A Great Northern War Wargame

     The new Peter Laing Great Northern War armies finally met on the field of battle. The battlefield itself is gridded 9x9, with 2" squares. I decided to go with 9x9, as it would make using Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargame scenarios easier to set up, instead of a 8x8.
    The scenario is #4, "Take the High Ground", from OHW. It was a scenario not used before. The rules used were modified "See the Elephant" rules, from the great blog, "The Stronghold Rebuilt".

Two Russian units hold a hill; the Swedish army wants to take control of the hill.  The Swedish commander send two elite regiments of grenadiers to seize the hill, with an artillery battery to take up position on the road to support the attack, or fire down the road to slow any Russian reinforcements.

The Russian reinforcements are on their way.

The Russian artillery eliminates one Swedish stand. Meanwhile, Russian cavalry starts down the road with another battery in support.

The Swedish grenadiers hits the Russian infantry, costing the Russians one stand. The Swedish artillery pushes forward.

The Russian fire continues to do damage to the grenadiers; the cavalry tries to close with the artillery before they can get the gun into action.

The grenadiers fire drives the Russian infantry off of the hill. Meanwhile, the Swedish artillery fire starts causing casualties on the Russian cavalry.

The Russian infantry rallies and returns to the hill. Their fire continues to devastate the grenadiers. The Russian cavalry simply rides down the Swedish artillery! All three cavalry dice came up 6's!

One of the grenadier regiments gets up the hill and hits the Russian infantry in the flank.  Another Swedish infantry regiment tries to recapture the artillery.

The Russian infantry loses two bases, but drives the grenadiers off the hill. In StE rules, if a unit closes into "close combat" and doesn't eliminate or make the enemy retreat, the defenders get to roll one dice. The lone Russian stand got to roll, forcing the grenadiers to retreat. Meanwhile, the Swedish infantry takes out another cavalry stand.

The other Russian artillery battery comes forward to try to cover the road.

The Swedish army now sends forward all their infantry. The grenadiers once again storms the hill.

The grenadiers finally wipes out the Russian infantry on the hill, and the infantry on the road eliminates the last of the Russian cavalry and retakes the gun.

The Russian artillery fires point blank into the oncoming grenadiers...

....and wipes out 60% of them!

The grenadiers still press home the attack, and the Swedish regiment on the road attacks the deploying artillery.

The grenadiers overrun the battery. The other battery is forced to retreat.

While the Russians still have two fresh regiments on the road, the Swedish army have three regiments that have suffered no losses. To attempt to recapture the hill would prove too costly. The Russians withdraw.

Rebasing Scruby N Gauge SYW Figures

     Being Easter weekend, I have three days off. My wife went off to the picket line, so I decided to get some hobby work done. First was to cast some Zinnbrigade cavalry figures, to see how well they would match Britains 40mm figures.  While waiting for the metal to cool, I cleaned the area around my workbench. Recently I haven't been able to move my chair because I keep stacking various projects on the floor around the table. I got the figures cast that I wanted and my work area cleaned.

   The next project was to try to rebase one unit of the Scruby N gauge SWY figures. I wanted to see if an idea originally planned for my Minifigs would work with these figures. The regiment would be of 12 figures, 3 figures to a base. On one base the standard bearer would be placed on the right side, so when in line the flag would be close to the center.  I was happy with the result; so much so that I took the painted figures off the bases they were mounted on and then started remounting more than planned.

    I find that I really like the looks of the N gauge Scruby's. So much so that I am thinking of ordering some of the ACW line to use with Battle Cry.

The Scruby's on their original bases. I personally don't like thick bases.

The Zinnbrigade cavalry next to Prince August Brave Toy Soldier figures.

Some of the newly mounted Scruby N gauge figures.

The first regiment of Scruby Austrians.

By the way, the Peter Laing GNW armies are almost complete. All that is needed is to complete the generals, and I want to make a couple of Cossack units.

Peter Laing Great Northern War Armies

      While looking at the Man of Tin blog, on the September 5, 2016 post I came across some photographs of his Peter Laing Marlbough figures. Among them he had a very nice Peter Laing powder cart, A113.  With my current interest in trying to work my wagon collection into my games, this little beauty got my mind racing. I decided to postpone the Napoleonic Minifigs project and start work on one that I've wanted to do for a long time, a Peter Laing Great Northern War project.

     BORE WAR-NING!  One of my earliest Peter Laing collections was a very large War of Spanish Succession lot. Over the years, I've had several plans for these figures, but could never commit to any of them. Besides the usual WSS armies, there were imagi-nations and the Great Northern War. The GNW had much going for it. Both sides had colorful uniforms, the armies were smaller compared to Western Europe, and it seems to me that there weren't as many sieges and more battles. Also, there were other countries that can be built; Saxon, Poles, and Ottomans to name a few.
    In May of 2016 I have a posting of two  Peter Laing SYW armies I painted up for use with Hold the Line rules and scenarios. These figures I painted up simply: Austrians in white with their dragoons in green coats and red pants, the Prussians in blue coats with white pants and their dragoons in light blue coats and yellow pants. I did this with the intention that if I did decided to do a GNW project, it would be easy enough to repaint these figures. The Prussian infantry would only need their pants painted yellow and they would be Swedish infantry. The Austrian dragoons, with their green coats and red pants, would work for Russian cavalry. The Austrian infantry conversion to Russian would need more painting ,with their coats being painted green and pants red. The Prussian dragoons would only need their coats painted darker blue to become Swedish cavalry.  This actually worked out well and I quickly had the majority of a Russian army painted and based; the Swedish need a few more figures painted but even now I have 4 Swedish infantry and 1 Swedish cavalry units painted and based.

The Swedish army based. There is some detail paint needed.  Both armies will be based on the army charts in One Hour Wargames. Each army will have four infantry, two artillery, two cavalry units to choose from. Instead of "skirmishers", they will have grenadiers, which will have an extra base. However, I am planning Cossacks for the Russians, that might take the place the grenadiers.

The Russian Army.

It was a good time to compare the Scruby SYW figures to the Peter Laing WSS figures.  Ross Macfarlane was right that these must be Scruby's N gauge figures.

Scruby cavalry compared to Peter Laing.

Wargame with Newly Based Napoleonics

 Last week I got in a quick wargame  with my newly based Minifigs Napoleonic. I used One Hour Wargame scenario #1 and OHW armies for the game.

This game was mainly to see how the new regiments would look on the new 2" grid board I made.  Thank goodness I got this game in, as I have already moved onto a new project!

I was hoping to at least get one cavalry unit on the board, but stuck with the armies rolled for.

I am happy with the results. Eventually this project will get done!

Scruby 12/15mm Seven Years War Figures

      When I first got into wargaming 20 years ago, I had read both "The War-game" by Charles Grant and "Charge!"  by Peter Young and J.P. Lawford. Of course, I then wanted to form SYW armies. Among the figures I was checking out were Jack Scruby recasts in 15mm.  In the end I went with 1/72 plastics.

     During one of my Ebay searches a large lot of Scruby SYW recasts popped up. It was a "Buy it Now" sale, and for the amount of figures, a very good price. I spent several hours going back and forth on wether to purchase it (I was really hoping one of the other people watching would buy them).   In the end I bought them and received them this week. This is one of those, "project for another day" purchases.

   The amount of figures according to the seller is: 400 infantry, 100 grenadiers, 60 flag bearers, 60 sergeants, 50 drummers, 50 light infantry, 50 cuirassiers, 50 dragoons, 50 hussars, 18 cannon, 50 gunners.   The seller referred to them as 12mm/15mm. They are on the small size; however I really didn't compare them to any other figures yet.

Some painted samples of the Scruby figures. The lot came with some painted figures  of cavalry, infantry, and artillery.  I also got a rather sizable pile of MDF stands. 

Unfortunately the photos are out of focus. They are nice generic figures. It looks like the collection was a project that never got off the ground. Hopefully I will have better luck with them.