Seven Years War Russians in Two Scales

 First, a WIP of my latest big project, a 36 figure Russian regiment in waistcoats from the Foundry 28mm SYW range.   All my Russian infantry to date are in green coats, so this unit will stand out on the table, and the red is a nice look.   If I'm lucky I get a few hours a week to plug away at these guys, and have developed a sort of Zen like attitude towards painting one colour at a time on all 36 figures.

At the same time, I've had a look at these 15mm Russian SYW figures from TundraWorks, a Canadian company based in Ottawa.  I ordered an army pack during their Kickstarter last year and have just gotten around to looking at them.

As others have noted online, these pewter figures seem slim, but people also tend to say that they look good when painted.   I thought I'd give this batch, also in waistcoats a try.

As things get fraught between Canada and our neighbours to the south, it's good to know that there are home grown sources for figures.  Tundraworks has a line of Lace War and Napoleonic figures, which can be ordered from their Kickstarter page, though how one orders seems a little opaque to me.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,  MP+

New Years Day Seven Years War Battle

Here's some more reporting on the gaming day I hosted this New Years, which is already well in the rear view mirror!   The players were Conrad, visiting from Ireland (THE Conrad Kinch), and David.   CK is a total grognard, whereas David was playing his second war-game ever.   We used figures (mostly Foundry and Front Rank) from my collection, and the rules were the very dependable Honours of War by Keith Flint, published by Osprey.

CK set up his Russian army, giving his commanders ridiculous names like General Timoshenko Hortonivitch.   To stretch my limited collection, we used three base units, which worked well enough:  regiments had a decently sized footprint on the table and gave both players enough units to manage while having a decent range of tactical choices.

The Russians had an advantage in infantry: two brigades of three regiments each, while the Prussians had one brigade of four.   Both sides had a grenadier regiment, and the rest of the troops were line.   The Prussian advantage lay with their better generals.  The Honours of War rules are unforgiving with the Russian subcommands, who statistically tend to be worse than their Prussian counterparts.   Thus Conrad had three dim and doddering brigade commanders, whereas the Prussians had two competent ones and one dashing general.   This would give the Prussians a huge advantage in initiative and twice allowed a Prussian brigade to get an extra move.   To offset, I should have given the Russians another battery.

Prussian lines arrayed for battle:

Given some coaching, David, the novice player, decided that the best thing to do with his Prussians was to be aggressive.   He ordered his cavalry forward, the hussars on his left and the heavy brigade of horse on his right, see here thundering forward.

While the fifes and drums called his infantry forward in the centre.  Frederick is seen on the far right, plotting the course of the battle.

The Prussian and Russian heavy cavalry collide on the one flank, and engage in a massive scrum in which the Prussian horse gradually and slowly get the upper hand.

The battle was actually decided on the Prussian left flank, where sadly I don't have any photos, but after defeating the Russian light horse, the Prussian hussars were able to exploit an extra move thanks to their superior commander, and start rolling up one of the two Russian infantry brigades.   Conrad was an excellent sport, coaching David on how to use his cavalry to best advantage in the situation,  even though he was working to defeat himself in the process.  Well done, CK.

The decisive moment was the impact of the Prussian infantry brigade on the Russian centre, where the bloodiest moments of the battle occurred, but when the smoke cleared, two Russian regiments had been mauled for the cost of one Prussian, and the Russians were at their break point.

Here, Frederick is being congratulated by happy Silesian peasants, who are trying to sell him snacks and souvenirs.

A decisive Prussian victory achieved through good sportsmanship by both players.  My friend David is keen to play another game, if I can get him away from working on his model railroad layout, and I continue to be impressed by the HOW rules, simple, easy to teach, and highly playable.   Also a thrill to get the bulk of my slowly growing Seven Years War collection on the table.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

 

Canadian Wargamer Podcast Episode 27 is Up!

 We've been hibernating a lot lately, but the latest edition of our (me and James Manto) highly irregular podcast is up.   Give it a listen.  Will we do more?  Hopefully, the mojo is seeping back, like maple syrup.

New Years River Plate Refight

Hi friends:

In January I was either sick, crazy busy, or on holiday, so catching up now. 

On New Years Day I hosted a few games, including another go at the Battle of the River Plate.   I split the three RN cruisers between my friends Conrad and David, and I ran Graf Spee and handled the game play, since I was the only one who knew the rules.

Sadly no photos of the game, as I was quite busy, but I can report that it was a decisive win for Captain Langsdorf.    As both sides closed the distance, a salvo from the Graf Spee's big guns hit Ajax.  The first shell hit the bridge, wiping out Commodore Harwood, Captain Woodhouse, and their staff, but the second shell hit a magazine and the unfortunate ship detonated and was gone.

Shocked, the British players gamely closed, scoring some hits but taking the worst of it.  Spee turned to present her full broadside, and soon Achilles was in serious trouble, listing badly and struggling to control flooding.   The pressure was now on Exeter, and she gamely fought on as turret after turret was knocked out, while scoring some hits.   With her final salvo before succumbing, Exeter scored a hit on the Spee's rudder and leaving her victorious but steaming in circles.

Would Langsdorf be able to repair his rudder before HMS Cumberland arrived?  That was a faint consolation to the RN players, now gamely clinging to wreckage, so we called it as a German victory of sorts.  I've now fought the battle twice, and the score is Kriegsmarine 1, Royal Navy 1.   An excellent scenario to introduce players to naval gaming.    We used the Naval Thunder rules and they continue to impress me.

At present I am assembling a GHQ model of Bismarck, and hoping to do the Battle of the Denmark Strait soon.   I'm quite enjoying naval gaming as a diversion.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls.  MP+

Work In Progress: Foundry Ancient Germans

 

From the Foundry Ancients range, 28mm Germanic warriors finished and in the basing queue.   Shocking fellows, terrible manners.

Back to the River Plate: Reevaluating the Battle

Recently I did several posts here describing my new interest in WW2 naval wargaming, and how I picked the 1939 Battle of the River Plate as my entry point.

I was quite interested today to read this evaluation of the British performance in the battle, which naval historian Alan Zimm argues was much less impressive than the myth making and propaganda that arose after the battle.  Much of the propaganda told the story of an inferior force defeating a German monster, when in fact the RN ships had a significant advantage due to their much higher rates of fire.

Zimm finds several faults with Commodore Harwood's conduct of the fight, including:

1) sending in Exeter for a one on one fight with Graf Spee, leaving her unsupported by the light cruisers Achilles and Ajax, pursuant to an RN doctrine called flank marking, which assumed that one ship could observe and correct the fire of friendly ships attacking from a different angle; 

2) over reliance on pre-war simulations which assumed a much higher RN accuracy of fire than Harwood's light cruisers actually achieved;

3) general mishandling of information, particularly a decision to abort when he was told that he only had 20% ammunition remaining.  In fact, this report was only for one of Ajax's turrets, whereas Ajax and Achilles still had more than enough shells remaining to finish the fight.   By the time Harwood broke off, his light cruisers were at 8000 yards and closing, and were finally achieving multiple hits, which seriously degraded Graf Spee's gunnery.   Zimm believes that Harwood could have won the fight had he remained.

It's all a bit academic, as Graf Spee of course scuttled herself in Montevideo and the British got a huge boost, making up for the RN's poor showing thus far in the war.  Whether you agree or disagree with Zimm, his point about how wargaming led the RN to develop faulty gunnery doctrines, based on false assumptions about accuracy at long range, is interesting.

Cheers,  MP+

Prussian Musketeer Regiment Mustered Into Service

 I'm very happy that this large Prussian regiment for my SYW project is complete and now mustered into service.   These are Foundry 28mm figures, and since they are sculpted wearing jackets without lapels, I painted them as Musketeer Regiment No 3, Anhalt Dessau.  This regiment had a mixed war record, but redeemed some earlier fumbles and won back Frederick's regard for its performance at the Battle of Liegnitz.

Here we see the entire regiment drawn up and practicing its musketry drill, under the watchful eye of Der Alte Fritz.  That parade ground looks quite idyllic!

The uniform for this regiment was fairly utilitarian:  dark blue coat with red collar, cuffs and turn backs, white waistcoat and breeches, and black gaiters.   As usual, I used Foundry tritone paints over a black undercoat.  There are 36 figures in this unit, so I developed a kind of zen-like detachment to the painting.  It helped that the core of the unit is in two poses, so that broke the monotony a bit.  I think I started this project in September, or possible earlier this summer.  It's been a while.

I'm of two minds about firing poses.  They add some variety to the army, and look good in game photos (the thin blue line making an heroic stand) but the bases look a bit strange when in march column formation.   I wanted the second rank to look like they were ready to step forward and fire once the order was given.

Command stand,  the poor drummer getting that fife right in the ear!  The flags are by Adolfo Ramos in Spain,  I think he's the best in the business.

Two hard bitten NCOs.

A closeup of the firing line.  The entire unit is 6 stands of six figures each, plus the two single mounted NCOs.   I wanted to see what a smaller unit of only two or three stands would look like for larger scale games such as Sam Mustafa's Might and Empire, and it doesn't look too bad at all!  Of course, not every two base regiment can  have it's own standards, but the command stand would perhaps serve as the centre regiment of a brigade in the larger scale battles.

Hard bitten NCO training his troops to fire three rounds to the Austrian's one.  His can will be liberally applied.

Rear view.  I like the look of six figures to a base, it conveys the closely packed formations of the period, but I sometimes wish if they were four to a base, it would be easier to play SYW Sharpe Practice games, as the SP size for a group is eight figures.   I have tried playing Sharpe Practice with six figure groups and it works, but troops are more fragile.

Well, thanks for looking.  Next in the SYW queue is a regiment of Foundry Russians in their distinctive red vests, which is a good look.  Prussian reinforcements in 2025 will include a grenadier regiment (I should make it a colourful one), von Kleist's Freikorps lancers, and some Friekorps or garrison infantry.  Hopefully I can master the same zen like detachment to paint more of these large units.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+