HOUSES

Small town house modified from a Schreiber building.

Print two and you will have two gables and two sides.

HOUSES

Another Schrieber modification. A town house.
Print 2 sheets at 1: 1 side a4
There is an overhang on each side of house.
One side should have windows pasted over the large door.

HOUSES

Schreiber houses are great but 1/87.
I have modified some to make simple 40mm houses.
I make 2 sides and half the roof, print 2 copies and build the house.
Print at about 90% of file size : check with a test print to make door 40mm high. 
Paste the paper copy to card or print on card.
The building needs stifffeners or use thick board/card.
Make a ruin which has the same base area and the house can slot over this.

Ouuch!

PRISONERS IN RUSSIA

Interesting article on the fate of the Swedish prisoners captured in Russia before and after Poltava.
Popular History(Sweden)

STRALSUND

A trip to Stralsund, beautiful Hanseatic city allowed me to see some portraits of Charles XII, weapons and memorabilia from the GNW. Unfortunately not much in guides and the glass cases and illumination made photography almost impossible.

 Swedish cavalry pistol with battle scen cast into the lock plate. Figures 5mm high !

Portraits of Charles XII. Simple military costume.He spent a year here after his enforced holiday in Moldavia. Stralsund was technically Swedish until 1807.

General whose name I wrote down and lost !

Eugene of Savoy.

CASTING UNDER WAY

First casting went ok after some initial frustration.
Essential to vent the moulds with small gates.

 Filled after a few tries. Most success after the mould is warmed up - hot to the touch.

 Bayonets or hands missing sometimes but most complete after gates cut.

First time success ! and a beautiful figure. One regiment, one squadron and a cannon cast.

PAINTING TROOPS

I'd like to represent all the armies and regiments in the campaign. Realistically, this isn't going to happen.

Instead I will make a command base for every regiment/battalion which will enable the troops to be identified as differnet formations but the basic troops will be painted in a limited variety.

I will paint troops in two uniforms. One will be Swedes of Charles XII, the other Russians of Peter the Great.

Later, if I have any battle involving three or more nations I can do more.

RAISING TROOPS

Each hex is a province. There can be a principal town in each province where the locally raised troops appear.

Each province can raise a battalion of foot, a squadron of cavalry or a battery of artillery. Coastal hexsides give one shipbuilding point which are used at the nearest port.

Once a unit is raised it can be put together with another unit in a regiment. Regimental associations cannot be changed once set-up.

Each winter the province sends recruits to the unit wherever it is. Loss of the province stops this. Captured provinces can provide half the original number of recruits and only as infantry which can be used in any of the new owner's units..but this is fixed once decided.

Units never go over their original establishment.

TOWNS, FORTRESSES AND SIEGE

Idea is to classify towns according to one number which reflects wealth, defences, recruitment capability and supply value.

The town defences can be related to this by allowing the number of bastions to be related to it.
The town size can be related by allowing a certain space inside the walls and a certain number of building 'blocks' in that space.

TOP-DOWN TROOPS

Reorganised from JuniorGeneral.org.

TABLETOP RULES

Trying some ideas using card prints made with Junior General's top-downs.

 

Below - A Russian battalion with mounted officer.

 

Below - Swedish battalion with pikemen and battalion gun.

 This is a good way to try things out before having armies of tin soldiers assembled.

PRINCE AUGUST MOULDS

Postman brought a box from Eire today. Prince August !

Should be enough moulds to cast everything from grenadiers to pikes and Swedes to Russians and Saxons.

Not sure when I can try the first castings..impatient.
Of course I have already decided I need some other moulds and should also make some modified figures.....

TABLETOP RULES BASING

Scale circa 25-33:1

Three companies is 6 figures which can fit on a base 2 deep. With frontage 60mm this gives a battalion of 18 figures - 600 men - with a frontage 180mm. At 1mm : 1 metre this gives a reasonable scale.

Two battalions will give a regimental frontag eof 36cm - manageable. To do big battles it could be convenient to double the scale to 1mm:2m and use one battalion to represent a regiment.

For pike-armed troops (usually 1/3) the two central figures on a base of 6 can be pikemen.

Combat range is now 120mm for usual close-combat musketry at 120-100 yards. Longest range will be the length of a battalion front - 180m.

TABLETOP RULES

Using Wesencraft's Efficiency Rating - which is a variation on the Shire Wargaming book system written by Arthur Taylor, I think.....

EFFICIENCY RATING = UNIT QUALITY=UNIT STATUS ish

1 - Troops not formed or trained properly
2 - Units newly formed, worn-out or second-rate garrisons
3 - Efficient Line units
4 - Elite units

Units can be assigned an ER by considering their status in the national army and dicing with +/- ave dice.
Maximum variation is 1. No unit can have ER more than 4 or less than 1.



                                                                       

BASING

Cannot really see  how pikes - 1/4 to 1/ 3 of companies - could have been massed at centre of a battalion. Any cavalry charge coul dnot be met with pikes. Outer musketeers had a long way to run to gain safety of the pikes. Also, in attack the pikes woul dtake a lot of fire without possibility for reply and they may break through independently of the musketeers.. problematic for command and control.

Distributed companies would, on the other hand, give extra umph to charges all along the line and break up any charging cavalry who would presumably have to avoid the islands of pikes.



So I will base 6 men on each 60mm front with 4 musketeers an d2 pikemen in two ranks.

TABLETOP RULES

The Grants' rules seem, unfortunately, rather unwieldy for 40mm and a limited table. I had hoped this new edition might address some of the problems of requiring so many figures and so much space. There is an attempt to do so in Annex 1 but no basic change in the rules concept. Organisation remains as fuzzy as it ever was in the old books. Adding pikes is a problem.

Charles Wesencraft's Practical Wargaming and Pike and Musket books actually offers some help. With pike mechanisms and UNIT EFFICIENCY RATING much of the GWR's essential character can be introduced to 'The Wargame'.

Had not read these in detail for years but actually very  thoughtfully devised rules. A step beyond the Grants and even Donald Featherstone, I feel.

I may opt for no casualty removal but some form of UNIT STATUS marking - firepower causing increased loss of order and capability rather than doing this by removing figures.

As ever, hopes to take a set of rules 'off the shelf' are not realised.

BUILDINGS

Following basic principle of keeping things simple and toy-soldier-like instead of going for the dolls-house school of super scale realism, I have decided on card for all buildings.

The German company Schreiber make beautiful card kits for old fashioned European buildings that suit c.1700 very well.

Received the first today - 1/87 and 1/90 scale. I will scan and print to double size which should suit 40mm.

TABLETOP RULES

Bad news, no Prince August stuff with the post.
Good news. Copy of the Grants' WARGAME RULES arrives.

Must admit I expected a bit more I could use here but they really do rely on large units.

Needs a bit of revision for my purposes - no pikes, no real mechanism for descrimination of Gå på tactics.

I love lines like  'A further 3 moves are required while the ruins cool but troops are allowed within 3" '.

CAMPAIGN RULES

The campaign will be based on Arthur Harman's 'Cockpit of Europe' rules from MINIATURE WARGAMES No.48, May 1987. (tries not to shudder at the realisation this is now 25 years old).
These use a very simple map and counters in a game with just enough detail to give the strategic background for tabletop battles. Any engagements that don't seem too interesting, or sieges, can be fought on the map.

RECRUITING

Have exchanged some plastic money for rubber moulds from Prince August. 40mm toy soldiers is a new genre for me. Now, where is that postman ?

THE COLD SEA

Washing southwards from the frigid North Polar Ocean, The Cold Sea is bordered by a motley bunch of nations struggling to progress beyond the early 1700's. Constant squabbling , endemic warfare and a tendency to completely ignore issues of public welfare and civil development (beyond fortifying places of strategic value) mean that progress is, actually, rather unlikely.