The Great Northern War with Midgard?

 Inspired by Keith McGlyn's posts on the Midgard FB group, I picked up a back copy of March's Wargames Illustrated, which published an article on expanding Midgard Heroic Battles to refight the early 18th Century.

As I had picked up shed loads of basically painted figures for the Great Northern War some time back, I thought I'd put together two forces and give it a go. The armies had been created from 12mm plastic miniatures from the Risk Boardgame, which are not very detailed, so the simple paintjob suits them fine.

So here are a few pictures from the game. I played the Russians and Colin had the nutty Swedes (this was a pre-Poltava battle).

The two armies face off, the Swedes are at the top of the picture.

 Out on the flank, the Swedish cavalry rushed forward. the Russian dragoons, knowing they were out-classed, decided to concentrate on the end of the Swedish line and charged.

While the Swedish infantry advanced the Russians just held their ground, bombarding the oncoming Swedes with their artillery.

The first melee, and as I was charging I got to reroll any melee dice rolling 1s for hits. I rolled three 1s, and here is the results of my reroll!!

Not unexpectantly, the Swedish horse were victorious, but I did succeed in killing the Colonel (level 1 Hero) leading one of the counter-charges. Quite historical, Swedish Officers heroically leading from the front to victory, but paying the price.

The melee continued in the next round, with a unit of Russian dragoons being destroyed in one fight, but the Russians winning in the other, pushing their attackers back (the advantage of concentrating on the end of the Swedish line was I had a lot of supporting units around me, whilst the Swedes were unsupported).

The unengaged Swedish horse were unable to come to their comrades aid, because I had thrown some infantry forward to pin the cavalry in front of them.

In the meantime the Swedish foot kept advancing and the Russians stood waiting for them.

Things were getting messy on the flank. The Russians dealt with the outnumbered Swedish cavalry, allowing then to turn onto the flank of the Swedish line.  The cavalry charge the annoying foot, routing one unit, but taking heavy losses and leaving themselves vulnerable to a flank charge by fresh Russian dragoons.

The Swedish infantry now paused just out of musket range and redressed their lines to allow straggling units to catch up. The Russian still held their ground.

In the next turn the Swedes charged all across the frontage!

The melee had mixed results, one Russian unit was routed outright and most were pushed back, although the Russians did have a couple of successes.

The fighting continued, with the Swedes definitely having the upper hand....

...except on the flank where the last Swedish cavalry unit was dying bravely, now surrounded by enemies.

At the end of turn 4 it looked like a clear win to the Swedes. The Russian Reputation was down to 1, while the Swedes still had 4.

Turn 5 was so eventful, that I neglected to take any pictures! At the end of the Swedish phase the Rep was Swedes 4, Russians -1. then in the Russian phase desperate charges regained Rep points and three Swedish units routed! Combined with two half-strength Russian infantry units somehow forcing draws in their fights, this meant we finished the game with the Russians snatching a close win by Rep 1 to Rep -2!

A fun game and it certainly had the "feel" of an early 18th century game. We were both happy and keen to try it again. it just shows the flexibility of these rules. It will be interesting to try an army like the Danes, so see if firepower based armies work work the rules.

Torpedoes and Tides - Things Did Not Go Well!

 Colin came over to try another go at Torpedoes and Tides from Ganesha Games. Real World had got in the way, so it had been a couple of months since our initial games.

We decided to replay the convoy game we'd played before, swapping sides so that Colin was the attacking RN, whilst I played the Germans. We rolled for a moonless night, which drastically reduced the range of LOS. Colin decided to take advantage of the darkness and deployed as close to my convoy as the rules allowed. This would make things very "interesting".

Turn One

Rather uneventful, the British moved rushed one blind forward then the next blind rolled a double fail for activation, passing the turn to the Germans. The rest of the British blinds just made their compulsory move straight ahead. The German convoy took advantage of this and all the vessels remained on blinds and successfully took two moves towards their exit side.

Turn Two

The over enthusiastic first British blind revealed itself to be a MTB and moved forward, getting close enough to reveal both of the leading two German blinds as a pair of Kriegfischkutters. Moving this close allowed both German vessels to have a snapshot at the MTB, which suffered a suppression. Colin then revealed his furthest blind to be another MTB which failed it's activation, so the British just chugged forward.

The Germans kept moving towards their exit point and safety, both KFK peppering the MTB as the went by, inflicting more damage. The Verpostenboot also came off blind and fired on the other MTB, but missed.

Turn Three
The Brits revealed a MGB, which cut between the German escorts, firing and damaging one of the KFK as it went past. The closest MTB now had problems, it was too close to launch torpedoes....

...and also too close to manoeuvre in time, colliding with the KFK. Damaging both vessels, which, with the effects of previous gunfire was enough to wreck the MTB, which promptly caught fire.

The following British Blind (the other MGB) had been relying on the MTB to get out of the way, so now also crashed into the sinking boat! The last MTB swung around behind the Germans to try and line up with a shot on the rear freighter, but didn't have enough time (only rolled 2 activations, it takes 2 activations to launch torpedoes and one activation had already been needed to get into position).

Now it was the German's turn to run out of manoeuvre room, as the KFK crashed into the Brit MTB and the Vortostenboot ran into the back of the KFK!! But during all the confusion the first German freighter moved off the table to safety.

Turn Four

Again the surviving MTB only rolled 2 activations and had to move to line up on it's target. As it couldn't launch torpedoes, it shot up the Vorpostenboot, scoring a wheelhouse hit!

Both British MGBs now found themselves without anywhere to go, so collided with the freighter and Vorpostenboot respectively. Everyone suffered damage, except for the freighter (well probably a couple of scratches on the paintwork!). The MGBs poured fire into the unfortunate KFK, which burst into flames.

In the German phase the escorts inflicted a bit of damage on the attacking British boats, but more importan6tly, the freighter escaped off the table edge.

 An outright win to the Germans, 7VP to the British 1! It felt more like an episode of the Keystone Kops than a naval fight, with more Damage points inflicted by collisions than shooting!

The main lesson from the game, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!!