Last game of the year

My younger brother Matthew is visiting for New Years Eve with his wife. As the wives and children were out we decided to have a SYW game using my 6mm collection.

Matthew was my regular opponent when we were kids and this was our first game in some 20 years.  I commanded the Prussians and had the simple objective of capturing the village of Ilklewitz. It was to prove a tough nut to cracking. 

The Austrians deployed their artillery and infantry in the village.  The Grenz were on the Austrian left with their Cuirassier in reserve.

Without any artillery to support the attack I decided to launch my infantry and close as quickly as possible with the defenders in the village.

My cuirassier on my right also took the initiative and charged their opposite numbers. One of my squadrons catches an Austrian squadron at the halt.

My infantry are able to close to musketry range before the Austrian artillery cause any casualties. Both pieces missed with their two first shots.

The Grenz finding no opposition in front of them deploy out of the woods.

My Infantry advance to close range before opening fire against the Austrian artillery and infantry. This initial volley proved to be less effective than I had hoped. It was not helped when 2 of my volleys cause 7 hits against an Austrian 6 figure volley unit only for one figure to be hit 6 times.

Undeterred one of my infantry unit, despite losing its CO, charges into the village. It was to prove the Prussian high water mark.

My second battalion however does not receive the order to charge and with the Grenz now on their flank and causing more loses reach 50% casualties and forced to withdraw.

The battered Prussians realise the game is up and concede.

We used the War Game rules with some house amendments and substituted cms for inches.

More 6mm Austrians

I have finished a few more Austrian 6mm figures over the Christmas break.

First some Austrian command stands seen here posing in front of my first home 6mm trees.

A closer look. I used one pence pieces for both the command stands and trees.

I am planning a small game with my son Max in the next few days and I only have one Austrian Infantry unit painted up. So I decided  to add a couple of companies of Slavonisch-Peterwardeiner Grenzer.

My 6mm collection armies are slowly growing. For the Prussians I have 2 Infantry units and a Cuirassier unit. For the Austrians I have 1 Infantry and 1 Cuirassier unit supported by 2 guns and 2 companies of Grenz.

Enough for a small game using the War Game rules.

Austrian 6mm SYW Artillery

I finished some Baccus 6mm Austrian Artillery today.  I am using 2 bases per battery for the War Game.

In addition to Field Artillery I intend to add a battalion gun and 2 crew to each of my 48 figure regiments. 

Prinz von Braunschweig-Bevern

It's been slow going on the painting front over the last few months.  I have however finished the 7th Regiment Prinz von Braunschweig-Bevern using Baccus 6mm figures.

The full 48 figure unit. (Apologies for the poor photo)

A closer look at the command stands with flags downloaded from Kronoskaf and resized in MS Word.

A closer view of a single stand. Each bases is 2cm by 2cm.

I am planning on using Charles Grant the War Game and use rosters/markers to track casualties and officer losses.  I will be using cms instead of inches.  This will allow me to play the battles from C S Grants Wargaming in History and Refighting History series of books on my kitchen table. 

I need to paint up another battalion of. Austrians, artillery and commanders for both sides before I can run a small game. I will also need some terrain in the near future as well.

6mm Seven Years War

Earlier this year I bought some Baccus 6mm SYW figures as I was moving house.   My new house does not have a permanent wargame table and I wanted something smaller that I could use on a kitchen table.  6mm fits the bill nicely.

In the last few weeks I have completed 3 units.  These are organised for the War Game with 48 figure Infantry and 24 cavalry.  

I painted the cavalry units using my cheap Opti Visor I bought a while back from Boyes. This made a huge difference as I could see the detail and using a fine tip paintbrush I was able to paint cleanly. 

To finish of the figures off I decided to use Gloss varnish as this helped brighten the figures up as it reflects light.

First up are the Prussuan 5th Leib Cuirassier.

The full unit deployed.

I even managed to paint the flags.

Next a unit of Austrian Cuirassier.  In the War Game ruled these will fight as 4 squadrons of 6 figures.  In this scale officer loses will be marked. 

These figures are based on 2cm square bases with 3 cavalry or 8 infantry figures per base.  This means that I can use the War Game rules using cms rather than inches.  I will now be able to fit such classics as Lobositz and Fontenoy on the kitchen table. All I need to do is paint up more units and get some terrain sorted.

And finally we have a Prussian Infantry unit complete with flags made from images from Kronoskaf. I painted these before I got started using the Opti Visor and are not quiet as clean.

Blucher Basing

I made up a couple of Blucher movement bases for my old 15mm Napoleonics over the last few days.

My infantry are on 20 by 25mm bases so I made a 50mm square out of art mounting board. Bases will be attached with Blue/White tack.

For cavalry and artillery I am going to use some 50 by 45mm MDF bases I had lying around

Going to get a few done so I can play a game with Max soon.

Battle of Eylau

This weekend my son Max and I ventured over to Kens for a  game of Blucher using 28mm figures.

I had only played Blucher once and my fellow Russians (Max and James) had never played the rules. The French players (Mark, Tim and Ian) had played a few more games.

We opened with a general bombardment initially targeting the French artillery  and then Eylau and the cemetery.

Massed Russian Artillery with Infantry support.

The French defenders of the cemetery take horrendous loses.

The Russian Artillery continue to fire as the Russians launch their attack against Eylau.

Ken had produced roster sheets using photocopies of the cards. Each unit (brigade) had a number assigned and this , together with the corps colour code, were placed on small mdf squares next to the unit. This worked well. 

Russian Cavalry brigades is reserve (denoted by the inverted mdf marker)

Russian General Maximov ponders his next move.

Davouts Corps arrives on the Russian left wing.  This attack gained ground capturing Serpallen. We committed some of our infantry reserves and recaptured  the village putting the French to the sword.  

In the centre our attack was able to capture the cemetery and to hold it against a counter attack by the Imperial Guard. 

The French counter attack with cavalry lead by Murat himself. We are able to hold them and with night fall approaching we are able to get a foothold in Eylau itself.

Our loses have been high. The Frenck launch a final attack with their reserve cavalry which is able to overthrow some Ruusian artillery. We have reached our morale break point and concede the battle.

Overall I enjoyed the game and the rules worked well. When I got home I dug out my old 15mm figures.  Max says he wants to have a game. Expect some Blucher games in the near future.

The War of the Austrian Succession - 1

As regular readers of this blog will know early this year I moved house and as a result no longer have my permanent wargame table.  

In the next few weeks I will be able to have a temporary 6 by 4 table available to resume gaming. It's smaller than my old 10 by 6 I used to have in my basement.

So my thoughts are moving to what type of game I can put on this temporary table. 

With my son Max showing more interest I hope to do more gaming with him.

I have decided to set up a solo campaign to generate smaller 18th Century battles to game.  Many years ago I ran a Sport of Kings campaign from the Warfare in the Age of Reason rules. 

Reading the Campaign rules and looking at the map I decided to give it a go.  

The following show the maps which I found here.

http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedemanaphotos/SportKings/SportMaps.html

I have decided that I would leave out Turkey as I don't have any Ottomans.

So the scene is set. It's 1740 and I am ready to go.  I decided the following political stance for each nation as follows.

Sweden: unaligned but with a burning design to avenge the defeat at Poltava and seeks to take on Russia. Will cooperate with Prussian in this objective. I may well use my GNW armies for battles against the Russians. 

Russia: Apprehensive about Swedish intensions Russia will keep a large part of its forces covering this threat. The Russian however will look to seek territorial advances in the Baltic and Poland.

Prussia: Will look to expand whether it can with Austria and Poland it's key areas. Has a non agression pact with Britain over Hanover but is distrustful of British intentions particulary if they intervene to support Austria.

Austria: Austria only friend is Great Britain. Threatened by Prussian in the north and the combined Bourbon Alliance (Gallispan) in Italy and the Low Countries things look tough.

Great Britain: Brittania rules the waves - or does it ? The Gallidpan navies outnumber the British. Holding out in North America will be crucial and the  Med may be a side show. Hanover is also    a concern as is French action in the Low Countries. 

France:  Too many options not enough troops.  An alliance with Spain helps. France will work with the fellow Bourbons  in putting pressure on Britian in North America and the Carribean and in Italy against the Austrians. France main thrust will be in the Low Countries and a secondary option in Rhine.

Spain: The Spanish thrust will be directed towards Italy via France however the North American and Carribean will see both land and naval forces committed. The Spanish will look to control the Mediterranean Sea to support its Italian objectives. 

So the scene is set. Next I will set up the starting forces ready for the first Campaign moves.