Trying Blucher for The Great Northern War

 First a bit of background:

Around Lockdown I picked up  a bucketload of plastic 10mm-ish 18th century miniatures. I think these were originally were made for a verson of the boardgame Risk. I had intended to incorperate them in my 10mm WSS armies, but the plastics are more 12mm and tower over my metal armies (mainly Pendraken).

So I put then aside for a bit, then I decided to make up some GNW armies. This would take minimal painting as these plastic had already been basically painted as Swedish and Russian forces, I would just need to repaint a few units for Danes and add cuff turnbacks to the rest. I now have nearly half done, to make up basic Swedish and Danish armies for the later part of the war, around 1711/12.

I am already using Black Powder for my WSS armies and wanted to do something different, when I came across a Blucher varient for the WSS, which I thought would be fine for the Great Northern War, as they overlapped in time for most of their duration. I had already played a few games of Blucher (by Sam A Mustafa) and enjoyed them, I found the 18th century variant, Eugene, somewhere online (sorry I am not sure where).

One with the game:

After a couple of false starts I finally got Colin around to give the rules a go. Due to time constraints, and being Colin's first time with the rules, we skipped the pre-game mini campaign (usually one of the best bits IMHO) and straight on with a meeting engagement.

Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures of the initial deployment (and I really need to finish basing some of the units). I deployed my Swedes with cavalry on the left and infantry on the right and centre. Colin mixed his columns up, so unintentionally deploy in mirror image to me! My cavalry advanced as did Colin's centre, our other infantry flank advanced a bit, then both just took a break and watched the action for a while.

The view of the infantry battle. The Danish centre is closing on the Swedes, but taking casualties from muskets and accurate artillery fire. The Danish guns had attempted to soften up the Swedish unit on the right as they advanced, but failed. In fact I think the Danish artillery only caused 1 Morale Point all game.

Away from the infantry the cavalry clash...

....indecisively at first, both sides having units bounce back and forth (as cavalry melees tend to go!).

Now the Danish infantry charge, but are thrown back. A counter charge by one of the Swedish brigades routs the Danes in front of them.

On the far flank the two side exchange musketry at long range.

Some unbelievably good dice for the Swedish cavalry break two units of Danes, making a hole in their line....

...which the Swedes exploit and the Danish cavalry starts to melt away. Colin managed to retire one unit on the point of routing off table (units voluntarily retired off table do not count towards losses for the army morale).

Swedish cavalry now wheel across to threated the flank of the Danish centre.

Too late, the Danish right wing launch an attack.

But the centre crumbles as the Swedish infantry attack and the cavalry charge into their flanks.

The view from the Danish side of the table, "Why are my men facing the wrong way?"

An over view of the final situation, an outstanding victory for the Swedes. A lot of laughs in this game, and we will be doing again soon!

SNAKES!!! Part 2

 Ross and I managed to get our follow-up game of Sellswords and Spellslingers in quite quickly. As we are going to turn this into a campaign, let me quickly introduce the cast. My party consists of Steinarr the Cleric, Dallin the Warrior and Renir the Wizard. Ross has Lars the Warrior, Aoife the Elf and Mephiso the Wizard.

Scenario: The party have to escort the wagon across the table through the forest, to return it to it's rightful owner, hopefully finding Lars (who got separated at the end of the previous game) en route. The journey is complicated by the presence of some irate Lizardmen!

The initial set-up, with the wagon entering on the right hand side. Lars will enter at a randon corner when the Scenario Event card is drawn.

Here are our heroes gathered around the wagon.

Around them lizardmen lurk, led by this lizardman champion.

We start to move forward, Renir leads the oxen whilst Steinarr and Dalin flank him, ready to intercept any attackers. Ross kept  Aoife and Mephiso back to watch our rear (translation: he failed most of his activations and couldn't keep up).

Steinarr keeps a watchful eye on some advancing lizardmen. He fails to see a cunningly placed dart trap, which he triggers, taking a hit from a poisoned dart (if he fails an activation he collapses in a coma!!). Fortunately, Renir has a heal spell and cures the effects of the poison. In the far distance you can see another lizardman champion, bemused by the number of pigeons falling from the trees next to him, slain by the bow skills of the keen eyed elf, and the mighty magic of Mephiso (something about barn doors comes to mind!).

Our two missle experts finally score a couple of hits, but one arrow bounces off the lizardman's scaly hide.

Turn two and fortunes smiles on us as Lars enters from close to the table edge the rest of the party are heading towards. Unfortunately he attracts the attention of the Lizardman champion leading the scaly foes.

Dalin gets stuck into a horde of lizardmen, quickly cutting them down until just one remains.

Lars despatches the enemy champion in a hard fight, taking two wounds himself in the process. He then moves forward to join Renir at the wagon.

Lars takes over control of the oxen and keeps the wagon moving towards a safe escape, allowing Renir to move back and join the rest of the party.

Renir now zaps a couple of lizardmen. A failed activation produced a Hidden Treasure" card, placing three treasure counters on the table, one of which contains riches beyond our wildest dreams, well a few coins at least.

Steinarr takes a gamble and runs up to the nearest token...to discover a small wooden chest!

And promptly get jumped on by a horde of lizardmen, taking another wound.

Dalin runs up to help him, cutting a lizardman in two with a mighty swing of his two-handed sword (rolls a 20 in his attack). Mephiso now gets his eye in with his spells and wipes out a horde of lizardmen before they can close into combat.

Lars gets the wagon off to safety and the rest of the party conduct a fighting retreat to follow him. After the two wizards have escaped, Steinarr and Dalin pause at the table edge to wait for Aoife, who seemed to spend most of his time tripping over his own shoelaces, and was lagging behind. Luckily the elf managed to get himself moving and the all got away before the lizardman champion seen here could catch them.

This was a far more successful adventure for the party, although two PCs were one wound away from death when the succeeded in escaping, so there were a couple of hairy moments!

When we examined our ill-gotten gains, we had some cash, a couple of healing potions and a magical two-handed Sword of Thunder (rolling a natural 19 or 20 in combat delivers a lightning bolt to any foes in contact with the wielder).

The party decided to rest up for a few days and allow their wounds to heal, before moving to to their next adventure.

Using Corey's random adventure generator, we discovered that the next adventure takes the PCs into undead infested ruins. We decided to interpret the ruins as an underground crypt complex, so I can break out one of my Tenfold Dungeon sets!

SNAKES!!! (Well Mostly Lizards) a return to Sellswords and Spellslingers

 After a various forays into different themes, I managed to get a Sellswords and Spellslingers game in with my mate Ross. As this was an impromptu game, not part of a campaign, I took the opportunity to try out Corey Burger's Scenario Generator (put out earlier in the year via Andrea's Patreon site.

There are charts for the objectives, location and foes (with a guide to the numbers to start the game with). We had to repair and recover a wagon in a forest infested with lizardmen!

We were also using Corey's expanded Event Card deck and my wizard suffered for it! In turn 1 he got food poisoning from last night's dinner (minus 1 off all rolls). He got healed from that and then started hallucinating and hearing noises (also -1 off all rolls) At his first attempt to use magic, he also lost all his magical mana (rolled a 1 when casting a spell). To top it all he broke his sword (suffering -1 to rolls which countered his +1 skill with that weapon!) Bummer!!!

My fighter PC fell down a hole and hurt his leg (-1" movement) and one of Ross's PCs broke their shoes (also -1" to movement!

This was all in the first 45 minutes of the game!

My wizard did redeem himself, whilst all the rest of the party were fighting off lizardmen, he ran around the back, somehow managed to fix the broken wheel and hitch up the oxen, then drive the wagon off table, followed by all the rest of the party. Unfortunately it was the wrong side of the table, but at least we were all alive! Except that on of Ross's PCs had got separated and escaped off a different table edge (by bravely running away from a fight with a lizardman horde...twice!!!).

A few pictures of the chaos.

My PCs (I think of them as the leading actors!)

Ross's PCs (definitely the supporting cast!)

The objective, a ox-drawn wagon with a dodgy wheel.

Lizardmen on the prowl.

A lizardman brute attacks!

My fighter engages a lizardman horde.

Another view of the pell-mell melee.

 

With the lizardmen distracted, my wizard sneaks up towards the wagon.

If he can avoid the snakeman brute lurking nearby.

Wheel fixed he drives the wagon towards the table edge.

Followed by his companions.

Except for the fighter who has got separated and cut off from the rest.

Who valiantly runs away to safety.

The Scenario Generator worked well and we had a lot of fun!

It has also given us another scenario. We now need to return the wagon to it's rightful owner and reunite the party, whilst avoiding the irate reptilians.

Terrain Clear Out

 I have amassed way too much wargames terrain and I've decided to cull my collection.

These are all items that due to size and weight and/or fragility, I would prefer not to have to send by courier/post. So at the moment I am offering these on a collection only basis, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

A 28mm figure is shown for scale in some of the photos.

Starting off with an antique piece (or at least "Vintage"), an old 28mm castle from the 1980s/90s. It is made of lightweight foam resin and I am pretty certain this came from the late, great Ian Weekley's company Battlements. £60

28mm Dark Age Fort from the Grand Manner, made from resin. I bought this in the early 2000s, there is a little bit of wear and tear, a couple of post have broken off, but nothing major. It now seems to be out of production, it's not showing on the GM website (but looking at the prices there I dread to think what it would cost if it was!!). £100

A sunken road terrain feature, a bespoke piece from the Last Valley, suitable for 20mm-28mm. I have used it mainly for 28mm games. Again, about 20 years old, give or take, a little wear and tear but not really noticeable. SOLD

Another bespoke item from the Last Valley, a stream again suitable for 20mm-28mm. 2 x 2 feet long sections. £15

10mm WW2 girder bridge with access ramps, total length 25 1/2 inches. Two of the road sections can be removed to shorten the bridge. SOLD

 

Thanks for looking and please get in touch if you are interested.