6mm SYW – The Medetian Wars

Seven Years War Austrians

I’ve had a short break from the War of 1855 campaign – it’s been a bit hot and I’ve been a bit busy. However, the terrain from the last game was still on the table and I thought it might look good for some pics of another army.

These are some of my Austrian SYW (and WAS of course) 6mm army. I’ve deployed 20 battalions of regulars and 4 of Grenzers, plus 3 batteries of artillery and commanders. This represents half the target size for the army, which is about 70% done. There’s also the cavalry, which I didn’t set out, of which I’ve done 20 of the intended 32 units.

It’s been a few years in the making, but it’s getting there. The Prussians have recently overtaken them in terms of completed numbers, so I’ll aim to post some pics of them sometime.

Mollwitz in 6mm – part 2

The game played out much like the actual battle. The Austrians held tight except for the inevitable big charge by their left wing cavalry. The Prussians drove forward with their infantry but then paused to see how their right flank fared. Although the Prussian cavalry, and eventually the interspersed grenadiers too, were swept away, they held for just long enough for the right-hand infantry brigades to re-deploy and shore up the exposed flank.

The Prussian infantry then went forward to engage the Austrian battalions. Their superior musketry and discipline was soon showing, and the Austrian infantry began to suffer.

Although still a force to be reckoned with the Austrian left wing cavalry was going to be tied up dealing with the reforming Prussians, and sorting themselves out again in time to intervene in the centre was looking unlikely. This was made tougher by having poor old General Romer lying dead on the field, along with one of his brigade commanders.

The Prussian left wing cavalry flirted with their opponents across the rough ground around the stream, and did at least draw off a few Austrians who were sent to block the flank. Fighting was minimal though and neither side tried to escalate things into a major engagement.

Within 3 turns the Austrian centre was overcome by the Prussian’s devastating firepower. Their commander, General Neipperg, was shot from his horse and most of the battalions had retreated in confusion into Mollwitz. It was clear that it wasn’t going to be possible to reform them, and with the Prussians taking precautions against any final desperate attack by the victorious Austrian cavalry, the battle was effectively over.

The Austrian cavalry and the remains of its left wing infantry would be sufficient to cover a general withdrawal. The Prussians were in reasonable condition, but a long march through the snow followed by some fierce fighting, meant that there would be no vigorous pursuit. Frederick, who hadn’t actually fled the field this time, was satisfied enough with the first test of his new army, and was happy to let the beaten enemy go.

The game took about an hour and a half to play, same as it took to set it up. The fairly historical result was good to see, but I think I’d have enjoyed it regardless. The armies have taken a lot of effort to get to this stage (and there are still plenty more to do) so half the pleasure is just to get them on the table. Hopefully I’ll play some more games with them soon. I suppose I could work my way through Frederick’s battles in order – at least they start relatively small. Maybe it’ll be Chotusitz next!

Mollwitz in 6mm

This weekend I played a solo refight of Frederick the Great’s first battle, Mollwitz 1741, in 6mm. The rules were my Seven Years War variant of the Realtime Wargames set, Trapped Like a Fox, which has relatively simple mechanisms and is played on a grid.

Although a little short of space (the Austrians lacked the room for their cavalry to swing wide of the Prussian right wing) I was able to represent the full orders of battle. The armies were deployed ready to clash, as I didn’t feel the need to play out the Prussians’ slow march through the snow from their distant original deployment.

View from behind the Prussian infantry, looking towards Mollwitz and the Austrian infantry drawn up in front of it:

The Austrian view in return:

The powerful Austrian left wing cavalry, under the ill-fated (in both the real battle and the game) General Romer:

Some more pics of the Austrians:

I tried to reflect the various troop qualities, with the Prussians having by far the better infantry, and the Austrians the better cavalry. There were a decent number of generals and sub-commanders on each side. Well, at least at the start.

In game terms the options available to the two sides were basically what they were for the real commanders. The Austrians need to make their superior cavalry count on their left flank, their best chance of victory being to drive off the meagre Prussian cavalry and roll up the infantry. The Prussians need to hold off the enemy cavalry long enough for their excellent infantry to march up and crush their Austrian counterparts. For both armies the stream and rough/boggy ground made the other flank an unlikely place for any decisive action.

Oh yes, a pic of the battlefield before everyone turned up:

That’s the preamble, the next post will cover the game itself.

SYW in 6mm – Project Update

I thought I’d post a general round-up of progress with this project.

I’m still working on these armies, but have made it to the point where I can play modest-sized games, which was always the first objective. I’m coming up to the half-way point with both the Prussians and the Austrians, and intend to keep chipping away at the remaining units.

So far I have completed 20 Austrian battalions and 12 cavalry units, plus some batteries and Grenzers. The Prussians are a little behind these numbers, but I will switch back to them soon to get them caught up. The flags keep slowing me down so I’m going to reward myself by doing more Grenadiers next, who of course generally don’t have them 🙂

A few pics of a recent tabletop outing, using the new under-scale buildings from Supreme Littleness:

More Supreme Littleness Buildings

I’ve finished off the rest of the buildings I ordered in December. This means I’ve now got 7 bases done, including a church and manor house/schloss. I think I’ll order more soon so that I can place 2-3 villages on the table. I may add a taller spire to the next church, and possibly a bigger surrounding wall, as per Leuthen.

Since painting the farm I’ve speeded the process up a bit by cutting out most of the half-timbering, which isn’t a very Silesian look anyway. I’ve basically just used a couple of dry-brushed colours, some washes for the windows, plus sand on the bases.

With some trees interspersed and some other bits and pieces, I think they’ll look the part.

They may even get used in a game this weekend!

Testing Downsized Buildings from Supreme Littleness Designs

Despite my intentions to make all the rustic buildings I need for my 6mm SYW setting, I have recently been tempted to drop down a scale for them. I think there’s a sliding scale for the aesthetics of matching buildings to figure size – and it relates to the size of the conflict being represented.

For skirmish games you need a good match, as the individual figures will generally interact closely with the buildings, sometimes even being placed inside them. For a big battle, the main problem with matching scale buildings is the footprint. You end up saying ‘this cottage represents the whole village’, etc, which is fine, but coupled with the towering height of the building over the supposedly substantial troop formations, this can jar a bit.

Others have taken the approach of going to the next ‘wargaming scale’ down for their buildings, and I’ve always been interested in this approach. Goat Major is putting 1/300 buildings with his 10mm DBN Napoleonics, and I’ve liked what the Baccus guys have done in the past with their miniature big battle show games, using 2mm buildings.

So, when I saw an advert for the new 3mm MDF buildings from Supreme Littleness Designs I decided they might just work with my Heroics & Ros armies, as these figures are a bit smaller than the more modern approach to ‘6mm’. I ordered a few packs from their central Europe range and they arrived very quickly via their friendly and efficient service.

I put the first one together, a partially walled farm on a 40x40mm base. Everything popped out of the pre-cut MDF sprue very easily and then I set-to with the glue. What I hadn’t realised was that the buildings come not as ‘boxes’ to be assembled, but rather as a sort of swiss roll that needs to be built up layer by (vertical) layer. This was a bit tricky, but I was probably just being inept. Adding the long side fascias helped align them better, but I didn’t manage to get them 100% right. Still, rural buildings don’t always adhere to straight lines do they?

First one assembled:

With a battalion of Prussians:

Painted (I added some timbers with the brush), with a bit of texture on the base:

I have more village and farm buildings to do, plus a church and a manor house. Most are about £2, which is very good value.

All in all I really like these models. They’re fun to put together and very easy to paint. Some climbers on walls, the odd tree drilled into the base, and some tactical dry-brushing, and they fit in well with my terrain and other scenery. In terms of size, I don’t think they look too small compared to the figures, although I won’t be sure until I’ve done enough to create a settlement from several bases. I also like the 40x40mm basing approach, which makes them modular and easy to place, and move when more space in a game grid square is required.

I’ll aim to get more done over the Christmas period and post again when I finish them.

Merry Christmas to everyone who’s visited this blog in 2016, your interest and encouraging comments are much appreciated. Have a good one.

One Hour Wargames – SYW

The blog’s been a bit quiet lately, but I do have some updates on recent games and painting efforts.

Since my previous posts in October about trying the rules and scenarios in Neil Thomas’ ‘One Hour Wargames’, there have been some further games and even a mini-campaign.

I wanted to play a series of linked games so wrote some simple campaign rules to govern the movement of various forces on a map and deal with the outcomes of battles, etc. I decided to go with a trusty square grid map, partly for convenience when it came to movement and terrain effects, and partly so I could use MS Excel to create it and avoid having to fall back on non-existent artistic skills.

I set the campaign in Silesia in about 1757, but created the specific local area to suit what I wanted. The outline was for the Austrians to invade Prussian-held territory and recapture the key town of Werthenstahl. Each side had 2-3 forces initially, with the potential for more to arrive later on.

The campaign starting positions – the Austrians are about to cross the river, for which they’ll need to lay a pontoon bridge in the north if they want to capture Felshelm early on.

The pontoon is successfully laid with a decent dice roll and this will now release the Prussians to move. Their main priority will be to get Force A underway to support the observation forces before they’re overwhelmed.

Last pic – the action has been going on for several turns and there have been 8 battles so far, using a variety of scenarios from the book. The latest encounter has seen Austrian Force C beaten and forced to retire. This will generate some relief for the Prussians who have been on the receiving end of a few defeats of their own.

The Force Strength tracker in the bottom right corner shows the relative size of each force on the map. Where they are the same, I play a 6 vs 6 unit scenario, where there is a difference of 1 strength I play a 6 vs 4 unit scenario, and where there’s a difference of 2 strength, the weaker force must withdraw or, if trapped, face scenario 30 Last Stand! I try to match the scenario and terrain to the general situation on the map, in terms of who’s attacking/defending, whether there’s a river involved, etc.

The campaign has been fun and has encouraged me to try similar things, with very simple campaign rules, in the future.

Recent Games

Last weekend my mate Jase and I played 3 stand-alone games, resulting in one marginal win and two draws, illustrating how well-balanced the scenarios are (or how mutually crap we both are at winning).

We re-visited Scenario 4 – Take the High Ground a couple of times, and then had a go at one with unbalanced forces; Scenario 20 – Fighting Retreat. Both scenarios are well designed and provide for interesting games.

Mid-game in Take the High Ground:

The Austrians decide to run for it in turn 1 of Fighting Retreat:

These games were very enjoyable and hit the spot in terms of providing some quick, challenging entertainment while drinking quite a lot of beer. 🙂

One Hour Wargames – Some Solo Games

I picked up a copy of Neil Thomas’ book a little while ago and the scenarios in particular looked interesting and worth a try. We used one in the recent first game of Sharp Practice 2, which worked well, and I fancied trying a few more. The rules included in the book are, obviously, designed to give simple games in under an hour. However, the design principles make a lot of sense and there are some clever touches. I thought I’d give them a go at the weekend, so dusted off some terrain boards and picked a few of my freshly painted SYW 6mm figures to give them their first outing.

I basically played these solo games ‘straight’, making the decisions for each side in turn, as I thought best at the time. The mechanisms are easy to learn and remember after the first couple of turns, and the tactical challenges made even small, simple games like these a lot of fun.

Games 1 & 2 (scenario 4 – Take the High Ground) Prussians vs Austrians on a 2’x2′ board

In the first game the Austrians pushed the Prussians off the hill and consolidated a decent line that was able to deal with the counter-attack. The cavalry pretty much took each other out along the road, and the Austrians secured a solid victory.

In the re-match the outcome was much the same although the Prussians put up a stiffer fight, only to be cleared off the hill again!

Games 3 & 4 (scenario 5, Bridgehead) Prussians vs Austrians again.

A more interesting scenario this one. Both sides receive reinforcements in the early turns – the Prussians (top) were coming on randomly from 3 potential arrival points while the Austrians were having to cross at the bridge to join the action and hold the crossing. Both sides need to clear the enemy from the north bank of the river.

I decided to make the board look a little less plain, with some additional terrain features that were just for show and could be moved a little if they got in the way.

The Austrians put up a good fight but the Prussians, coming from both directions, kept them penned in near the bridge. Prussian artillery fire and cavalry charges caused some damage and the Austrian Grenzers couldn’t make sufficient use of the wood to disrupt the Prussians. In the end it was a victory to the Prussians as they closed the vice and cleared the Austrians from the north bank.

Game 4 also saw a Prussian victory, despite the sides being swapped round. The Austrian arrival point rolls (4 units coming on from the west behind the wood) allowed the Prussians to spread out to the east and gain room to operate. They managed to drive north and destroy the Austrians piecemeal. Again the Austrians had suffered from a bit of a traffic jam, and this prevented them from forming a more coherent line to maximise their firepower.

The green numbered markers next to units denote hits suffered (collect 15 and you’re dead). The one on the yellow background is my turn counter.

Even with just 6 units a side (some scenarios give one side fewer units than this) these scenarios still deliver a challenge and no two games are the same. I was keen to try out some of the other periods for which rules are provided, so in the next post there will some pics of a couple of further One Hour games, this time set in the era of Pike and Shot.

Some Progress on the 6mm SYW Armies

I’ve been carrying on with painting the Prussians and Austrians for this project, and the forces are growing slowly but steadily.

I’m aiming to develop the armies in reasonable proportions so I can get some use out of them as they expand – in other words I’m not painting all the cavalry first, for example. The Austrians have received the most attention so far, partly because they were starting from scratch, and partly because a fair number of the Prussians need re-basing which isn’t a lot of fun!

For the Austrians I’m painting in batches comprising 5 infantry, 4 cavalry, 1 artillery battery and 1 Grenzer unit, plus commanders. I have about 7 or 8 of these batches to do to end up with the overall army I’m after. I’m currently painting the infantry that will complete batch 3.

Austrians so far:

For the Prussians the batches are a little smaller, due to the make-up of the army. They’re running a batch behind the Austrians – although there’ll be some quicker catching up once I’ve done a bunch of re-basing.

The Prussians so far:

I’ve found myself putting a bit more effort into the flags than I thought I would, no bad thing I guess. They’ll certainly do for me. I wasn’t going to do anything more for cavalry standards than just paint the base colour but I’ve done a bit more for the first Prussians and may now have to go back to do something on the Austrian ones too.

Lots more to do, but I’ll get there eventually!

SYW Progress

Recently I’ve been doing some prep on the next batches for my 6mm SYW project. I was spurred on to base up some more units when I realised I had nothing actually ready to paint!

So, the next batch consists of 5 more Austrian musketeer battalions, 2 dragoon units, a Grenzer unit and a couple of generals.

When I finish this lot I’ll have just over 30 Austrian units done, and will then focus on the Prussians until they’ve caught up. Fortunately, a fair few of the Prussians are already painted and just need re-basing, some touching up, and new flags.

While getting these prepared, I’ve also made a start on my central European buildings, which will be used for the villages of Saxony, Bohemia and Silesia in the SYW, and for other 6mm projects where I need some scenery like this. The bulk of the buildings will be generic single storey thatched houses with some timbering. I’m not going to overdo the timbering for the same reason I’m steering clear of tiled roofs – I can’t be bothered with all the extra work!

Here’s my first attempt. 30x20x20mm, made from card with a plaster/filler thatch. I know most thatched roofs are

Painted in fairly muted tones:

And here’s the rest in pre-fab kit form:

Yes, I appreciate that this pile will take a bit of assembling!

I’ll also be adding a few different structures, including some larger barns, and a couple of churches etc. There will also be paddock fences to flesh out the settlements a little. I want to be able to place several villages on the table when required, to reflect the types of battlefields that were fought over.

Hopefully working on these buildings will offer a nice break from painting the figures themselves, and I can progress with both aspects of the project in parallel.

I’m aiming for a game or two with this collection by the end of the ‘summer’. We’ll see…