The Great Northen War, Swedes and some more Russians

Time for an update of what has being going on on the painting table. Currently the main focus is the Great Northen War.  

The Östergötland  Infantry Regiment

This was unit raised in the eastern part of Sweden. It participated in the battle of Hollowcyn 1708 as well as the battle of Poltava 1709. The miniatures are from Musketeers Great Northen War range.

These gentlemen are in attacking poses that matches the "Gå På- doctrine" of the Swedish infantry. The Swedes rather charged than exchanged volleys with the enemy. 

The Rostovska Infantry Regiment

A Russian unit that participated in the same battles as the Swedish above. The colours are bit speculative. The coat was supposed to be green with yellow facings, but the rest is more or less an educated guess. There are also grenadiers added to this unit. In reality the Rostova may not have any grenadiers within in their ranks in 1708-1709. During this period the Russians often formed separate  grenadier battalions.

The Great Northen War Project - More Russians

The Astrachanska Infantry Regiment

The Moskovska Infantry Regiment - the flag is slighly speculative. The uniforms seems to be ok.

An Uknown Infantry regiment - for generic use. The uniform colours are the most common along the Russian Infantry Regiments around 1708-1709

The Sibirska Infantry Regiment

The Moskovska Dragoon Regiment - these minis are from Warfare minatures. However I did some conversions using parts from the spare parts left over from the Wagames Factory boxes. There is also some green stuff involved(sashes and bandages)

As previously mentioned on this blogg my club has started a Great Northen War project. You can read more about it all if go to this link

The basic idea was to set upp a demo game at a major game concebtiln. The one we choosed is roughly a month from now. So I needed to get something done. The delivered from the UK has not yet arrived. So what to do? I went to local game store and bought the only suitable minis available.  The had couple of packs with 28mm generic plastic Spanish Sucession Infantry from Wargames Factory. To be honest this is not a favorite brand of mine. However there was very little else to. The end result was quite satifactory actually. With a little bit of paint and some work with the scapel it looked ok. If you do buy these minis there is one thing you need to do. The orginal minis suffers from a serious case of "swan neck". You need to cut down the necks otherwise the poor plastic soldier looks like a swan or an ostrich. This is however fairly easy to do. 

The Uniform Designs and flags are taken from the following source

Wargames Designs

Russians James

Tacitus.nu

AAR, French and Indian war, Burning down the House - a simple case of arson

Time for an other Donnybrook/FIW AAR....

Mugua, the Huron Held a grudge towards the Anglo-American settlement of New Bethany. Not only had they tried to convert his tribe to the faith of the Great White Father in Heaven, they had also shot his dog. Shooting a dog without a good reason is bad, shooting down a dog for just being a bit playful that outrageous( the poor thing just took a nible from Reverend Jebediah Windbag). When the war came it was easy for Mugua to listen to warlord rethorics of the French and his tribe soon joined the
them in the war against the English. 

Mugua decided to take his revenge upon New Bethany and at the same time serve his new French masters. The plan was to attack New Bethany and to burn down the Reverends home as well as his church. ...and so plans were set into motion.

 

The Militia defending their Church against the Hurons....

The set up and scenario rules...

In this game the attacker selects two buildings that he wishes to burn down. The main feature of the game board thus needs to be a village/settlement of some kind. The defender will do his best to protect the selected objectives. In this particular game the major objective was selected to be the
Church of New Bethany and the home of Reverend Windbag( kind of obvious considering Mugua's disposition towards the good Reverend.

 

Burt Brant aka "Snakefeet" and his Mohawks are debating how to defend the Settlement.

 The two sides have roughly equal forces and are placed on opposite sides of the gaming table. We opted for the usual 4 units on each side set up. The distances towards the objective should be the same for both sides. The defender then elects one unit that will ve placed next to one of the objectives.

 More Anglo-American defenders. Moving towards the Church

 

The bad guys(at least from an Anglo-American perpective) are moving in....

The battlefield(the settlement of New Bethany)

The Hurons are sneaking through the woods towards the church....

 

 The Algonquins ...soon to burn the Reverends house....

The newly arrived defenders are closing in on the church, the mauled militia has pulled back

The Reverend's house is on fire....

 

The Rangers are doing their best to keep firing at the attacking force...

The Church is on fire....

Burt Brant and the Mohawks beats the Huron in a close quarter fight. This was the decisive fightthat finished off the Huron menace....

The grenadiers are putting out the fire.. It's game over for Mugua this time..

The game ends when both targets are burned down or when it is no longer possible to do so. There is no time limit to the game. If one wishes to add some tempo to the game that might be an idea. In this game we did not have a set time limit.

To burn down a house a unit must be adjacent to the building. The unit then roll a d6. If the result is 5 or 6 then the house is burning. If the house burns in three rounds( including the ignition round) it is no longer possible to extinguish the fire. In order to extinguish the fire the defender must be adjacent to the building and rol 5 or 6. The fire is then put out. 

Deployment and units

In the game we played the local militia had decided to defender the Church. The home of the Reverend was left undefended. The only hope for the survival of the Reverend's estate was the Swift arrival of the Anglo-American units that was sent out to bolster the militia defending the village. These troops consited of Brittish Grenadiers,Mohawks and a unit of Rangers. The attackers consisted  three units of indians(Algonquins and Hurons). The attackers also had a unit of Coreur de Bois.

Finally both sides had two characters each. Mugua was present of course and rated as a "Hero"(level d12). Three was also a lesser character together with the Coreur de Bois. The Anglo- Americans main character was Burt Brant aka Snakefeet, a white Pathfinder/ Sachem who led the Mohawks. Snakefeet was also rated as a "Hero".  The French and the Brits had a sergeant each(level d8). The French had the sergeant attachés to the Coreur de Ois. The Brits had Sergeant together with the Rangers. 

How did the game turn out?

Well, the Hurons and the Algonquins advanced towards the Church and the House of the Reverend. The main effort was directed towards the Church. The militia defending the Church had a hard time. They had to hold out until the other Anglo- American units would arrive. The Algonwuins managed to reach the Reverends house and it soon went up flames. A unit of Rangers were the first British reenforcements to arrive. They tried to stop the Algonquins from Burning down the Reverends house, but they failed.

Things around the Church soon got heated. The militia was forced to retreat and the Hurons manged to torch the Church. A group of newly arrived Brittish grenadiers fought back the Hurons and managed to put out the fire. Two additional attempts to burn down the Church was made by the Hurons. All attempts failed. Inte end the British grenadiers in conjuntion with Mohawks decimated the Huron to such a point that they no longer were able to fullfill their mission. This was a victory for the Anglo- Americans. The Reverend was not pleased, but the Church was still standing. Mugua had failed and he swore to he would return.......