Following on from an earlier posting, link here (it could be worth checking that one first and come back here later if you have not seen it), here are some more stuff for the Scania 1677 project. The plan was to play a few games with the family over the Christmas/New Year period but due to COVID etc it did not materialise, however I did finish some stuff. The first this is a new unit, the Black Widows, led by Svart Sara. This is to represent the many casualties in the Scanian region during the war and the population being tired of having to provide contributions to both the Swedes and the Danes. She has swore to wear black until this war is over.
Svart Sara – a Landsknecht from Warlord with a head from the Frostgrave Wizards range, and a sword from the Assualt Group.
The Black Widows (Officer and 7 soldiers) – Officer and 100 points
Svart Sara (Officer), Ailo (A Sami Scout, counts as Native Scout) and 3 black widows (Infantry). Various conversions using Warlord English Civil War plastics for muskets, frostgrave female wizards, green stuff and the Sami Guide is a Compagnies Franches Officer with a headswap from Northstar).
Ulrica (Occultist), Maria (Supernatural investigator) and a Black Widow (Infantry), again various conversions.
I also made some more Danes, Swedes and Freeshooters. This is actually slowly growing to something more like Sharp Practice than Silver Bayonet – perhaps Sharp Silver Pilke?. But that is another story.
Danish Infantry from Reiver Castings
as above
Swedish Infantry from Northstar
as above
Some more Freeshooters from Perry Miniatures and the Officer in the Back from Bloody Miniatures
Some Reiver Casting Freeshooters
And some Revenants, well if it is Silver Bayonet we need some strange stuff as well, so I got these from Fenris Games.
/ Hope that was of some interest, just basing up some other stuff at the moment.
A few days before Christmas I was invited to speak on Sean Clark’s podcast Gods Own Scale, where I covered some thoughts and reflections from the year that just passed (link below the picture, if you want to check it out).
It is always great to catch-up with Sean and it is well worth checking up his back catalogue if you are not already familiar with it.
Anyway as a kind of complement I will do a quick overview of some of the things I did on the hobby front this year (mainly an organised listing of links to blogposts). As always in doing the review I realise that I have been doing far more than expected.
The sections are
More 3D printing
Commissioning some 6mm miniatures
Sweden 1943 Project 15mm
6mm Projects
The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
Terrain Projects
Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm
Other Projects
An Awarding Year – Caesar Award (Wargaming Blog 2021) and Best in Show at Salute (6mm Poltava 1709
More 3D printing
I continued some exploration of 3D printing and came to the conclusion after a lot of printing that I should stop just printing and just keep things back until I intended to paint stuff, avoiding creating yet another mountain – this time in resin instead of lead. On the whole I really enjoy using the printer and the result it produced – it has not really reduced the amount of stuff I buy but has given me some options for doing alternative stuff. Here are few of the stuff I did do.
I printed a few ships and Max and I had a blast playing a few naval engagement with them.
I also got a battle mat from Geek Villain for naval engagement (or wide rivers).
Some really nice details in these 1/2400 scale shipsI also printed up a company of “Sturmis”, the Stug used by the Finns in WW2
I also commissioned some 6mm miniatures to be used as commanders for my GNW 6mm stuff. I did 5 minutures in total, the one below shows Stenbeck at Helsingborg in 1710.
More about that here and the other miniatures that I commissioned.
Further Progress was made on my Swedish 1943 Project and I added some more tanks and armoured cars (well trucks). I also did a high level army list for O Group, the new game from Too Fat Lardies.
The only big 6mm project I did start in the year was the Forces in Holstein 1700 as part of the start of the Great Northern War. This offers two very colourful opposing armies and the potential for a very interesting wargaming experience – in reality there were no big field battles, but this project offers some exploration of this.
I also bought some already painted 6mm ancients that I rebased and quickly got my 6mm Ancient Punic War collection substantially increased. I also did a summary blog on a lot of the #6mmtips I have shared on twitter over the last few years. More on these projects below.
The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
This year I took the Battle of Lund 1676 to the Virtual Joy of Six event, I ended up doing a video to present the game and also talked about the Charity Project that was completed last year. There are some links to two video that was produced to support these projects.
I did a lot of terrain projects this year most notably I did a lot of clutter, or immersion markers as I prefer to call them, for the 1943 table, but there are some generic ideas you could use for other theatres and scales. I also did a fair few buildings and fields.
These projects has allowed me to create some really immersive battlefields, like this one. Here a little video that Des Darkin did showing off the table laid out using many of the terrain elements produced this year (thanks Des).
I did some further work on my Fantasy Ice hockey project and we are developing some alternative rules to use. More on some conversions and some 3d printed models below.
I received two awards this year, the Caesar Award for the Blog of 2021 organised by Little Wars TV and also the Best Game in Show (Presidents Award) at Salute for the 6mm Poltava 1709 table.
Here a video made by Alex at Storm of Steel covering the show with an interview with Nick and I discussing the battle.
The following is a companion blog post for the Lund 1676 battle that will be presented at the Virtual Joy of Six 2021 on Sunday 4th July 2021 (starting 10am, UK time, more detail will follow on Baccus.com). It contains the Ordre de Bataille that is used to set up the table and play the game presented, also the unit types and qualities used for the battle. These a specifically for the Sun Kings rules, but I hope you could have some use of these for whatever rules you use. The idea is aggressive Swedish Units but not up to the quality we would expected in the Great Northern war – a lot of the galloping horse (i.e. shock cavalry) are using the tactics but are classed as raw due to lack of experience in the method (with a few exceptions). Similar the Danes used the Caracole and this have been classified as Poor Cavalry but trained (bad tactics but good soldiers). Similar for the infantry but we have assumed all units as trained. The extra morale factor for the Swedes often used in the Great Northern War is not present in this battle. Note that a large number of the Swedish units are classified as small due to the very small numbers of reported men in the battalion or the squadrons.
Note that we used a base width of 30mm and therefore most units where 60mm wide (battalion scale lite, as this does only one battalion and 2 squadrons per units, instead of the normal two battalions and 4 squadrons per base. We used some odd 30mm bases and used these are an additional base for the large units and this base, was taken away when the first morale loss was failed (simulating the additional resilience of the large unit). Also note that the Dutch Sailors have been given the inferior infantry classification, this means that they are always inferior to the normal infantry units in melee and in musketry. As for cavalry the Swedes had 12 guns and the Danes 56 guns, I have given the Swedes 2 gun bases and the Danes 6, perhaps the Swedes only deserve one?
The pride of the Swedish Army now and then, the Life Guard. With traditions dating from 1521, the regiment is one of the oldest military units in the world still in existence, and sees its start when 16 young men from my home county Dalarna were selected to become body guards for Gustav Eriksson as part of the Swedish war of Liberation that would eventually end in Gustav becoming King of Sweden in 1523.
/ Hope that was of some interest, let me know how you have interpreted Lund 1676, and I hope you check out Joy of Six, there will be plenty of 6mm related things to explore.
As you may know I like using adhesive vinyl floor tiles that you can get cheap from Poundland as bases for my terrain projects and have used both the long plank variety as well as the square foot type (as shown in a few old posts, like this one way back (link) or this one (link).
They sell at £1 for 3 in Poundland, I suppose you could use them for your floor too. I like that they rigid yet flexible. They warp but you can kind or bend them back. Store them flat.
Use in practice, each farm in my Sweden 1943 project has a separate tile made from one of the vinyl floor planks.
A selection of Farm Tiles giving each farm as more immersive feel.
For the Lund 1675 project I want to make a wintery mat (later post) and also add some frozen fields with bushes etc around them. These would be stand alone fields and I wanted to make a test section to see how it would work out using some tiles and well as draught excluders. I got some of ebay, and the smallest one 9X6mm or something like that, they are handy in that they are adhesive. I think they are sent in container from China.
The ones I bought
The steps in the captions
First I cut out a piece of nylon plan, and attached some of the draught excluder. Both the tile is adhesive as is the excluder. Easy and quick.Added some glue and then sprinkled some sand (bird cage sand) on the non-hedge parts.I tried to use the brush to go in one direction when spreading out the sand. Let Dry.Paint it shit brown, Let DryDry brush the base with whiteMix 1 part PVA glue and 2 parts of Snow Flock with a little bit of white.Add it to the top of the draught excluders and the ground that is not fields (try to do a 80-90% cover) you want some dark to shine through. Water down some of the mix (pva, snow and white) say 1 part to 2 parts water and spread over the fields and sprinkle some snow flock all over.Good to go…Add some miniatures (you may want to add some more snow flock, I like it when it is not totally white)Looks the part…
Hope that was of some use, these tiles will enhance the table and I will make them bespoke to the scenario and then a few generic ones. They are really easy to make and relatively cheap.
Now I just need to get some more vinyl floor tiles,
This is a very short-worded blog, but instead I hope the pictures will be of some interest, perhaps the “winteriness” will give you some relief in the heat. This is the Danish and Swedish armies for my Battle of Lund 1676 project. I finished them earlier this month and the next step will be to make some specific terrain for the battle. More about this project later, all models are from the Baccus Sun King range (link here).
/ That was all for now, a closer inspection of the units in the next update!
It has been a little bit of a strange year with a lot of pressures making it difficult to devote as much time as I would like to the hobby – but in retrospect and upon reflection I seem to have been doing a lot more than I thought. I had lots of fun with the hobby and that is what it is there for!
This is a summary blog of the year and contain some additional pictures not covered in any published blogs. I hope you will find this review interesting. I take my hat off for all of you who engage with the blog directly, follow the roll a one page on faceboook (Roll a One, @rollaonepage) or the Per at RollaOne feed on twitter – It really matters to me – so thank you very much. I had as an unwritten rule to do a blog every week, this year I have managed to do 41 blog posts – so I failed the objective but I am happy with that. I could easily have dragged this one out over a few blogs with the extra material but wanted to make a long one of this last one.
This is my Twitter Feed and probably the best place to follow the going-ons!
The most popular blog post this year was this one detailing how you can enhance your 6mm, or any scale, pictures using your computer screen. Bleeding obvious to me but a lot of people have found it useful!
This blog post has a lot of pictures and links (these are the underlined sections, they lead directly to the blog post I am talking about) and basically covers:
Poltava 1709 and Joy of Six 2019
Battle of Lund 1676 project
Gaming with the Little One and a book from Henry Hyde
WW2 What-if Invasion of Sweden in 1943 and roundpole fences
The Mutant 1984 Project and our Christmas Mutant Dinosaur Hunt
Being on Podcasts and some other stuff
Poltava 1709 at Joy of Six 2019
This was the culmination of a three year project covering the Russian Campaign of the Great Northern War and this year I presented Poltava 1709 at Joy of Six show in Sheffield. This has been a fantastic project and this 16 by 5 feet table actually made me somewhat emotional when I first put it up on the Show (but then each one is pretty special at the time). I did plenty of blog posts about the project this year, you can find them below. We will put up the table again in 2020 at Salute in April. This project was done using 6mm Baccus miniatures.
Overview of Poltava, the Monastery and the Swedish Camp
Overview of the Redoubts and field outside the Russian Camp
Detail of the Swedish Camp
I was really happy with the Poltava model
Here are some of the blog-posts covering this topic ( The last few are the finished article the others about how various elements were done).
My next bigger 6mm project is the Battle of Lund in 1676. This is one of the most famous battles of the Scanian Wars. I am doing this using the fantastic Wars of the Sun King range by Baccus 6mm.
Rauch’s Geworbne Cavalry Regiment
Prince Georg’s Regiment – a Danish regiment looking more Swedish than meatballs!
Gaming with the Little One and a book from Henry Hyde
I have had immense pleasure in engaging with the Little One yet again this year in painting, playing games and going to a few events together. He even wrote a review of the Airfix Battles Rules and about his day at Salute on the Blog. When I asked him about the highlights this year he told me that it was the book he was sent by Henry Hyde, the day we had playing Mike Whitaker’s Omaha game and doing the Star Wars Legion miniatures (more in the links at the end of this section).
The Little One and I met Henry Hyde at Salute (who of course wrote the Wargames Compendium, was the editor for Miniature Wargames & Battlegames and now runs the Battlegames Patreon Site that I am a supporter of, see link here https://battlegames.co.uk/patreon-supporters/ . Please check it out as there is a lot of good stuff there in terms of podcasts, videos and articles – whether you are a supporter or not).
On the way back Max realised that the Henry we had met was the same guy that had written the Wargames Compendium, a book he really loves, and said that he should have asked for an autograph. I mentioned this to Henry and a few days later, to our great surprise and delight, a parcel arrived with a letter and a book.
It is was an enormously generous gesture and one of those moments I think the Little One will carry with him for his whole life – many thanks Henry! The Little One then read the Featherstone book and wrote a letter he sent to Henry that made me really proud.
Dear Henry,
Many thanks for sending me the Donald Featherstone book, it was very kind of you and it made me feel very special. I like the words you wrote and I will keep this book forever. It has taken me some time to finish the book as I have had a few other things going on.
I enjoyed the introduction where he writes about ‘what wargaming is’ and also the overview of the different periods for wargaming – my favourite period is WW2. You have so many different aspects of things going on – on land, in the air, on and under the water and you are not sitting around in a trench for four years as in the Great War. At the very end of the book he writes something I really liked! “General Sherman, of American Civil War fame, is quoted as saying, ‘War is Hell’. So it is, and perhaps the wargamer, seeing just how helpless his little plastic figures are against the dice simulated effects of cannon and muskets, will appreciate more than ever the utter futility of real war.”
I also have a copy of your book, The Wargaming Compendium, and I think it is the best book a wargamer can get as it covers everything you need to know. In particular I like the chapter on understanding sizes, scales and chance. I love the picture on page 17 showing the different scales.
I hear you are writing another one and I hope it is going really well!
I know you like the Horse and Musket period so I thought you might like this Kings Carabineer from the Battle of Blenheim 1704 and a book about the Battle of Poltava.
WW2 What-if Invasion of Sweden in 1943 and roundpole fences
Some further works was done for the 1943 German invasion forces and defending Swedes. Making some transports for the Swedes with some tanks (including conversions) and a large number of German soldiers and vehicles. I also updated the Chain of Command list for the Swedes. More in the blog posts below (that is also including a note on the visit I did to Dulwich playing Chain of Command at the Warlords Lardy Day – thanks Iain!).
One of the best things that happened to this project this year was the roundpole fences developed by Paul Edwards (@Amaz_ed on Twitter if you want to contact him, or let me know and I will pass it on) that will enable me to give that special feel of gaming in Scandinavia/Nordic much in the same way as Snake Rail fencing indicate a wargame in North America.
How is this relevant to you if you do not play anything in Norway, Finland, Sweden or Estonia (where these fences are common) – well according to some theories they were in use during Viking times so if you are doing Dark Age wargaming (or Colonials as we Norse call it). So if you want to create that little Norse settlement in your Saga game or some other game including some Vikings and want to make it feel a little bit special than maybe this beautiful fencing will be an idea.
I asked Paul if he could help me out and quicker than I could say Gärdsgård – the name of the fence in Swedish – I now have 4-5 meters of it and I hope you agree it looks good.
A Mechanised Platoon is getting into position to defend against advancing Germans in 1943 (the KP-bil, was not taken into service until 1944 as the initial batch was rejected due to the weak armour plating – in this what if whatever was available was pressed into service – as they look too cool to not be part of this project).
Some tanks in support!
Troops embarking and jumping over the roundpole fences – it does not get more Swedish than this!
Tysken Kommer! (The German is coming!)
Granatkastargrupp i Position, skjut mot skogsdungen! (Mortargroup in position, fire against the trees!)
Target Spotted! Get ready to Fire!
The ones I have has been made for 15mm but Paul can make some in 6mm and 28mm too.
These are the ones I will be using for my Scanian War project.
These are a few in 28mm with some Mutant 1984 characters.
Paul also does some gate options.
I have also found a reasonable Vallejo mix for Falu Rödfärg.
50/50 of Bloody Red and Burnt Cadmium Red…
…gives that dark red old style colour that was more common around 1943 than the brighter red colour being popular today…
I think if works really well….
Beautiful design by Paul Edwards
Here are some postings for the Swedish WW2 project (as in all my posts there is plenty of pictures in each of them). The next step is to produce two half-sized campaign for Chain of Command (or any other Platoon based set of rules).
In addition we had a special Xmas game this year based on a vote we did on Twitter where the Mutant 1984 Dinosaur won the Day (beating Winter War, Swedish invasion 1943 and a “proper” GNW battle!). We used a variant of the The Men who Would be King rules (the same as in the Border Skirmish above) and it was a fun game with two factions of soldiers and hunters trying to take out as many Monsters as possible (2 Dinosaurs, a Giant Beetle, a Four armed Gorilla, 2 Swedish Tigers, a Dark Young of Stubb-Nigarakan) whilst fighting each other. I did not do a write-up but instead I have included a bunch of pictures from the game.
The Swedish (Sabre Tooth) Tigers are based on the Swedish Wartime information Poster stating “En Svensk Tiger” that means both “a Swedish Tiger” and “a Swede Shuts-Up”.
Being on Podcasts and some other stuff
Any regular reader of this blog will know that I have a few wargaming podcasts that I like to listen to whilst I paint and model – these are in no particular order the Veteran Wargamer, The Lardy Oddcast, Meeples and Miniatures, Havoc Cast Podcast, Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, Wargames Recon, Henry Hyde’s Battlechats and God’s Own Scale Podcast. They are all excellent and whilst I occasionally listen to others, those are my solid ones I will try to listen to every time (I listen to a fair few more non-wargaming stuff like the eminent Grognards RPG Files and We have ways and Audible books).
This year I have been humbled by having been asked to come on three of these shows and talk about stuff mainly relating to the 6mm work I have been doing, but also about wargaming with children and my great passion – the Great Northern War.
A few weeks ago Neil Shuck announced that he will stop the Meeples and Miniatures podcast as he has reflected on the time it takes to do the show and other priorities like gaming with friends etc. Meeples and Miniatures has, in my opinion, become like a wargaming (and Meeples) institution and its legacy is enormous and Neil and the other presenters (Mike, Mike, Dave, Rich and all the guest presenters) should be enormously proud of having created this. I felt so honoured to be asked to attend the show and had a blast – so much that it was enough to fill two episodes (sorry!, but thanks Neil and Mike for having me).
When I listened to Sean Clarke’s episode 0 and he declared that one of his inspirations to starting his blog (focusing on 6mm an history) was the work I have been doing with this blog – it made that and many days last year. I contacted him and asked if I could come and talk to him and we had a great time talking about the 6mm stuff I have been doing but also getting an idea of Sean Clarke’s upcoming WW1 project for Joy of Six in 2020. This is another excellent show and I really like all the episodes to date with many friends from the 6mm trenches. The show with Robert Dunlop (No 3.) is one of the best Podcasts I heard last year. Thanks Sean for my second outing this year – I had an absolute blast.
Henry’s Battlechat has very quickly built up an impressive catalogue of podcasts with a wide range of guests from the industry, rules designers, miniatures producers, artists, book publishers, academics, etc. I have stolen parts of Henry’s intro for this:
“Per is a wonderful ambassador of the hobby, friendly, approachable, intelligent and with a dry sense of humour that you might only notice when you’re halfway out of the door after meeting him! (Watch out for his comment about the Dark Ages being “Scandinavian colonial”!) Here, then, is this Swedish superstar of the hobby in full flow, waxing lyrical about 6mm gaming, the Great Northern War and other Scandinavian conflicts of the 17th and 18th centuries, making snow-covered terrain and the joys of being a wargaming parent.”
Finally I would like to say that my favourite wargaming thing this year was the visit I did to Evesham and OML7 (Operation Market Larden No. 7) – Thanks to Ade et al for this. I met so many nice people and had a fantastic time playing some great games.
80 years ago Finland was fighting for its independence against Soviet Union in what has become known as the Winter War. The war has a personal connection to me as the family on my mother’s side is Finnish. We have therefore fought a few battles using the Chain of Command rules to honour and remember the people on both sides who fought and died in this war.
The war started with a Soviet Invasion of Finland without a declaration of war on the 30th November 1939, the war ended 105 days later on 13th March 1940. More than 25,000 Finnish died and many were wounded. At the end of the War Finland was still an independent state but had lost about 10% of its territory and 12% of the population lost their homes and where re-settled. The Soviet Union’s losses were far higher and somewhere in the order of 150,000. The campaign was badly planned and conducted by the Soviets and the Finns fought bravely and with great skill.
Here are few pictures from one of these battles, somewhere along a country road…
A few more completed bases of the Danish Cavalry at Lund. All models from the Baccus Sun King range, link here.
1. Fynske Nationale Rytterregiment – 3 squadrons (Col. Kristof Otto Schack)
2. Sjællandske Nationale Rytterregiment – 3 squadrons (Col. Ditlev Rantzau)
1. Sjællandske Nationale Rytterregiment – 3 squadrons (Maj-Gen F. Arenstorff)
Soon 80 years ago the Winter War started
In other news it is soon 80 years ago the Winter War between Soviet and Finland started (30th November 1939). The 30th November this year is on a Saturday so the Little One and I plan on running a Winter War battle on that day. I am not sure we will need these excellent 15mm Aerosans from QRF (link here). They are excellent little models and I have had them on the soon to be finished shelf for far too long.
A few picture to get us in that Winter War mood! (miniatures from Battlefront).
3 more Danish mounted regiments for the Battle of Lund (Here are a few others in previous blogs here and here) in addition a note on how I do the winter basing on these at the end.
3. Jyske Nationale Rytteregiment – 3 squadrons (Col. A Sandberg)
Slesvig-Holstenske Nationale Rytterregiment – 3 squadrons (Col. Henrik Sehested)
2. Jyske Nationale Rytterregiment – 3 squadrons (Col. Jakob Bülow)
sssss
Winter Basing
This is how I base these miniatures.
I start with a dark brown base, I use chocolate coloured sand, but you could use normal sand and use a brown wash to colour it brown.
When applied and dry, I dry brush the base with wihte.
Be careful but try to do it everywhere possible, remember that the base will be seen from above mostly so if you only do the edges it will look very dark in the middle.
Ingedients for the next – some artificial snow, pva glue and a white colour (use cheaper paint, I normally have some poster paint I use for this).
Mix the snow with the pva glue to a mix with the consistency of say ketchup – not runny. This is based on a teaspoon of snow. Add a little bit of white paint – you do not need a lot.
Apply the past on the base, do not cover all of say 80% of it. You can hide any ugly areas where the base has not been covered by the sand and it looks weird – just cover it with the mix.
Sprinkle some of the snow scatter on top. This helps to add some reality to the final snow as the mix tends to dry to something that looks a little bit more like something dry than snow, the white colour (you added before) also helps avoid the snow getting too dark.
Let dry and enjoy! Of course this is a generalisation and done for effect rather than realism – but it works much better than something that is just white!
I have been ploughing on with the Danish Cavalry during some evenings when I have been staying away from home. I have had some good going and will present them here for the record as I get them based. As noted in Part 1 (link here) these have been based on small 30 by 30 mm bases representing a squadron.
The miniatures are from the Baccus 6mm Sun King range (link here) and an absolute joy to work with.
So in no particular order.
4. Jyske Nationale Rytteregiment – 3 squadrons (Gen. Carl von Arensdorff)
Carl von Arensdorff was the Danish Army Commander at the Battle, he had served as a Swedish General in the Second Northern War 1655-60. He was wounded at Lund, and his brother Friedrich took over command, and Carl died shortly afterwards. I will write more about the Battle of Lund in future installations.
Detleff Rantzaus Dragonregiment (Col. Georg Brochenhuus)
Did a little bit of painting of cavalry for the Scanian War project using Baccus 6mm new Sun King range just before our holidays, but forgot to log them here. I am really pleased with these models and there were a joy to point.
Starting with 3 of the regiments in the Right Wing – Commanded by Lt. General Frederik von Arensdorf.
The normal Polemos/Twilight of the Sun King basing I have used for my Great Northern War stuff has been 9 cavalry on a 60 by 30mm base, representing about 2 squadrons worth of riders.
For this project I decided to do one smaller bases 30 by 30mm for each squadron with 6 for Dragoons and 8 for regular cavalry – reading the accounts I want to enable the squadrons to have the ability to be an independent unit just like the battalion.
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