

General Sheremetev’s Dragoon Squadron (Raw Trotters)

For these I wanted them to represent General Sheremetev’s Squadron, I painted them with red coats and white cuffs. Potentially these could be classified as non-raw (or even Veteran) assuming that the General’s squadron may be more potent than the standard dragoon unit. Boris Sheremetev commanded the overall centre at Poltava in 1709 and led the main army in the Pruth Campaign (more about him here).

4 units of 6 trotters, based with the 1-2-3 method (15mm, 20mm and 25mm bases).

The Ottomans

I do not have a lot of information of who wore what for these units – so I did a quick decision to paint them based on a basic livery green (green ink on the clothing and then picking out some detail with Livery Green). Finally got to use this fine Colour!

I would be very keen to get some comprehensive information on detailed organization and uniform guides from this conflict – but until then artistic freedom will do. I you have any views or suggestions please do let me know through the contact option on the blog of find us on facebook and ask away.

Janissaries (Veteran Shot)

I painted these in a green coat with the traditional white headgear with some simple pink detail/ There is a little story about how models were developed by Master 6mm painter Dr. Mike also known as Cranium (here). He is the man who runs the SMS (Small Model Soldier) painting clinics at various shows, teaching people how to paint “something so small”. I developed most of the techniques I am using in painting 6mm from reading his entries on the old Baccus forum (I do not find these anymore) – my favourite is the use of Windsor & Newton Ink (Nut Brown) after the painting is done – the army painter quick shade equivalent for smaller scales (kind of!) . It really makes the models “look better than they are”, in my opinion. Try it for yourself – go nuts!

th5B9FMMMW

5 units of 12 Veteran Shot, based with the 1-2-3 method (12mm, 15mm and 20mm bases).

ottoman4

Sipahi (Trotters)

Again a green colour scheme with bronzed helmet. I painted the flags green with three crescents as I had seen this for an Ottoman unit many years ago at a wargames show and liked it. Having done some research I am not 100% sure it is a valid flag for the Ottomans – but I like it so it stays until I have better alternative. The bronze helmets also looks good and, like the pink and white on the Janissaries, show that these uniforms where not designed to blend into the countryside but to look stunning!

4 units of 6 trotters, based with the 1-2-3 method (15mm, 20mm and 25mm bases)

Hope that was of some interest, another read of the rules and we have to hit the table with these. Not the same splendor as individual 28mm bases for skirmish, but it works for me. The fact that I have produced two opposing forces of almost twice the recommended starting size in a week of hobby-time is perhaps the biggest advantage.

I did a similar project for the Men Who Would be Kings rules that you can find information about (here, here and here).

Next week I will be showing some progress on the main project (a proper large battle). As the package with models came through from Marching in Colour last week (see here) and I have started slowly getting my act together again this week (afterthought – as if it ever was there!).

I have decided to give the Mutant 1984 project a break over the Summer – I did paint the two little structures/buildings I did a few weeks back (here) and showed them on the Facebook page. For completeness I include them here as well. I think we are getting closer to having the terrain we need for a proper game with these rules. I am excited to start a campaign with some Pyri Commonwealth Soldiers – The recollections of rifleman Crocodylus. However there is something rather therapeutic in doing some terrain so perhaps there will be some pieces done in the background of everything else.

some more progress some progress

The picture below shows the good Rifleman Crocodylus himself next to to one of the 6mm Dragoon bases above and a BIC pen for size comparison, as I occasionally get questions about this through the site. The Rifleman is a converted Warlord 95th rifle model (28mm scale) with a head from a crooked dice model.

croccomp

/ Take care

Pruth Campaign Skirmish Action in 6mm using Pikeman’s Lament – Part 1: The planning and the buying & some other stuff

On 01/05/201701/05/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Great Northern War, Pikeman's Lament, Scrappers, Towards Moscow Triology7 Comments

Long blog update this time, here is a summary:

Pikeman’s Lament in 6mm – Planning and Buying Stage
Another batch for the Towards Moscow Project from Marching in Colour
Mutant 1984 for Scrappers, some more “terrainish” stuff – a Citroën, oil tanks and some old Trucks

Pikeman’s Lament in 6mm

I bought a copy of The Pikeman’s Lament by Daniel Mersey and Michael Leck a few months ago. It is, as the title hints, a Pike and Shot period skirmish level game and in the sample companies provided it covers the Thirty Years War (TYW), English Civil War (ECW), the Deluge (Northern War 1655-60), Scanian Wars, King Williams War (the First French Indian War) and the Great Northern War (GNW). Being a Osprey book it has the typical style and layout of their other wargames books.

The rules are derived from the very popular Lion Rampant rules created by Daniel Mersey (who also wrote the Dux Bellorum and Men Who Would be Kings that the Little One and I really enjoy playing having had a few goes, see here for our first game) and on a quick read these rules caught my interest sufficiently to get me thinking about trying them out.

Michael Leck is, perhaps, more famous for the fantastic stuff he presents on his Dalauppror blog (here) and his articles in the Wargames, Soldier and Strategy magazine where he has presented snippets from the rich Swedish military history and how to adapt some popular rule set to play in these, more than often, unknown theatres. You may recall that I put up a picture of his fantastic, and award winning, game at Salute in the last blog update (here). Michael, and I, used to roll dice and use our imagination in the same role-playing club many moons ago.

There is a comprehensive review of the rules on the “I live with Cats blog”, that I found useful (link here). I wanted to give them a try doing two small starting forces in line with the Men Who Would be King stuff I did before. I just needed to find a period – a pleasant problem looking for a solution.

Last week Nick Dorrell, and I, were talking about some (far) future projects and we discussed the Russian Pruth Campaign. This was whilst we were running our Salute Game (more here). Nick has a book soon to come out called Peter the Great Humbled: The Russo-Ottoman War of 1711. Nick’s book tells the story about this campaign that led to the surrender of the Russian forces near the Pruth river. It also presents the forces involved in the conflict, their size, actual composition, and tactics used. It is not a very well known conflict but due to the natural link to the Great Northern War I find it very interesting and I am looking forward to read the final book (I pre-ordered my copy of Nicks book from here).

9781911512318

Although the engagmement were mainly attacks on fortifications some “what ifs” or special scenarios could be played – but then I thought why not do a few units from this period and try out the Pikeman’s Lament Rules. Following on from this I went ahead and actually bought a few miniatures from Baccus at Salute that will be perfect for a very small diversion to try out the Pikeman’s Lament rules. Arguably more shot than pike as the Russian left their pikes at home for this campaign (if my sources are correct), but why not?

Miniatures

I got the following packs from Baccus (pictures taken from their Webpage, as I have not yet even opened the packs):

Ottomans

OTT02 – Janissaries, musket – firing and loading

GNP05 – Hussars – to represent Ottoman Sipahi cavalry

From this I will do:

5 Veteran Shot @ 6 points each (Janissaries; may form Close Order)

4 Trotters @ 4 points each (Sipahis cavalry, the Polish Hussars without wings being used as a reasonable proxy)

Russians

WSS03- Grenadier (Tall Mitre)

WSS08 – Dragoons

WSS12 – Dismounted Dragoons

Forces

From this I will do (note the models are from the WSS range not the GNW Russian Range, as these works perfectly well for Russians of this period. I also wanted to get a chance at seeing these):

4 Dragoons @ 4 points each (these are Dragoons in a traditional dismount to fire role as per the rules)

3 Forlorn Hope @ 6 points each (Grenadiers)

4 Raw Trotters @ 3 points each (In reality also Russian Dragoons but to simulate a more active cavalry role classified as Trotters. The Russian Dragoons did practice some all out cavalry attacks and by this time it seems reasonable but still classified as raw).

This gives me 46 points for each side (starting size is 24 points so should be more than plenty to give me some variety in size). There is also enough to do another few Shot units and Trotters for the Ottomans and some more Trotters and Forlorn Hope units for the Russians.

In summary:

Ottomans	No	Pts/ unit	Total Pts	Unit Size	Total Models	Baccus Pack
Veteran Shot	5	6	30	12	60	OTT02
Trotters	4	4	16	6	24	GNP05
Total	9	–	46	–	84	–
Russians	No	Pts/ unit	Total Pts	Unit Size	Total Models	Baccus Pack
Dragoons	4	4	16	6	24	WSS12
Forlorn Hope	3	6	18	6	18	WSS03
Raw Trotters	4	3	12	6	24	WSS08
Total	11	–	46	–	66	–

Basing and Notes

These will based as I did my Zulu war stuff based on the 1-2-3 method discussed in a previous posting (see here). I have had a few questions about where I get bases of small size like 9mm etc. Basically I order Penny Washers from ebay, here is an example (I have no association with this seller) but I have successfully bought stuff from them.

Penny Washers

In the detail provided the following list is given, we can see the diameter we may need (outer diameter). Just pick the one you want.

Penny Washers 2

With regards to the little hole in the middle I put a magnet inside and cover it with a sticker on both sides (see here to get the idea, Step 6 in the “Shock Marker” tutorial). I think the washers are also sometimes referred to as fender washers.

Another batch from Marching in Colour

As discussed in previous blog posting I have decided to use Marching in Colour painting service (link to the background to this decision here and to the Marching in Colour Website here) to help me with the Towards Moscow Project and Chris sent me through the pictures from the latest batch the other day. I have to admit that my experience in using this service have been second to none. I am looking forward in getting these and complete the miniatures needed for this and next years Joy of Six. I will get to this in the next few weeks (as I have to!) and will post updates as I progress and also discuss the next stages of production to final based units. Here are the pictures (Russians and Swedish), I let them speak for themselves. Although it is a little bit of a luxury this is the best decision for some time I have done with regards to my hobby time (and budget!). Thanks for your help Chris!

More about the Towards Moscow Trilogy (TMT) Great Northern War project can be found here.

Mutant 1984 for Scrappers

I did a few more pieces for the Mutant 1984 project inspired by three recent purchases (see more about this project here).

Muddy Car

When I went to South of France a few weeks backs I went to a French Market and found one of these for a few Euros. It is a Citroën ID19 and is in 1/43 scale. I love the look of these cars.

citroen

I thought it would be weird to make it into a military vehicle and found this little pack with two plastic (28mm) miniatures given out for free at some show a few years back.

judges

I carefully opened up the car and added one of them as a driver and the second one standing on the top. Then I painted it in three colours and gave it a Sepia Wash.

Then I put the two pieces together and applied some mud. Job done and weird enough.

Oil Tanks

Our Salute table was next to a demo table showing some oil tanks from Bandua wargames. I convinced myself that I needed some of these. You can buy them from Wayland Games (here).

oil tanks

These are ready painted and the looked great with the other ready painted terrain on the table. When I had assembled them I got some second thoughts and decided to modify them slightly. I cut out some plastic (from a DVD box) and added this on top and then did some detailing on the hatch (a little piece of plastic). This created a little more detail to the piece and took 5 minutes.

Then I dry brushed it with Gunmetal and added some dots of rust (light rust from the Vallejo range) and then applied a light wash with Vallejo rust effect.

FullSizeRender

Poundland Trucks

We (I and the little One) bought some grey spray paints from Poundland here in the UK. We noticed some trucks and thought we could do something with them – we splashed out and bought two of them.

And turned them into two terrain items (good value indeed).

truck5 truck6 truck7 truck8

/ All the best, have a good week

Kalisz 1706 at Salute 2017 – The Show

On 23/04/201725/04/2017 By The OneIn 18th Century Rules, 6mm, Games played, Great Northern War, Pikeman's Lament, Polemos GNW, Scrappers, Shows, Terrain, Twilight of the Sun King Rules5 Comments

Nick and I had a fantastic day at the Salute Show and my thanks also goes to Rob and Laurent who provided some priceless support in helping out before, during and after the Show. We basically talked to people about the table, the game, the battle and the rules all day – it was brilliant!. We did not have time to do more than a few token moves on the table.

I also would like to thank all of you who have read this blog that came by to say hello – I really appreciate it. In addition to all of the others who stopped by to have a look, ask a few questions or take a picture. Finally, I have to say that Warlords are very good at organizing this massive event and we had no problems this, or the last time, we attended Salute in 2015.

I had a quick chat with Peter Berry of Baccus who said that Joy of Six in July was now full and that he had to turn away games – this is brilliant news! Not for the people who get turned away but that there is a huge interest in putting on 6mm games. I just wonder why there are not more 6mm, or smaller scale 2 to 10mm, land battle games at Salute, or should I say, wargames shows in general? I have not heard many people say that they have a decent table worth of figures and some terrain in 6mm – but that have been turned down setting up a game by a wargames show. But I will leave that thought for this moment.

Apart from our table there was one more 6mm game, the Battle for Neustadt that is a cold war scenario set in West Germany in 1984. This was a nice table run by Iain Fuller and others from the Warlords Club. They will also attend the Joy of Six in July so there is another chance to catch them there. I have had some e-mail communication with Iain in the past so it was nice to have a quick chat and say hello.

I also got a chance to see the new Baccus TYW/ECW sculpts and I let the battalion of pike and shot talk for itself. Wonderful stuff from Baccus yet again. Peter gave me a copy of the new Swedish flag sheet for the Thirty Years war – it is very tempting indeed.

I also talked to Peter Riley and David Pead who are the men behind the wargames calculator that I have mentioned before on the blog (see here). They told me they have some interesting stuff coming up so I would follow them on Facebook and see what they are up to.

I also said a quick hello to Neil Shuck but did not get a chance to give him the Sharp Practice stuff for Joy of Six as I had planned.

I also had a chat with an old friend of mine, Michael Leck who put on a really nice game using his Pikemans Lament rules called Fort Mosquito 1654. This was a battle between Swedish and Dutch colonial forces set in mid 17th century Delaware, involving native tribes, attempting to wrestle control of the river and the important fur trade. Incidentially they grabbed two of the prizes of the day – well deserved. For more information see his blog (link here). I had a very useful discussion with Jan (who did the terrain and buildings) on how to make log cabins and the trees using steel wool that I will have to try out some time in the future.

Here are a few shots of our table in no particular order.

In addition Nick has put on some pictures on his facebook page (here) and on the Wyre Forest Wargames club page (here).

We produced a few organization charts to simplify the proceedings, they turned out being very useful and look good too. There were made using SmartArt Graphic in Excel and then pasted into PowerPoint with some added pictures etc.

Swedish Playsheet 1

Saxon Playsheet 1

I also updated the PDF showing the bases used on the day (download link here – Kalisz Bases Polemos GNW and TOTSK v2 ).

We also handed out a leaflet with a few notes about the Battle and the Game, here – Kalisz Leaflet Salute 2017.

Now getting ready for Joy of Six in July.

Finally, the 1914-21 Society (link here) who was attending had a Maxim machine gun on display but, in my view, the key piece was the Madsen Light Machine Gun. I knew the Madsen as the LMG of the Norwegian and Danish soldiers of WW2, but did not know it was the first true light machine gun produced in a major quantity and that it was used extensively by the Russian Army in the Russo-Japanese war and during the Russian Civil War. Thanks for your time gents!

18110455_10212665195241924_54888155_n — The 1914-21 Society Table (Laurent, thanks for the Picture)

/ That was a fun weekend

Kalisz 1706 at Salute 2017 – Dusting of the Miniatures Part 3 and some Lager

On 09/04/201710/04/2017 By The OneIn 18th Century Rules, 6mm, Great Northern War, Polemos GNW, Towards Moscow Triology, Twilight of the Sun King Rules5 Comments

I recently found out that there used to be a Lager named after the famous Swedish Field Marshal that is one of my favourite soldiers from the Great Northern War era, namely Stenbock (there is a very nice online article about him here).

I could not find out who the brewers were but stumbled across a few others with slightly different spelling.

Stepherd Neame used to brew a beer called Steinbock Lager that was described as “…a light, crisp, refreshing lager with an underlying sweetness, a slight floral tang and a clean finish”. It is no longer produced (see more here).

Monsteiner Steinbock is another Lager. This one is made in Switzerland with nice artwork on it (more here). And another one, but I digress…

I really wanted to talk about Laagers, defined by Wikipedia as…

A wagon fort is a mobile fortification made of wagons arranged into a rectangle, a circle or other shape and possibly joined with each other, an improvised military camp. It is also known as a laager (from Afrikaans) (English: leaguer).

At the battle of Kalisz the Pro-Swedish Polish-Lithanian Army established a Laager outside the town (of Kalisz) with a square of Wagons and some quickly raised earthworks. To represent this I used some of the Wagons and tents from Baccus and made a small (fully modular) representation of the Camp.

wagon 2

wagon .jpg

The Saxons

The Saxon contingent are all Cavalry and are commanded by Augustus the Strong Supported by General Brandt.

saxon leader

Dragons

The Dragon units (all red uniforms with facing/cuff colours in parenthesis) –

Leibregiment (white), Milkau (yellow), von der Goltz (black)

sax drag 1.jpg

von Brause (lemon yellow) and von Schulenburg (straw)

sax drag 2.jpg

Cuirassiers

The Cuirassiers units (all red uniforms with facing/cuff colours in parenthesis)

Chevaliergarde/Garde du Corps (blue/red/white), Leibregiment (white), Kurprinz (yellow), von Damitz (Bleumourant), Königin (straw)

saxon horse 2

Kurprinz (yellow) ,von Eichstädt (Coffee Brown), Gersdorff (grey) and Prince Alexander (green).

saxon horse 1a

That leaves us the Russian contingent of 32 dragoons that I packed before I took any pictures. I suppose you have to come to the Salute show to see them!

A Map!

At Salute we are the Wyre Forest Wargames Club and we are in location GG15 – it is just below the upper red G (in the circle) on the floorplan/map of the show. It is only 2 weeks to go and if you do go, come by and say hello. Further details on the show and how you can get tickets can be found here.

Capture24

salute

On the Lager thread I did find a nice little bottle at the Tank Museum last week (more here) – it is made by the Dorset Brewing Company (DBC) and is called Landship. The name comes from the Landship Committee that was established in February 1915 by Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, with the purpose of developing armored fighting vehicles to use on the Western Front. The work culminated in the development of the first tanks. Tank, by the way, was a code name for the vehicles.

TANKS

I found an inspirational review of this beer on the net (link here) and decided, for research purposes, to have a go myself and I do agree with the sentiment of the review. If nothing else it is a cool bottle.

/ Until next, Cheers and do not drink (too much) whilst gaming!

Appendix – Below is a little summary of the units that will be present on the table, 207 bases in total including small bases for leaders and artillery. The basing are in line with the Polemos Rules where a base is about 200-300 cavalry (about 2 squadrons) or 400-600 (one battalion) infantry. In Twilight of the Sun King two of these bases, in general, forms a fighting unit. Leaders are Poor, Average or Excellent, The second value is the tempo contribution as per the Polemos rules.

Kalisz
Side	Element	Bases	Type	Description	Class.	Quality
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Leader	Mardefelt	CiC	Ex:4
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Leader	Krassow	Cmdr	Av:2
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	2	Infantry	Pommerska	GP	T / Dt
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Infantry	Swiss	GP	T
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Infantry	French	GP	T
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	2	Infantry	German	GP	T
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	4	Cavalry	Södra Skånska Cav	GH	T / Dt
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	3	Cavalry	Bremiska Dragoon	GH	T / Dt
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	4	Cavalry	Verdiska Dragoon	GH	T / Dt
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	4	Cavalry	Pommerska Dragoon	GH	V / Dt
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Gun	Light Gun	LG	V
Pro-Swedish	Swedish Contingent	1	Gun	Field Gun	FG	V
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	1	Leader	Potocki	Cmdr	P:2
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	1	Leader	Lubomirski	Cmdr	A:1
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	16	Cavalry	Pancerni	EH	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	4	Cavalry	Hussar	GH	V
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	2	Cavalry	Jazda Lekka	LHx	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	2	Gun	Light Gun	LG	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Polish	1	Gun	Field Gun	FG	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Lithuanian	1	Leader	Sapieha	Cmdr	A:1
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Lithuanian	4	Cavalry	Petyhori / Pancerni	GH / EH	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Lithuanian	2	Cavalry	Hussar	GH	V
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Lithuanian	2	Cavalry	Jazda Lekka	LHx	T
Pro-Swedish	Pro-Swedish Lithuanian	3	Cavalry	Dragoon	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Leader	Augustus the Strong	CiC + Monarch	A:3
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Leader	Brandt	Cmdr	P:1
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Cavalry	Chevaliergarde / Garde du Corps	H	E
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Cavalry	Leib	H	E
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Kurprinz	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Damitz	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Konigin	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Eichstadt	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Gersdorff	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Prince Alexander	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Cavalry	Leib	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Milkau	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Goltz	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Brause	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	2	Cavalry	Schulenburg	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Saxon Contingent	1	Gun	Light Gun	LG	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	1	Leader	Menshikov	Allied Cmdr	A:4
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	1	Leader	C Avalry Commander	Cmdr	P:1
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	1	Leader	Cossack Lord	Cmdr	A:3
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	1	Leader	Kalmuck Lord	Cmdr	P:1
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	1: Moskovski (542)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	3: Vladimirski (551)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	4: Pskovski (548)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	6: Novgorodski (544)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	7: Troitski (543)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	8: Astrakhanski (550)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	9: Siberianski (546)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	10: Smolenski (558)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	11: St. Peterburgski (547)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	13: Vjatski (554)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	14: Nizhni Novgorodski (553)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	15: Yaroslavlski (592)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	18: Ingermanlandski (565)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	19: Nevski (573)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	21: Ryanzanski (574)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Cavalry	25: Vologodski (576)	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	22	Cavalry	Kalmucks	LHf	T
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	15	Cavalry	Cossack	LHx	R
Anti-Swedish	Russian Contingent	2	Gun	Light Gun	LG	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	1	Leader	Siemianski	Allied Cmdr	P:3
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	1	Leader	Rzewuski	Cmdr	P:1
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	1	Leader	Smigielski	Cmdr	A:1
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	16	Cavalry	Pancerni	EH	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	4	Cavalry	Hussar	GH	V
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	5	Cavalry	Jazda Lekka	LHx	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	4	Cavalry	Dragoon	D	R
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	4	Cavalry	Dragoon	D	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	3	Cavalry	Horse	H	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	2	Gun	Light Gun	LG	T
Anti-Swedish	Anti-Swedish Polish	1	Gun	Field Gun	FG	T

Kalisz 1706 at Salute 2017 – Battleboards and the Swedes, Tanks and Mutant 1984

On 02/04/201702/04/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Great Northern War, Historical Sites, Painting, Polemos GNW, Scrappers, Towards Moscow Triology1 Comment

Long weekend of Rugby with the annual ‘long distance’ tournament with the Little Ones – this year held in Bournemouth. The Little One had a blast and made us proud as always. A weekend in Dorset is never wrong and we had to sneak into the Tank Museum in Bovington for a quick look. We did not do much hobby related this week, so in no particular order a few shots of the (a) Kalisz Battle boards for Salute and some Swedes, (b) some pictures from the Tank Museum and (c) some progress on the Mutant 1984 project.

Kalisz Battle boards and Swedes

I got the 2″ by 2″ boards out this weekend. They have been in the attic since the table was laid out at Joy of Six in 2014 – some warping evident and a damaged bridge but not beyond unacceptable and the bridge can be fixed. Now I have to find the buildings for the two villages and Kalisz itself – I wonder where they are?

I also got the Swedish (few) elements out and realized that I need to do some flags for the infantry – it seems like we ran the game last time without infantry standards (Perhaps that was the reason the Swedes lost?).

Bovington Tank Museum

We went to the Tank Museum in Saumur last year and loved it (see blog entry here), the one in Bovington is equally impressive if not better. From the perspective of telling history and putting the tank into a perspective the Bovington experience is brilliant. Here are a few pictures of what we found particularly interesting. Go there if you can (link here). T(h)ank you Bovington – we had a great day!

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Mutant 1984 – Ulvriket Patrol – Work in Progress

Work in progress on the next unit for this little diversion. This is the Ulvriket Patrol with some further detailing and basing remaining but a small step forward. As discussed in the previous blog entry (see here) basically WW2 Americans in Greatcoat and a WW2 German Officer. I used a Russian WW2 Vehicle Green for the Coats and Khaki for details and helmets. Looks familiar but odd.

Ulvriket1 — The infantry unit based on Artizan Design Americans and a German Officer.

Then the mutated element with conversions (I will give further details for what I used in the blog update for these when they are finalized).

The Mutants – A gorilla (Crooked Dice head swap), the wingman (do not remember where the wings are from), the pig (again from Crooked Dice) and the Goat (head and leg swap with a Moonraker miniature).

/ All the very best

The Zulus who would be Shakas – our first game of the Men who would be Kings rules

On 19/03/201720/03/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Games played, The Men who would be Kings rules8 Comments

The Little One and I finally managed to do a test game of the Men who would be King rules this weekend. Basically we had a British force with regular infantry, supported by a Lancer Unity, fighting some Zulu Tribal warriors.

I recently completed two more batches of 64 Zulu miniatures based as the first one (for some further stuff on this project click here and here). I did each batch in a different shield design and I think they look ok from the distance they will be seen from.

zulu 2 1 — Three columns of Zulus, 192 of them in total plus two leaders. 2 packs of Baccus finest!.

This is twice the amounts of Zulus needed for the basic 24 point Zulu army in the rulebook.

Opposing Forces

We used the Zulu name generator (found here) to get some names for the Zulu leaders we would use in our test battle. We are not that familiar with Zulu naming convention, but we randomized a list of ten twice and got the following names.

Fuzo (Heredity, resemblance)
Bongani (Be thankful, Grateful )
Fokazi (Stranger)
Hlatshwayo (Stabbed one)
Igama (Name)
Kwanele (It is enough)
Mthokozisi (The one who gives joy)
Zwelikude (Far away)
Chitauli (Dictator, One who tells the Law)
Lwazi (Knowledge)

Bhekizizwe (Look after the Nations)
Azisa (Honour, Esteem, Pride)
Ayanda (Augment the family )
Iqhunde (Rooster)
Khayalethu (Our home)
Gabangaye (Putting one’s trust on other; Faces in the sun)
Engameli (President)
Kgabu (Richly decorate )
Minenhle (Having a good or lovely day)
Ndonsa (Bright morning star)

We then did combination of these names for the leaders as shown below. Here is the force the Zulu player would field on the day.

Zulu Force (24 points, 6 units, 96 models) – the Hero, the pleasant and the Ugly!

Fierce Tribal Infantry Unit 1 (unmarried warriors) @ 4 points, led by Kwanele Azisa with a leadership value of 7+ (not very good) and with the leader trait of “Jolly Sporty” which means he has an additional 2″ (2cm at our scale) move when doing an at the double action.
Fierce Tribal Infantry Unit 2 (unmarried warriors) @ 4 points, led by Kgabu Minenhle, leadership value of 7+ (another crap roll), with the trait of “Up and at them” which means he must always opt for the attack.
Fierce Tribal Infantry Unit 3 (unmarried warriors) @ 4 points, led by Fuzo Bongani, leadership value of 5+ (that is more like it), with the trait of “Favourite of the Chief” which means that he could chose another upgrade for free and the Little One took Elite (which gives +2 to discipline).
Veteran Tribal Infantry Unit 1 (Married warriors) @ 4 points, led by Lwazi Ndonsa, leadership value of 5+ (another good roll), with the trait of “Ugly” that has no effect on gameplay (loving it!, the Little One is still laughing).
Veteran Tribal Infantry Unit 2 (Married warriors) @ 4 points, led by Iqhunde Chitauli, leadership value of 7+ (another crap roll), with the trait of “Pleasant Manner” that has no effect on gameplay.
Veteran Tribal Infantry Unit 3 (Married warriors) @ 4 points, led by “Bhekizizwe Azisa”, leadership value of 5+ (good roll), with the trait of Hero of the Zulu Empire which gives him a Leadership value of 4+.

A nice little mixture of some very good leadership values (the lower the better!) and some not so good!.

For the British we used a few names inspired by some of the fantastic stories by H.P. Lovecraft.

British Force (24 points, 4 units, 44 models)

Regular Infantry Unit @ 6 points, led by Colour Sergeant Nahum Gardner, leadership value at 5+ (good roll), with a trait of being the “Favourite of the Major-General” giving him a free trait, we went for Sharpshooters that bring firing to 4+ (a very good value).
Unenthusiastic Infantry Unit @ 5 points, led by Corporal Wilbur Whateley, leadership value at 7+ (another 1 rolled) and with the trait of “Coward” meaning he must always attempt to move to stay beyond enemy movement distances (brilliant against Zulus who very likely will be charging!)
Unenthusiastic Infantry Unit @ 5 points, led by Corporal William Dyer, leadership value at 5+ (good) and with the trait of “Hero of the Empire” giving him a leadership at 4+.
Regular Lancer Cavalry Unit @ 8 points, led by Sergeant Thomas Olney, leadership value of 6+ (average for the unit type) and with the trait of brutal – meaning that he is a sadistic pig that his men hate and this affects the units discipline with -2.

Another characterful little band of brothers.

The Scenario / Situation

We chose the “A Sigh of Relief” Scenario (Scenario G), this has the defender with a small detachment in the middle of the table and the attacker coming from one side and some reinforcements for the defender from the other.

I opted for the two unenthusiastic units being the ones in the middle, speculating that there were unenthusiastic and low on morale due to their exposed position. I hoped that the Lancers would be quick to reinforce the units and then the superior shooting from the Colour Sergeant’s drilled men would save the day.

pt1

The Little One set up his six tribal units at the other end of the table and told me it would be a piece of cake to rout the “Corporal Coward” and “Corporal Hero of What Empire?”. The position looked exposed indeed.

pt2

The Battle

First round and the attack was on – the Little One’s tactic was to push his units forward with “On the Double” giving them additional speed but at the cost of needing to test for activation. The first round only three units pushed forward.

pt4

I managed to move the two reinforcements forward and Colonel Whateley fired a salvo at one of the Zulu units that resulted in reducing the unit with 4 models – but it did not result in it being pinned. Colonel Dyer formed his men into Close Order to allow a more potent salvo in the next run.

pt5

The Little One managed to activate all but one unit for the next round and the Zulus started to come a little bit too close for my liking.

pt6

Next round Cpl. Dyer successfully did a Volley Fire that hit the Zulu unit (Bhekicizme Azisa) that was fired upon earlier – now down to 5 units and a pinned marker, enough to stop it from moving next round. The Lancers also managed to get closer into the action. Whateley, in line with his trait, decided to move (successfully) away from the oncoming Zulus (there are too many of them!).

pt7

The oncoming force of the Elite unit of Fuzo Bungani, in combination with an attack by the Ugly Lwazi Ndonsa’s unit, had a hard impact on Cpl Dyer’s seemingly thin line and forced him to withdraw but he successfully managed to resist being pinned. The Little one still suffered some in getting momentum on his right flank as he had problems rolling successfully in the double activations (maybe the Roll a One trait is hereditary?).

pt8

A little close look at the proceedings on the British right and…

pt9

on the left.

pt10

Next round I charged the Lancers straight into the Pleasant Mannered Ighunde’s unit and the combined with a successful volley by the Coward Whateley – lead to them being double pinned (but they tool it in a good and polite way). The Colour Sergeant were pushing closer and I felt that this was going the right way when Cpl Dyer manage to pin another Zulu unit with some fine shooting.

pt11

The following round the Little One tried to push in with the Elite unit and needed three or more on 2 dice to activate, but instead rolled to 1s. The unit did not attack. Game Over I thought, but I was wrong.

pt12

In a series of attacks in the next round the Zulus managed to decimate the Lancers (who did not give up without a fair fight, but they were outnumbered. Timing of cavalry attacks is not yet second nature to me!) who had to push back.

pt13

Following this things got too interesting and we forgot to take photos, but basically the Little one realized that the caution (cowardice) of Cpl Whateley meant that he just needed to push against him and he would retreat, he then pressed forward with his remaining forces and managed to get his units organized by combining “going to ground” and “skirmish movement” followed by all out melee attacks to bring all my units out of action.

Piece of cake!

Reflections

I really like the rules, they are not complicated but with some of the special abilities/actions of the units, e.g. “Going to Ground”, “Close order and Volley Fire”, gives a nice and for me convincing flair of the period – at least from my perhaps over romantic perspective.
The character traits for the Officers, the good and the bad, added to the overall experience.
It is nice and plays fast and reasonably well. We will certainly play this again!
We played on playing area of 50 by 72 cm and had a great time – skirmish in 6mm works very well indeed.
The Little One liked it and gave it thumbs up!

pt24

/ Take care

Kalisz 1706 at Salute 2017 – Dusting off the Miniatures Part 1 – Hussars and other Exotic Cavalry

On 11/03/201714/10/2017 By The OneIn 18th Century Rules, 6mm, Great Northern War, Polemos GNW, Towards Moscow Triology, Twilight of the Sun King Rules2 Comments

I spent some time assembling the forces needed for the Kalisz Battle over the weekend and think I found most of them but there are still a few of them missing in previous action – but I will/have to find them sooner or later as the Show is in 6 weeks. A few of the spears (looking at the pictures) need to be bent back, but apart from that there are no major issues that need to be resolved.

For some background on the battle you can have a look at an earlier posting here.

This first part will show the more exotic units specific for this theatre, compare to War of the Spanish Succession (WSS) units. Perhaps the Swedes themselves would have fitted into this entry, but I will hold them back for now.

Codes refers to the Baccus catalogue of splendid 6mm stuff for this period (link here). The combination of the GNW/WSS range (and a few packs from other ranges) offers a total coverage of everything you may need to represent all battles in Eastern Europe of the period (even the Pruth Campaign, with the Ottomans and Proxies). There is even a simple trick in doing some Swedish Karpus cavalry I may reveal in a later posting.

The rules references are to Polemos – Great Northern War (PGNW) and Twilight of the Sun King (TotSK). I discuss these rules to some extent here and here.

(Winged) Hussars

6 bases Poles/Lithanian supporting the Warsaw Confederation that were against the King of Poland (Augustus II the Strong) and fought with the Swedes. The rest of the bases (4 No.) represent members of the anti-Swedish Sandomierz Confederation.

Hussar1

These hussars are the heroes from Vienna in 1683 (see link here) where they played a key role in the dramatic climax of the battle as the spearpoint of an eighteen thousand strong cavalry charge (that from the receiving end must have looked absolutely terrifying and been a true spectacle to witness). These units are charging cavalry and have been based in a wedge formation (9 miniatures, 60 by 30mm base) to be easily identified (as if the wings were not enough!).

They hussars forms the elite element of any Polish-Lithuanian army. Steel and shock is definitely the dish being served by these type of units. In the rules they are classified as Galloping Horse (GH). It is not clear whether they still wore their wings in this battle, but for the sake of look I have decided they did.

I have used a mixture of models – look at the GNP01 to GNP05 and pick the ones you like.

Hussar2

Pancerni

These were the backbone of the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry arm and were medium cavalrymen. Their name is derived from the Polish name for chainmail – “pancerz”.

In the PGNW/TotSK rules they are classified as Eastern Horse (EH) and to distinguish them on the field of battle I have based them in three lines of three as can be shown in the picture. This type are not powerful in the charge but are better in continued melee and maneuvering compared to normal Western Horse of the period.

pancerni2

In the battle there are Pancerni units in both of the armies fielded (GNP06 – Pancerni, was used from the Polish range). There were based on a 60 by 30mm base and arranged in three groups of three. Some of them are classified (3 No.) as Galloping infantry (GNP07 – Petyhorcy) and are organized in a wedge formation like the hussars.

Warsaw Confederation (Pro-Swedish) – 21 bases

Sandomierz Confederation (Anti-Swedish) – 17 bases

Light Horse Units

There were a few different types of Light cavalry present at the battle – these are open formation skirmish units and tend to avoid close combat if possible. In the two rulesets they are classified as Light Horse (LH). I have based them on 60 by 60mm bases and with 7 miniatures in open order (apart from the 3 Vallacker units that have 8 miniatures, including the Swedish Officers). The types are:

Kalmyks – These are light cavalry units from the Kalmyk Khanate, with Mongolian roots, and are allies to the Russians. These play no active part in the battle and are guarding the Swedish potential retreat on the other side of the river. These were made by using various codes from the Baccus Ancient ranges, basically anything on a horse with a Bow (e.g. AHU01 and AHU02 – Hunnic Horse Archers). Useless for the battle but they do look good en masse. But calm down, these and the Cossacks, will make another guest appearance for the Poltava Battle (but that luckily is some time away).

kal2 kal1

Cossacks – these are light irregular cavalry units allied to the Russians. Similar story as for the Kalmyks. The miniatures used are the Cossacks from the Great Northern War range (GNR10 – Cossacks, they are with the Russians).

cos2 cos1

Jazda Lekka – these are Polish-Lihtuanian light cavalry (Jazda Lekka, simply means light cavalry in Polish!). These will be part of the main battle but are not showing up in any large numbers. They are fighting as part of both armies (the code used are from the Great Northern War range, GNP08 – Unarmoured Cavalry, they are with the Poles). 7 on the anti-Swedish side and 3 on the Pro-Swedish side (I chose to make these like Vallacker with Swedish Officers).

jl2 jl4 jl1 jl3

Other Projects

This terminator project is getting a little bit out of hand – but in a nice way! Well it must be since both I and the Little One are having fun. Got some more stuff to work on this week.

2 No. Humvees from Pig-Iron (link here), with additional stuff like the smoke grenade launchers, assault rifles and stowage from a Tamiya model accessory kit. The models are very nice, no clean-up required and you just need to glue on the wheels, and very competitively priced at £9.50 each. The miniature is from the Terminator Set and is about 28mm scale. Not sure how we will paint these yet, but the Little One is thinking!

humvee1

Some cars arrived that we ordered from China (“1:50 scale Train Layout cars” should be enough to find them again). These are likely to get smashed up a little and end up like the ones we showed last week (see here). £7 all in from China.

5 cars.jpg

We also found a fork lift that seemed to scale reasonably well. This one will add some character to the overall proceedings.

Finally, we checked out the relatively new Walking Dead miniatures game and they have a Scenery Pack that looked interesting (the picture show half of the contents and these will be great for the expanding rubble and car wrecks) so we got one of those as well. We got the set from eBay at a very good price.

walking dead.jpg

/ Next time some more 6mm units for Kalisz and hopefully we have done a game of The Men who would be Kings, take care.

Zulus and taking the rusty cars for a spin

On 05/03/201704/09/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Games played, Painting, Terminator - Genesys, Terrain, The Men who would be Kings rules6 Comments

zulu5

I think I promised to show off the Kalisz stuff for Salute this week, but the weekend just disappeared and I have to get on with it next week instead. However I did finish off some Zulus for my little diversion into doing some Colonial 6mm skirmish (see last blog entry here). I also ordered some Boers from Baccus (these ones) as I fancied doing a few units of these as well. I have also rummaged through my old boxes and found some Gatling guns and some other stuff to do when I have time.

I organized these on bases with different number of figures to simplify the management of moving many figures and still being able to remove casualties. Each unit of tribal infantry is 16 figures strong – so I based them in on bases with 4-4-3-2-2-1 figures. I intend to make another 8 units to get enough Zulus to get the balance right vs the British.

zulu3

Next week I hope to have a go trying out the rules (The Men who Would be Kings) and using these figures – they (the rules) seem pretty straightforward and fun having read them through twice.

I did finish of the car wrecks we prepared last week for the Terminator games we play and gave them a rather tired and rusty look to blend into the ruins we already have.

The Little One set them up with some of the Terminator miniatures and we felt they passed the test!

Having taken out the stuff we thought we might as well have a game. We did not plan the Scenario too much, instead we had a “high level” situation where a platoon sized resistance force (Lt, 2 NCOs, 20 fighters) , supported by a Mortar team and two rocket launched equipped fighters, encountered a unit of 15 Endo Skeletons (1 Lvl 2 leader, 12 Normal ones, 1 with two Plasma Rifle and the star of the evening a skeleton with a flamer). Basically a “Beat the crap out of each other situation”. We used a few of the ruined building we had prepared earlier as well as the car wrecks.

It was a tight game and initially the resistance side managed to take out a fair few of the terminators before they fighting got close and the machines started dominating. Below are a few of the before and after the flamer attack pictures.

And this was after I (yes I was the resistance and yes I lost yet again!) had almost knocked out the flamer unit with a single shot but did not manage to finish it off.

termgame11 — Temporary harmless flamer unit but the resistance failed to take full advantage of the situation. Instead it was allowed to continue the carnage until a sticky bomb took it (and the user) down.

We both enjoy playing this game, I find it challenging for the resistance to be successful and things can turn nasty very quickly. I still remember almost shitting myself in the cinema when I watched the beginning of Terminator 2 when the machine crushes the human skull with its feet (see the clip here if you do not remember – 42 seconds in). As for the rules they really capture the feeling for the setting and work ok as they are. I may tweak the activation slightly so that it is not certain that all units are activated in turn to add to the level of friction. Currently you activate between 0 to 2 figures (but can be modified with leaders) per pulse (part of a turn) but everyone activates.

Here are a few more pictures, have a good week.

“A prayer’s as good as a bayonet on a day like this” – Colonial 6mm, Welsh Wizardry, Car wrecks and Focus in Combat

On 26/02/201726/02/2017 By The OneIn 6mm, Historical Sites, Sharp Practice, Terminator - Genesys, Terrain, The Men who would be Kings rules9 Comments

col2 A few things to write about this week, so I better get on with it…

The Men who would be Kings in 6mm

I have to admit that I like the format of the little blue Osprey Wargame booklets (link here). Not all of them have suited my palate in terms of period or type of rules. However, I have bought a fair few of them to date and found most of them interesting and worth a go. One of the earliest I really liked was the Dux Bellorum rules (Arthurian stuff) by Daniel Mersey. I fondly remember trying to figure out the rules one evening after sunset on the Island of Rhodes using some flats I had printed out before the trip. I have since used it to play some games using my Dark Age stuff I did for Saga, which in technically terms in not from the Arthurian period – but none involved seemed to suffer!.

However, this posting is not about Dux Bellorum, but instead relates to another of Daniel’s sets (also published by Osprey) that I want to give a try, namely the Men Who Would be Kings rules. This is a large skirmish rule set derived from his very successful Lion Rampant rules. As implied by the title it is a colonial period rule set.

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I have to admit to some, well actually a lot of, 6mm Baccus colonial stuff (link here) on my lead pile that I “will get to one day!”. I have also promised to have a go at trying out “A Steady and Deliberate Rate of Fire” (yet to be published) that seem to be another great set of rules, by Peter Riley who did the Polemos Franco-Prussian war (link here) and the American Civil War rules (link here) . I seem to be a lead mountain away from testing the rules, unless I use some flats but that is more a last resort issue. Sorry Peter, I will get there one day!

What my experience with Sharp Practice has taught me is that it is possible to do skirmish in 6mm that works (see more on this here). With some emphasis on the terrain and playing the game seated instead of standing the immersion is on par with other bigger scales. Further it only requires 40% of the foot print (doing it in centimeters instead of inches) of your normal table. If you pick a range that is well served and have models that are possible to single base easily (like those of Baccus, Rapier and Adler) you can do a good job of it.

I thought I would do a simple set of two forces to try the rules out – I wanted to do some British and Zulus to start with. I find this conflict being one of the most interesting in combination of not needing to buy any new miniatures. Miniatures I have been using are Baccus 6mm form their colonials range and I have been using the 1,2,3 basing method as described by Michael Leck, on his eminent Dalauppror blog, here. By using a combination of 9mm (for leaders),12mm (for singles), 15mm and 20mm bases for infantry and 15mm, and 20mm for cavalry (I did actually a 1,2 basing for these). This is, I think, a very clever way of basing miniatures for large skirmish rules that removes individual miniatures (e.g. Sharp Practice), especially for 6mm that can be a little bit fiddly with small bases. I suppose you just have to make sure you base each unit so that all combinations of models left can be done.

So far I have finished the little British force consisting of 4 units of regular infantry (12 in each unit) and 2 units of regular cavalry (Lanciers, with 8 in each unit). I am very pleased with the way they look and the little space this force takes. I will add a few more unit and some artillery later, but this is enough to get started.

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The Zulus are quick to paint and I have to brush up (sorry for the pun) on my Zulu shield knowledge before I can complete them. There is some variation based on marital status and experience (age) if I recall things correctly. I am nearly there though.

A Welsh Wizard’s tome

I bought the War of 1812 supplement for Sharp Practice penned by Mike Hobbs last week. You might be familiar with Mike if you listen to the Meeples and Miniatures podcast. I am not that familiar with the period but having read it on a train last week I am now resisting getting some miniatures to have a go. There is a thread on what miniatures to use for this in 6mm if you are interested here. I really enjoyed reading it and if you are interested in the period than this is a very good things to get started with even if you do not play Sharp Practice. I actually may end up using the scenarios for my French Indian War battles with a few modifications. The fact that Mike is very enthusiastic about both the Sharp Practice rules in general but more importantly about the period itself shines through and puts that sparkle of magic on top of it all.

The book contain a listing of the opposing forces and a very good campaign write up for the 41st foot regiment, and seven scenarios. Most of the scenarios are based on the memoirs of Private Shadrach Byfield [A Narrative of a Light Company Soldier’s Service in the Forty-First Regiment of Foot (1807-1814)] and, in my view, offer a wide range of challenges.

Further it introduces a few specific unit characteristics for the War. My favourite is the War Cry that allow an Native Indian unit to instill fear (technically Shock) in another unit. The army lists for both sides covers standard infantry forces, royal marines, militia, scouting forces and native forces (and some cavalry for the Americans). It looks comprehensive enough to me. There is also an overview of the war and two Appendices cover the two armies of the war.

You buy and download the PDF from Too Fat Lardies here.

Terminator Car Wrecks

We needed some more terrain to provide some additional cover for the Terminator games so. This give some additional cover to give the resistance a better chance of winning against the machines.

I and the Little One got some close enough to 28mm scale cars from a charity shop for 20 pence each and stuck them on bases and added some debris on the side (cut up matches, toothpicks, some plastic from a DVD cover and added some various sized stones and mixed it with PVA glue) and, after they were dried, spray painted them grey. Painting left to do, but will do a very good job in breaking up the field of battle.

Focus in Battle

On a funnier note (and repeated from the Roll a One Facebook page) I came home from work one day finding some particular modifications having been done to the Little Ones Nerf gun glasses.

“Why have you stuck pieces of paper on your glasses?”, I asked the Little One.

“They are tactical information screens, it gives me the ability to focus in battle. Got that Private?”

A sleeping hero

The title of this posting – “A prayer’s as good as a bayonet on a day like this” is said by Colour Sergeant Bourne in the movie Zulu (link here). Colour Sergeant (Frank Edward) Bourne was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (CDM) after the Battle at Rourke’s Drift and was, at the time, the youngest soldier in the British Army who had achieved the rank of Colour Sergeant. He ended his career as a Lieutenant Colonel and was awarded an OBE. As I read up about him I found out that he was buried not far from where I live. I think I will take the Little One and have a look for it after Rugby next Sunday. Although he was only 5’6″ tall he was certainly, in every sense of the word, a big man.

/ All the very best, next time I will go through the forces who will be fighting the Kalisz battle at Salute in April this year.

Cavalry Regiments

Dragoon Regiment / Squadrons

Light Horse Regiment

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Russians

The Ottomans

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Pikeman’s Lament in 6mm

Miniatures

Ottomans

Russians

Forces

Basing and Notes

Another batch from Marching in Colour

Mutant 1984 for Scrappers

Muddy Car

Oil Tanks

Poundland Trucks

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The Saxons

Dragons

Cuirassiers

A Map!

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Kalisz Battle boards and Swedes

Bovington Tank Museum

Mutant 1984 – Ulvriket Patrol – Work in Progress

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Opposing Forces

The Scenario / Situation

The Battle

Reflections

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(Winged) Hussars

Pancerni

Light Horse Units

Other Projects

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A Welsh Wizard’s tome

Terminator Car Wrecks

Focus in Battle

A sleeping hero

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