The last blog post was 28 days ago, that is the longest gap I have had since I started this blog in 2016 – my objective was to do a blog post every week or so. I am slowly working away on a few hobby things but work and some personal issues has lead to some difficulties to find some time to write stuff down – I still do some Twitter binges as I find it a fantastic forum for miniatures and wargaming – it is friendly and inspirational.
However here is a condensed catch-up blog of what hobby related activities I undertook during February 2019 – I hope it will suffice!
Roll a One blog 10th February – Star Wars Legion, first two Games
We Spent this week preparing and playing Star Wars what a Legion it was fantastic fun. We had a go at the learning scenario and then we did a more involved scenario with some objective in a little desert village. I lost both of the battles… here are some pictures.
The Little One gave me a new nick name – Roll a Blank! However overall we had a blast and have played a few more time since. Fun game and thumbs up from the Little One.
Roll a One blog 17th February – Some more Legion Building
A relatively calm week, we got a MDF piece for the Legion Desert terrain. Following some preparation we think it blends in nicely with the other terrain although it is made from MDF.
Good value at about a tenner, and gives some options for fighting on the roof.
Roll a One blog 25th February – Mapping it all Up, Bad Elephant Joke, Painting the Monastery/Cloister
I pulled the famous finger out of that infamous place and have now started with this years Joy of Six project for real – Poltava 1709. The Battlefield will be 16 by 5 feet and I did a rough map on how it will look in the end and have started planning the various key terrain elements (All miniature 6mm Baccus).
Some of the key features on the left hand side are seen below, the Swedish Camp, Poltava with Siege lines, although I think they actually were on the left of Poltava in this picture. We can also see the Monastery, the Swedish Camp and some of the Russian Redoubts.
Here is the Monastery made from models from Total Battle Miniatures. I think it will do the trick it will be place on a hill with trees.
I have also got myself a whole camping worth of tents to do the Swedish Camp with a design based on how a battalion camped during the era (with the latrines to the left).
I even found a guy in the Baccus camp pack who looked just perfect to convert to a man having a dump in the latrine area – he looks very peaceful and reflective, perhaps he was unwell on the day and could not be with the army (lucky guy!).
Roll a One blog 3rd March – Russian Redoubts
The Russian redoubts are another of the key components of the Poltava Battlefield, here are my take on them (note due to ground scale vs figure scale these had to be relatively small). I have just got the miniatures so only did a few for test purposes.
I first made some using clay but whilst in a Wickes (UK DIY shop) on another mission I noticed that the were selling Pine Glass Bead Moulding (basically strips of wood) that had a very interesting profile (see below, they are product code 121231 at Wickes and comes in lengths of 2.4 meters – plenty for my current needs).
That was all, I think I am all up to date now, until next roll Ones!
In summary, not done too much in the last three weeks, some “diversionary-but-I-hope-of-some-interest-blur” to fill out the blog and then some pictures of new stuff at the end.
This is my 8th consecutive year of putting on a table at Joy of Six. With the exception of 2016 when Neil Shuck and I ran Saga in 6mm, Nick Dorrell and I have staged a range of Battles from the Great Northern War (GNW), including Fraustadt 1706, Klissow 1702, Kalisz 1706, Gadebusch 1712, Lesnaya 1708 and Horka 1708. I think it has been an fair run and I am currently debating with myself whether the table this year, Poltava 1709, will be the last GNW table I do. I feel like it has been a good run and looking at all these tables in the pictures below I enjoyed all the effort I put in and when we presented them, I have been told, others enjoyed them too.
There are a few more battles of the war that I think would be interesting to put on the table, including:
Narva 1700. Swedish attack on fortified Russians with a snow blizzard during the battle. A few Swedes against many, many Russians.
The Duna Crossing 1701. Swedish river assault supported by floating Gun Platforms, etc. Against the Saxons.
Battle of Helsingborg 1710. Fighting on Swedish soil with the Danes last attempt at getting the Scanian lands.
Actually there are many more and if you go to the eminent webpage Tacitus.nu there is a nice table showing all the bigger engagements of the War, when they occurred, who the Swedes fought and who was the main Swedish Commander (link here, and while you are there you will find detailed uniform information for some of the largest battles, based on some of the best resources available).
It is strange, having read so many GNW books and painted so many 6mm miniatures from the Baccus GNW range, that I still have this fascination for the period. I still remember my Father’s retelling of the bravery of the soldiers in the Dal Regiment, when its Battalions breached the defences at the Battle of Narva in 1700 under the leadership of Magnus Stenbock, then a Colonel, who later (I suppose subject to some argument) became one of the Greatest Generals of the era. Another story was the one about the Duna crossing and I remember I closed my eyes and felt the splashes of water from the cannon balls landing next to the rowing boats as the Swedish advance force pressed on toward the river bank on the other side. There is no historical era that is even close with regards to the level of satisfaction and sense of adventure in my opinion – but then I am unashamedly biased. All the other stuff I do are also very interesting but are truly just diversions, I suppose the Great Northern War is what they call “a first love”.
I seem to have convinced myself to keep on going but we will see how this year goes. There is a small benefit in that apart from making the mat/terrain there is limited work in setting up most of the tables after I have finished the Poltava Battle this year, as any painting required will be limited (I have extensive Saxon, Swedish, Russian and Danish armies, so I am reasonably well covered. Some of them I have based for Summer and Winter).
So.., how is Poltava going?
In an earlier posting about a year ago, I was stressing about Poltava (that Posting was actually reasonably interesting, with a link here). I want “my” Poltava to tell the story about the battle not just as a line of Soldiers facing each other at the final attack of the decimated Swedish force against the overwhelming Russian packed lines.
The Key Features required
Given this, the following needs to be done (with level of completeness given as a percentage, where 0% means done shit all and 100% all done and dusted):
Finish all the Swedish and Russian miniatures (for the main action, but also for detachment around the battlefield) – 95%
Swedish Camp – 50% (have a lot of Swedish supply wagons, just need to do some camp bases)
Swedish Siege Lines around Poltava – 0%
The Poltava Fortress and Town – 25% (have some houses I can reuse, but will need to do the wooden walls and towers)
Russian Redoubts – 0%
Cossacks / Kalmyck irregular cavalry – 100%
Monastery on the Hill – 0% (but have bought the models)
Surrounding Villages – 50% (I will use some existing ones but need to buy some more)
Russian Camp – 0%
The Battle Mat – 0% (I think a 12 by 4 sheet will do).
The fact that almost all the miniatures are painted is a very good place to be, but I learned not to underestimate the time it will take to do the other stuff – especially the battle mat. The above is the tracker I am using for the Project.
Just before Christmas I did some bases of town folks I will use as Poltava Militia – now do they really look like we would imagine a militia unit of the region? Maybe not but I felt that the Streltzy code would make them look too uniformed, too organised – so I did them like this. The idea was that each miniatures was painted differently, I think I achieved the look I wanted. Note that I have not yet based them as I want to do this when I know how I make the Poltava town/fortress section of the battlefield – so the bases can blend in nicely.
This week I also did some more Dragoons, it seems like there is always more Russian Dragoons to be made – I think that may be it for this time. However, I will do another review just to make sure. I have run out 60 by 30mm bases at this time, so I will have to base them later.
/ Hope that was of some interest, all the best to you.
I had a lot of fun with the hobby in 2018 and this is my year end account of a lot of the things that has been and some things to come. I really hope that your 2019 will be great and I am really grateful for all of you who visit this blog on a regular or occasional basis. One of the best things, this year, is that the Little One is getting more interested and involved in the hobby – thanks Mate!
Also a big thank you to Nick Dorrell, who I did the Horka Battle with at Joy of Six in the Summer, also all the Twitter people (it is a very nice place to be, I call myself Per at Roll a One there), and all the fantastic hobby related podcasts I listen to in between the audible books whilst I try to put paint in the right places. These include, the Too Fat Lardies Oddcast, the Veteran Wargames, the Grognard’s Files, the WSS Podcast, Henry Hyde’s Battlegames (not strictly a podcast but he has done a lot of great ones this year), Wargames Recon, and Trouble at T’Mill.
I also regularly listen to the Meeples and Miniatures podcast and inspired by them the Little One and I thought we would do our own top 5 games we played this year, in no particular order.
What a Tanker – this is so much fun and it inspired me to do a lot of Russian and Finnish tanks during the Sovietic Summer Offensive 1944. I also did a List for the Finnish Tanker (see more below). A brilliantly simple, but not simplistic game, that I really recommend anyone to try (link to the rules here).
Bag the Hun – Provoked by some of the Twitter chums, you know who you are, but again got me a reason to explore some of the Finnish connection. The Finns basically flew the shit of the machines they had and painting those tumbling dice plane has been great fun (see more below). We only did a few games to learn the rules – we will definitely fly more next year (link to the rules here).
Maurice – we just pulled this out for our Christmas game but ended up playing another two games in the last few days. I had forgotten how good of a game this is, it really gives a very nice feeling of the larger battle with the cards adding that narrative feel and grand excitement to the outcome of the battle. I wrote about this battle in the last blog post (see here) and a link to the rules here.
Saga – we have had fun this year using the Second edition of the rules (see more below) and we recently got the book of battles that is a fantastic product – that could be used for other games than Saga (link to the rules here).
Mutants and Death Ray Guns – In the quest for rule sets for my Mutant 1984 project (see more below) we have had some fun games using these rules. Perfect for smallish skirmish (link to the rules here).
Next year we are looking forward to playing all of the above, but also a few other games:
Star Wars Legion – the Little One got a fair amount for this game over Christmas. Looking forward to see if the force is with us or not. I am not a great fan in doing 28mm painting because it takes too long and I am crap at it – so I think we have more than our hand full with this project.
Chain of Command – I want to finish the Swedish platoon write-up and do a few Scenarios based on the 1943 Swedish invasion plan made by Adolf Schell. Part of this plan had some of the lines of advance going through Dalarna (the county where I was born) in Sweden and it would be interesting to place some of the action here. I also would like to do some scenarios based on some of the fighting in the ‘Unknown Soldier’ book/movie during the Finnish Continuation war (I made some assault boats I really would like to put in a scenario). I also need to finish the Germans for the 29th Lets Go Pint sized campaign.
Other stuff – I am excited about the Rebels and Patriot Rules, as we have enjoyed playing Pikeman’s Lament and the Rampant rules. I also think the Little One is getting ready for a few more involved rulesets, like Twilight of the Sun King and some higher level WW2 rules. In addition I will do the final battle of the Towards Moscow Trilogy, Poltava 1709, at Joy of Six, but plenty more of that next year.
Here are a summary of the projects I have been working on this year….
Kirbekan 1885 – 6mm Sudan/Egypt Colonial Project
This project was started this year to try out Peter Rileys draft “A Steady and Deliberate Fire” rules. It has been fun to paint the Baccus colonial range. I will need to get some terrain together so I can have a go with the rules next year. Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below.
Rapier Miniatures are doing some fantastic Glorantha stuff in 6mm and 28mm, I could not resist to get a few of their Bison riders. They painted up really well. Here are few pictures and a link to the relevant blog posting below.
WW2 Platoons, 15mm for Chain of Command (or any other platoon based game)
I painted a fair few Platoons with supports this year, including a Swedish what-if platoon (with some initial notes on the composition to do a list for Chain of Command). Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below.
I also did a full set of markers etc, to use for winter war gaming of Chain of Command. I especially enjoyed doing the patrol markers and the tall pine trees. Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below.
Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below. We have played a lot of games with these rules and made a list for the Finnish Tanker so we could play Continuation War scenarios. Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below.
This is my old 1980s RPG nostalgia project. I let you read up on it, I even built a 28mm log cabin. Here are few pictures and links to relevant blog postings below.
To Katie, Henry, Mike and Neil (I will explain later),
I have a twitter account Per at RollaOne (@roll_a_one) were I ran a vote on whether to do a Christmas game with Swedes fighting Danes or Saxons. Here are the results. Being Swedish I did not want to us to do a game without the Swedes on the table. It would have been a strange Great Northern War battle without them anyway.
So here a presentation of the forces and a short AAR with some picture of the Battle…
The Rules, Opposing Commanders and their Forces
We decided to use the Maurice Rules for the game and made two 100-pointish armies each. 1 unit is represented by 2 No. 60 by 30mm bases (a battery by 1 No. smaller base) – normally you use 4 square bases for a unit – this is 2 bases – the only issue is that the column formation looks funny – I can live with that.
Maurice is an excellent game by Sam Mustafa and you can download some information on his webpage, including a lite version that you can play with (link here). The rules works well for us and suits the way we play.
We have not done a what-if, instead it is a just a battalion level clash with familiar names of regiments for both sides, but with two totally fictitious Generals (quickly sketched up by yours truly).
I am using Maurice because I would like to do a little campaign, at some point, of the Swedish lacklustre efforts against the Prussians during the Seven Years War. This is a chance to dust off these rules that I think gives a fun flair and works for the Period. It is a card driven system, cards are used for activation and in additon can give bonus to firing (called Volley in the game), actions (charge, march, bombard, rally) or events can be played. You can also buy national advantages that gives your army bonuses. There is also a good campaign system, heroes (notables that work as supporting Commanders) and other stuff not covered here.
I made some notes on Maurice earlier with regards to the Great Northern War era (link to that blog post here). In addition we are using the special rules for stationary artillery and pikes (for the Swedes).
This is not a review of the rules and I will just discuss the set-up and the result of the Battle briefly, there are a lot of reviews and playthroughs on the net, as the game has been around for some time, that you may want to check out. I really like the concept and the card system. As you will see in the actual game we played it creates a narrative.
Some of the optional national characteristics cards we will be using (more detail below).
The Danish Side
The Danish Major General Schmeicel is a tired and laconic individual, but can cause some occasional spark on the battlefield. He is mainly an infantry specialist and have fought many campaigns in central Europe and his men are well drilled in firing – in accordance with the Dutch School. This places less emphasis on the bayonet and is highly dependent on platoon firing with a rippling of fire down the whole length of the battalion. His strength lies in a prolonged firefight again the inferior firing Swedish units but will find it difficult once caught in the melee. The conscript horse units are represented by Dragoons.
Major General Schmeicel
For the Danish side we went for the following:
National Advantage: Lethal Volleys – 12 AP (this to represent better fire drill than the charge oriented Swedes)
8 No. Regular Infantry (Trained) Units – 48 AP
2 No. Regular Cavalry (Trained) – 12 AP
3 No. Regular Cavalry (Conscript) – 12 AP
4 No. Artillery units – 10 AP
Improve two units to Elite – 5 AP (1 No. Cavalry and 1 No. Infantry)
A total of 99 AP, 16 infantry bases, 10 cavalry bases and 4 Artillery bases.
We are also assuming Stationary batteries for the Artillery (See Chapter 10 – advanced rules). In this era
Resulting in the following force:
Foot Guard/Queens Req, Regular Infantry, Elite
Grenadiers, Regular Infantry, Trained
Marine Regiment, Regular Infantry, Trained
Frijs Regiment, Regular Infantry, Trained
Arnoldts, Regular Infantry, Trained
Zepelin Regiment, Regular Infantry, Trained
Staffels/Kragh, Regular Infantry, Trained
Viborg/Aarhus National, Regular Infantry, Trained
Horse Guard, Regular Cavalry, Elite
2nd Fynske, Regular Cavalry, Trained
Life Dragoon, Regular Cavalry, Conscript
Bulow Dragoon, Regular Cavalry, Conscript
Jyske Land Dragoon, Regular Cavalray, Conscript
1 to 4 Artillery Units
The Swedish Side
The Swedish Major General Stryptagh has risen quickly through the ranks and is one of the Kings youngest Generals. Keen to impress, he is rash and a fully aligned with the Swedish offensive tactical doctrine (Gå-På). He needs to get into contact as quickly as possible to win the day with superior shock cavalry as well as pike armed infantry units, hitting hard. The religious doctrine is represented in the use of clerics which is more to give an edge than clerics running around throwing incence. The cleric will be marked using individually bases figures. There is no difference between Cavalry and Dragoons in the Swedish army in this game, or in reality, the are all count as galloping shock attacking cavalry.
As elegantly described in the book “Vägen till Poltava” (‘The Road to Poltava’, by Konovaltjuk and Lyth) the Swedish doctrine of marching slowly and steadily, towards the enemy in silence, then fire a Salvo at 70 steps and then at 30 steps from the enemy, with no reloading, before charging in, was based on simple mathematics.
Here is a rough translation of the relevant passage.
“The Swedish method of infantry attack was based on the limited accuracy (spread) of musket fire and the time to reload for a new salvo. The spread meant that units preferred to shoot at the same time with many weapons – salvo fire – and hoped this would create gaps in the human wall in front of them, even though many shots failed to ignite or missed their targets. A salvo had a limited impact on distances above 70 steps (50 meters) – except against cavalry that had a bigger target area and were the horses reaction was more important than the riders. In shooting repeated salvos, whether they were fired by rank, platoon or by all, you had to wait for all to reload. The time for unified reloading has been discussed a lot and sometimes assessed to be at least one minute and up to two minutes. In a minute the enemy had time to march one hundred steps (75-80 meters) and run 150 steps. If the effective range for a salvo was 70 steps the unit that opened fire at a longer distance became a defenceless target for the opponent that calmly and steadily advanced and fired its salvo at a shorter distance and therefore with a bigger impact. The Gå-På method was based on this simple calculation.”
In reality it seems that the first and second salvos were fired even closer as the war progressed. It was very effective and very often led to a routing enemy at or before contact with no protracted melee. The horse charged in with a wedge shaped formation as was equally offensive and did normally not fire any weapons at all.
For the Swedish side we went for the following:
Major General Stryptagh
National Advantage: Cavaliers – 9 AP (Shock Cavalry), Clerics – 9 AP (to illustrate Swedish Determination) and A la Baïonnette! – 9 AP (shock infantry)
5 No. Regular Cavalry (Trained) – 30 AP
5 No. Regular Infantry (Trained) Units – 30 AP
Improve four units to Elite – 14 AP (1 No. Cavalry and 3 No. Infantry)
Also Swedish infantry are armed with pike and we are using the advance rules for Pikes (See Chapter 10 – Advanced Rules). Typically a third of the Soldier had pikes in the early Stages of the War.
A total of 101 AP. 10 No. Cavalry Bases and 10 No. Infantry Bases.
Resulting in the following force:
Närke-Varmland, Regular Infantry, Elite
Västerbotten, Regular Infantry, Elite
Västermanland, Regular Infantry, Elite
Kronobergs, Regular Infantry, Trained
Södermanland, Regular Infantry, Trained
Queen Dowagers Horse, Regular Cavalry, Elite
Bremiska Dragoon, Regular Cavalry, Trained
Bassewitz Dragoon, Regular Cavalry, Trained
Norra Skanska Cavalry, Regular Cavalry, Trained
Nylands Cavalry, Regular Cavalry, Trained
We then made our selection from the Winter based stuff, we used about 25% of it.
The Battlefield
We fought the battle on the dining table, using a 3 by 4.5 feet snow mat I have had for some time. With the relative small forces at hand (and a base width at 30mm) this should work fine.
We drew the following battle field card.
That is not my hairline but Maurice de Saxe.
Going through the motions of the card we find that we can place a maximum of 1 hill, 2 marshes, 1 rocky ground, 2 towns/village, and 6 wood terrain features (the red around marking around the forest number indicates that it is mandatory to choose some forest features (makes sense since the battles is in a woodland area).
Next was scouting and this is done by rolling a die each. The Little One rolled 6 and I rolled, yes you got it, One!. There are modifiers based on the number of units you have of the type on the card (regular cavalry and irregular infantry in this case) but there was no point checking this, the Little One won. He wanted to be the attacker! – it was what the Swedes did in this era.
We ended up choosing two town/village and a few forest terrain areas. The table was set up as follows.
Swedes on the Left hand side and the longer Danish line on the left. There is a village on the Left Danish flank as well as on the Right.
In addition being the attacker the Little One was allowed an additional ‘mercenary’ units – we just added another Swedish infantry unit.
We then recorded our Army Morale values which were 17 for the Danes and 11 for the Swedes, this is based on number regular of units!
A little bit of shuffling and card allocation later we could start the Battle.
The Battle
The Jingle Bells rang and we were ready to get going….
“Straighten the Lines, the Swedes are coming” was heard over the snow cladded fields!.Village of Højreflanken in the background, with the Danish Dragoons and Cuirassiers getting ready for rumbleThe Danish Commander shouting his orders of the day, “Stand and deliver!”.The Venstreflanke Village on the left, with a tasty objective marker!The Swede breaking the line to get around the forest area! The Dinosaur was not part of the game.An excellent opportunity to cause some disruption from a distance, but sadly Ones are not very useful, not even with “Well Laid Guns!”Neither is Two…as I said above, 4 rolls an no effect at all… Swedish left flank Cavalry ploughing forward. They then ended up more or less staying there to the end. Perhaps they got lost?Another Bombardment opportunity… the other rolls as bad, no yield at all.And the right cavalry is coming too!The Centre gets organised for the attack!I think I rolled more Ones than any other number on this day… but then what is the name of this blog? – it is not just a gimmick!That regiment is getting far too close….Nearly there, now our Lethal Volleys and Cannister fire will rip the Swedes into pieces!. “GIVE FiRE!”But the order seems too late, as the Little One plays this interruption and get the first Volley in. Causing one level of disruption on the Grenadier Unit.I got 3 hits on my volley but failed to cause any damage from any of the hits (yes it is a roll to hit, then to damage depending on unit quality system)On his round he decided not to do any firing, which means I do not fire back either. However I had got lucky and I got this card. So I told him we would shoot.However I only managed two hits (cannister rolls two dice for hits) with minimal damage caused.He then went all in with this card and it felt like the beginning of the end…My Grenadier’s shat themselves. A white field coloured brown!My diversion on my left flank! Going on the attack, but he dealt with that swiftly later on.Raptured Danish lineRolling like a God that Little One!Another set of hits!Another one… Diminishing Danes…The Little One managed to rally most of the Little Pathetic disruption/damage I had caused.…and even had time to use a round to play an event to cause me even more overall morale loss – the Death of a Hero on the Battlefield!Nearly there….And a round later! Not the happies nation in the World on this day. Perhaps a Danish player would have done better, sorry (Jeg er ked af jeg rodet op!).
Assessment
The Game got a thumbs up from the Little One. I have to agree, although the write-up perhaps gives the impression of Swedish onslaught it hang somewhat in the balance. The cards are interesting and the national characteristics gives the right Great Northern War feel we get from the traditional history books.
We had blast, but then we always do. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a really good Christmas if that is your thing, if not have a blast anyway. I will be back with some reflective stuff before the end of the year. That will be the normal review of the Year, from this/my blogs perspective (and there is a wide variety of stuff to cover), and some Crystal ball gazing for next year. Hope you will be back for that! The next big project is Poltava, with some 350 bases on the table (the battle we just presented above had 50 bases) at Joy of Six in July – it will be a spectacle. Here is a “nice” video about the battle from YouTube.
A sad but also, I hope, inspiring end to this post…
Being somewhat detached from worldly events at times, I totally missed that my favourite Danish Artist Kim Larsen died earlier this year, on the 30th September 2018. This was after a long battle with prostate cancer.
I remember many drunken occasions in my youth listening to his band Gasolin and have been listening to him since. I have included my favourite song below – “Det bedste til mig og mine venner” (“The best to me and my friends”).
This year I have also sadly been reminded of the issues of mental health within my family, friends and in the work place. I am happy that the awareness and understanding is increasing in our society but I think there is a lot more to do. In the wargaming community I especially applaud efforts from Katie Aidley, Henry Hyde and the Meeples and Miniatures crew (of course there are others too). They have all in their own way inspired me to reflect, consider and learn new things about these issues. This blog post is truly dedicated to them.
I let you explore the fantastic creative work of these fantastic people on your own, but here is a little bit of help for you to get started.
I had a Christmas Greeting from an ex-colleague who retired a few years ago, he said some nice things, and one part really made me happy “…working with you was a pleasure. And I noted you covered by back quite a lot”. He actually covered mine and many others backs all the time. It is what builds strong teams, friendships and people! Look out for each other!, … and yourself!.
If you have followed this blog you may know that Nick Dorrell, some other Chums, and I put on a game at Salute in 2017. It was the Kalisz Battle and it required a lot of Cossacks and Kalmucks, actually more than 30 No. (60 by 60mm bases, link here). In reviewing the needs for the Poltava Battle I realised that I had too few light cavalry bases as both sides had sizeable contingents (the Swedish side being supported by Mazepa’s Cossacks, and the Russian with its normal light cavalry contingent). I only put 7 miniatures on each base but realised I needed about 16 bases. I prepared the miniatures for painting but they have been sitting on the painting table for some time now – I was not feeling too excited about getting started.
Podcasts and a WW2 Diversion
This weekend offered almost uninterrupted rain, so I caught up on some Podcasts, including Henry Hyde’s patreon question time that was amazing (link to that project here), the Veteran Wargamer giving some advice (Jay with Friends) on WW2 movies to watch over the Christmas break (link to his excellent podcast here) and a festive Oddcast session from the Too Fat Lardies (listen to it here) that was fun, as always, to listen to. I felt sorry for Sidney Roundwoods Christmas presents – I hope he gets some better ones elsewhere ;).
In the Veteran wargames show I like the fact that Finnish War movies in general were mentioned, also the Norwegian Max Manus and the Danish 9th April (incidentally I think there will be an upcoming Chain of Command Pint Sized campaign covering this). Here are these and a few other Nordic WW2 movies, in no particular order I recommend them all (a mixture of trailers and clips).
…. and finally a movie about the aftermath of WW2 (an absolutely excellent movie).
As for my own favourite Nordic WW2 Movie I have to admit that I like the Cinemaphotography of the new Unknown Soldier (above) and would love to see it on the Silver Screen again – it made me make some assault boats (I have not yet used) some time ago (more here)
15mm battlefront miniatures in some homemade boats!
However the following movie makes the journey to Mount Doom seem like a walk in the park – so here is another non-English movie to check out.
However I really like Fury, Private Ryan and A Bridge to Far, as well….
Here is a movie I never heard about, I ordered it today (about the invasion of Norway).
Back to the Cossacks
I got on with the painting and the podcasts offered sufficient time to get these done (they are the Cossacks from Baccus 18th century range, GNR10 Cossacks link here), with a special mention to Henry with his three and a half hour session.
Quick job, then Windsor and Newton Nutbrown Inkwash, basing and good to go.
The 16 bases, used some tufts I had lying around.I used many different colours to provide an non-uniformed look.Some of the Tufts works better than others
S
As above…
Now I need to park the Russian Dragoons on the painting table to brew for a while.
You may recall that when I started this little Kirbekan diversion I had as an objective to get enough bases to do the scenario as presented in Peter Riley’s draft colonial rules so I could lure him to demonstrate the rules for me – I think I am almost there with the miniatures. There is still some desert terrain and hills to be done before I can call this project done.
If you want to catch up on previous progress and some further background on this project have a look at some of the old blog entries:
In the last update I showed some nearly finished 19th Hussars, some British Leaders and some Mahdi Dervish Irregular Infantry. I based these and added flags as appropriate (All are from Baccusm 6mm colonial range, link here).
First out the 19th Hussars (more about them here).
19th Hussars (based on the Lancers Code, but I cut the spears to simulate the native spears that they apparently carried at the time)
…then the Leaders
Front line of Leaders
And finally the completed British Contingent for Kirbekan:
(I also made all of them in marching column)
Here are the Dervish Infantry
Dervishes on the attackAerial photoClose up – simple to paint but looks relatively effective.
And the more or less completed Mahdi Contingent for Kirbekan. Missing the leaders bases – Moussa Wad Abuhegel, Ali Wad Hussein and Hamisd Wad Lekalik.
Next step is to do some terrain, I intend to play this on a 4’6″ by 3′ mat that I will make using the good old acrylic mat trick and with some sand cladded styrofoam hills. The idea with this was to have small bases (40 by 20mm) and being able to play games on a normal kitchen table.
I stole this quote and the map from Peter’s Draft document.
“The terrain is very Hilly, with rolling hills that have flat and sandy bottoms between them. All of the hills have gentle slopes, even the two contoured ridges are gentle slopes up to the summits and ridges.”
From the unpublished “Polemos Colonial Wars – A Steady and Deliberate Fire”, by Peter Riley.
Other Stuff
In other news, I and the Little One had a go at Sword and Spear and had a blast (more here). We did a simple “DBA sized” game. We will definitely do a few more and perhaps do an AAR when we know the rules a tad more! We used the 6mm Punic War forces.
Some elephants getting ready to attack the roman maniples!I forgot to paint the spearheads on the Punic Infantry attacking the Samnite contingent!
I also started the first step of rebasing some Prussia SYW stuff I have as I have a little idea for a Maurice based campaign (the good, and not so old, honour Game by Sam Mustafa) on a ALT-history version of the Swedish campaign in Pomerania during the Seven Years war (Sweden vs Prussia). Another long term project, but it would be fun to develop some specific command cards, etc. Hellish work in rebasing! It will be a long process and parts of me has regretted it already!
I also need to get going with the Poltava Project as soon as possible, I have loads of Russians and Cossacks to paint and another bloody big battlemat to do.
For you Greg Stafford (1948 – 2018), Rest in Peace!
At some point this summer Rapier Miniatures (link here) were showing off some work in progress of some 6mm Gloranthan Bison Tribe cavalry. “Glorantha is the mythical world that can be found on the Other Side of our consciousness. First discovered by Greg Stafford over forty years ago, Glorantha has been explored in such games as Dragon Pass, RuneQuest, HeroQuest, and King of Dragon Pass (Taken from the Glorantha Webpage, link here.)”
Here are the different sculpts in the range
The Tribes of Prax are a nomadic society consisting of a number of tribes based on a particular herd beast such as Bison, Giant Lizard, Ostrich, Zebras, Rhinoceros. Some non-human races even herd humans. In a nice twist the gods they worship forbid them to use horses, which makes finding proxy miniatures for Praxian cavalry difficult (I suppose you could make some zebras convincingly in 6mm with normal cavalry miniatures).
Nevermind, this range is spot on and I found out last week they were for sale, so I ordered a few pack immediately, it took them two days to arrive.
I bought enough to make decent contingent of RidersNice letter!. Sorry Paul, I will be doing Poltava at Joy of Six 2019 year, but maybe some time in the future I will do some fantasy again.
It did not take me long to get them primed up and ready for painting. They were like a good book and very difficult to put away once I started.
I did a quick test model and really like the way they came out.
I then painted them more or less in the same way, with some variance on shields and loin cloth colour. I painted the spear heads and swords in brass simulating bronze weapons (as I had no bronze colour – I may get some and do some highlights). I based them on 50 by 25mm MDF bases – this because they would work with my Romans and Carthagians (based on the same kind of bases) and all my Saga armies (based on 25mm by 25mm bases).
Here some examples of bases for those other armies:
Romans on 50 by 25mm basesSamnites on 50 by 25mm basesStrathclyde Welsh on 25 by 25mm basesIrish on 25 by 25mm bases (really happy with those shields and the overall colour scheme – some days I am on more fire than others!)
Anyway sorry for that diversion, you can read more about the Saga in 6mm stuff here.
Here are the pictures, and I was so happy I sent them to Rapier, and the gents put this first picture on their webpage.
That is the more large battle version ones, I did keep back a few for another purpose. You may recall that I and the Little One ran a participation game at Joy of Six a few years back using the Dragon Rampant Rules (see more in the link here) – we have a large number of fantasy units, and the way we based them allowed us to play games on a very small table. So I did 4 units of elite Bisons, enough for a 24 point warband.
4 units, based on the 1-2-3 basing. Allows figure removal from the units, loose 1 figure take away the base with 1 miniature, loose another one take away the 2 figure base and take back the 1 figure base. Easy.
And in more detail,
I almost forgot that there are some stuff coming – Broos and Morkanths (and Rapier already has Scorpion Men), so the range is growing and I suppose it will grow quicker if you buy them! Here is the link again, Rapier Miniatures, if you do not want to scroll up (link here). They also do some 28mm very nice Glorantha stuff.
Here a few pictures I found on the net on more stuff from Rapier!
Busy times at the moment but I have made some progress on the Kirbekan 1885 project and this time mostly with regards to the Mahdists to fight the British. I have limited information on these forces in comparison of the detailed accounts of the heroics and sometimes not so heroic deeds of the British. I have mainly used the various Osprey titles for inspiration.
Anyway, for the battle itself Peter Riley, in his draft rules, suggests.
Moussa Wad Abuhegel – CinC
Organised Command Infantry – 1 base
Organised Rifle Infantry – 1 base Ali Wad Hussein – Commander
Organised Command Infantry – 1 base
Organised Rifle Infantry – 1 base
Irregular Dervish Infantry – 3 bases
Irregular Hadendowah – 3 bases Hamisd Wad Lekalik – Commander
Organised Command Infantry – 1 base
Organised Rifle Infantry – 1 base
Irregular Dervish Infantry – 4 bases
Irregular Hadendowah Infantry – 4 bases
So in summary, I would need.
• 3 No. command bases
• Organised Command and Rifle Infantry – 6 bases
• Irregular Dervish Infantry – 7 bases
• Irregular Hadendowah – 7 bases
I started out making the 6 No. Organised bases (40 by 20mm basing) and based these on the Baccus CMA07 – Mahdist Riflemen (all codes for the Mahdi can be found here).
…and the Hadendowah Sword and Spear men (on deeper bases 40 by 30mm), using the code CMA02 – Hadendowah Infantry – Spear, Sword, Shield.
In addition, I have spent some time doing some of the smaller units I need for the battle.
Camel Corps
19th Hussars
And some more Mahdists in the pipeline,
I also based the Horse Grenadiers that featured in the last update (see here).
I have done my first proper effort on the 2019 Joy of Six project – the Battle of Poltava 1709. As I have stated before it will be a full blown table showing not just the main battle, but also the besieged Poltava, the Monastery and of course the redoubts (more background at the end of a previous blog here).
I did a inventory of the Swedish miniatures needed and found (not to a great surprise to be honest) that I have everything I need apart from some Cossacks and the models required for the Poltava Siege works (I want to make the siege lines, siege guns and sappers, etc), as for the forces on the table, all I need is (excluding artillery and command bases):
41 cavalry bases (60 by 30mm bases)
18 infantry bases (60 by 30mm bases)
24 Vallack and Cossack bases (large light horse bases 60 by 60mm)
That is 83 No. of bases (and detailed below) in total compared to 100 No. of bases for the Horka battle.
I will do the same review for the Russians, but I already know that there will be substantially more work as the number of bases for Horka was 155 No. but I will need a total of 259 No. for Poltava.
140 cavalry bases (60 by 30mm bases)
89 infantry bases (60 by 30mm bases)
30 Cossack and Kalmyk bases (large light horse bases)
Now all these did not fight in the main battle, but it allows a little bit of a reflection as to the relative strength of the Russians vs the Swedes in terms of available resources in the area. It will be a busy table, considering that it is about 40% more models (however they will be somewhat differently spread).
In the interim I do know that I have no Russian Horse Grenadiers and I need 3 No. regiments of 4 bases worth of models, so I have been painting some of these.
Horse Grenadiers
In 1708, Peter the Great, formed some Horse Grenadiers regiments, taken from the Grenadier company of existing Dragoon regiments. It is a little bit confusing and unclear how these units were uniformed at the Poltava battle and how many were present, so what follows are an interpretation. In game terms we will treat these as a better quality dragoon units and I have modelled these on a basis of 4 bases per regiment. Note that these are from Baccus Seven Years War range (and not from the WSS or GNW range) – they are wonderful little models and you can find them here.
A. Kropotov’s Horse Grenadiers
I painted these in the most common uniform combination of the Russian Army at the time with Green jacket with red facings, this is a speculative uniform combination. The flag is green and I am thinking of making some transfers to add some detail to them (I bought some printable transfer paper).
G. Kropotov’s Horse Grenadiers
Again speculative uniform – I made them as above but with blue instead of Green, apart from the flag.
von der Roop’s Horse Grenadiers
Yet again speculative uniform – I made them blue coats with red facings and a blue and red Mitre.
I have given them an ink wash (nut brown of course, see below) and will base them up shortly.
/ Hope that was of some interest
List of the Swedish units required for Poltava 1709 based on a rough guide of one base of 9 models of riders per 200 to 300 cavalry (about 2 squadrons) and the same for base of 24 models of infantry per 400 to 600 infantry (a battalion).
I recommend that you read the first part from last week (link here, that contains a little bit of an intro) as this is a rather short update if you have not already and if you are interested in the context of this.
I learned this week that Major General Earle who died at the Battle in 1885 is standing outside George’s Hall in Liverpool (where he was born in 1833). A very elegant statue that was unveiled in 1887 by Lord Wolsey, the Commander of the British Forces in Egypt.
Earle had started his career fighting in the Crimean War and fought gallantry at Alma and Sevastopol rising to the rank of Lieutenant. He later served in Gibraltar, Canada and India. In 1880 he was granted his Major Generalship and was sent to Egypt in 1882. Here he was the commander of the garrison at Alexandria. In 1884 he was in command of a campaign (the British Nile Column) to support General Gordon in Khartoum (Sudan). The city was under siege by Mahdist. Earle and his soldiers did not arrive in time and Khartoum fell in the beginning of 1885.
On the 10th February 1885, Major Earle, and part of the British Nile Column stormed the hills at Kirbekan and routed Mahdist force. Unfortunately Earle, as stated above, was killed in the battle together with about 60 British soldiers, including Lieutenant Colonel Philip Eyre of the First South Staffordshire Regiment.
So, to hang on to Lt Col Phillip Eyre for a moment, this week I did the second large British unit at the Kirbekan Battle 1885.
The South Staffordshire Regiment
The regiment was sent to Egypt in 1882 as part of the invasion and in 1885 it travelled as part of the unsuccessful column to lift the Siege of Khartoum, but came to play an important part in the battle at Kirbekan. Following Garrison duties it was later sent to fight in the Boer War. I let you read more about the regiment and its further adventures during the Great War and World War 2 on Wikipedia (link here).
As I did last time I used the excellent Perry Painting Guide from their webpage (link here). I made six bases (40 by 20 mm) with firing poses and six bases with Marching poses – as the British did a lot of marching and I fancy a long column of soldiers in the end. Of course when I checked this out I realised that the South Staff Regiment and the Black Watch were ordered to wear red at the Kirbekan Battle – I painted mine with the grey/blue uniform last week – Oh well perhaps the Scots did not listen to the English commander, or I have to do another set of them in red!
14. South Staffordshire Regiment This regiment and the Black Watch were ordered to wear red to storm the ridge at the battle of Kirbekan, 10th February 1885
From the Perry Painting Guide
Anyway, here is how the South Staffordshire gentlemen turned out (they are 6mm Baccus from the their colonial range, link here).
/ Hope that was of some interest, next time I will do some Mahdists I think.
Maurice is an excellent game by Sam Mustafa and you can download some information on his webpage, including a lite version that you can play with (link 
I recommend that you read the first part from last week (link 
Roll a One - Wargaming Blog 