The SYW game

 Prelude to the Battle. A table set up for a game.

A fictional encounter loosely based around the Siege of Kolberg 1761.

In the evening of October 22, 1761, during the Siege of Colenberg (fictitious name), Lieutenant-General Platen positioned his 1st brigade, commanded by Von Haistling in the earthworks outside the city walls.  This brigade was given defensive orders and tasked with defending the city.

Prussian 1st Brigade

4 x Musketeer bns,

1 x Fusilier bn with Artillery support.

A 2nd 'assault brigade', under the command of Colonel Kleist, were arrayed southword down the Schwanteshagen Road leading to the forest area of Kantreck. This brigade are on attack orders and tasked with driving back the Russian advance forces.

Prussian 2nd Brigade

2 x Grenadier bns,

1x Fusilier bn,

2 x Musketeer veteran bns.

A 3rd Cavalry Brigade under the command of the Duke of Bevern was placed on Kleists' right flank and were given hold orders. ( 1x Currasiers regiment and 2 Hussar Squadrons). Their main duty was to secure the flank against enemy Cavalry. However  Berven, constantly fighting against harrasing Russian Cossacks, was finding it very difficult to control his Hussar squadrons. Special rule Prussian Hussars must charge any enemy that moves within charge distance.

At about 11:00 p.m, the vanguard of the Russian army under Commander-in-chief: Count Villim Vilimovich Fermor marched out of camp towards the earthworks, the 1st brigade under 'Panin's' supported by a large Russian Artillery Battery are given Attack orders. Their objective is to destroy the Prussian bns at the city defence earthworks.

Russia 1st Brigade

5 x Musketeer bns.

2 x Artillery guns.

A 2nd brigade under 'Suvorov' were deployed southwards adjacent to the Prussian 2nd brigade and given hold orders.

2nd Russian Brigade 

5 x Musketeer bns.

1 x Grenadier bn.

2 x Light Artillery 

A 3rd Cavalry brigade under Fillove ( 2 Currasier regiments and 2 squadrons of Cossacks) were given attack orders and tasked with probing the Prussian right flank looking for weakness.

A Russian supply coloumn of 5 waggons protected by light infantry has found itself dangerously out of position and exposed to enemy Cavalry.

We are using my own rules that are a variant of Jay Whites free AWI rules.

Figures are mostly from my own range Claymore Castings with Wargames Foundry Cavalry.

The buildings are all scratch built for me over a long period of time by John Boadle and James Sharpe.

War of the Spanish Succession

 

A few images and a short video on my War of the Spanish Succession army.

I'm just building this collection up at present but a few nice photos helps me to keep enthusiastic!

Figures are Ebor miniatures with one unit of Warfare Miniatures, the buildings are all scratch built for my collection over a number of years.

The flags are cloth printed by John Hutchison. 

Napoleonic Prussian

 Pictures of some Perry Napoleonic figures I have painted a while back. The pictures have went missing from my blog here, when I had a tidy up..or I forgot to post them!

The White Swan

 I have started a dedicated page on this blog for my 'Wars of the Roses" project. Click on the link in the "pages' bar above or visit..

The White Swan

https://saxondog.blogspot.com/p/the-wihte-swan.html

3rd Century Roman Army

 Some pictures of my 3rd Century Roman Army.  All ' A and A Miniatures '

Seven Years War at Partizan

 Sorry for the lack of posts this last few weeks! I have been very busy getting the, Seven Years War, demonstration game ready for the 2nd Partizan show in Newark. 

The game was a fantastic success at the show but that wasn't just down to all the painting, modeling and collecting part. My fellow 'Bodkins ' members Simon Chick, Andy Mill and Nichol Murray were fantastic at engaging the public and playing the game when possible. They were true ambassadors for the period and the hobby of wargaming !

We used the 'Valour and Fortitude' rules with a few modifications that we felt represented the period. For example.. We only permitted one bn gun per brigade and for them to only shoot at musket range (as a support close weapon) with the bn they are attached to. We felt that giving every unit a bn gun would be too powerful and besides we wanted to use the models we had :) The Russian were given a 'Stubborn ' rule to make them slightly harder to fail morale and the Prussians were given extra movement at the begining of the game to emulate their ability to sometime out flank an enemy. Nichol Murray put all these ideas into rule mechanics and we are planing an article for a magazine.

The figures and terrain were mostly from my collection with 5 units of cavalry and some artillery kindly loaned to me from Ken Pearce's collection.  This loan realy took the pressure off me close to the deadline.

I think we had about 750+ figures on the 14 foot by 6 table. Not too packed that we couldn't manoeuvre but just enough to make it look like battle lines. I sometimes feel demonstration games don't give enough room for cavalry to game and we wanted a bit of space for them.

The senario was an idea I had after reading about the battle of Zorndorf. The Prussian and Russians both claimed victory. I wanted to play a fictitious battle set after the battle (Mostly because I wanted to use all my terrain) where a Prussian army is shadowing a Russian retreat after Zorndorf.  At the beginning of the game we rolled for casualties and ammunition limits per brigade. Then distributed them throughout the brigades. This was to simulat a bit of attrition from the previous bloody battle. No unit would start the game fresh and add a bit of reluctance to engage.

A small Russian reargard were tasked to guard a large Russian supply waggon column against an overwhelming number of Prussian's until the main Russian army could return. I have attached the scenario hand out as an image below. Again my good friend Nichol Murray took and added to these ideas and made the handouts.

The figures are Claymore Castings infantry and Wargames Foundry Cavalry.  Buildings are all from my collection. The castle was made for me by master model maker John Boadle, many years ago.

The vilkage buildings were made by the equally talented James Sharp. I made the fleece mat And other bits of terrain.

So, here it is, our homage to the period inspired by the collections of John Ray and Charles Grant's Scenarios.

'ZORNDORF THE AFTERMATH '