Saturday 12 March 2016

Great Northern War bash with painted figures

At last, and with much cheering, here is the first game using my fully painted Great Northern War figures and using the Maurice rules. I worked out two 100 point armies for this game. 

There are quite a few photos as I'm very happy to see the painted figures on the table. 

Here's my Swedish set up.  Three cavalry on the right, 8 infantry and two guns in the centre. Also visible are the measuring sticks I made up in bands the national colours - blue and yellow for the Swedes.  Everything in Maurice is measure in terms of base-widths and the sticks make it easy to measure move distances and ranges.   



Here's the Russian line.  8 infantry and three guns in the centre.


The Russian left of three cavalry and a noble commander.  The noble's card is at the back of the table, but I can't remember now who he was.  


The Russian right three cavalry.  The Russian measuring sticks are in the background. I did these sticks in bands of red, blue, white and green. 


The Russian infantry centre. 

The game started with a couple of bombardments, then the Swedish infantry moved forward.  And then, in one of the brilliant things that can happen in Maurice, my opponent played an interrupt card "That's not on the map" and a marsh became visible in front of some of my infantry.  After much laughter from everyone round the table, I started to move my second rank units around he marsh.  

Also, as the game played out, this proved to be one of the decisive moments in the game as it split my infantry force and my attack.    



The Swedish centre approached the Russians line but the front unit suffered 4 Disrupts. I was able to rally this unit with another great card, but the combination of Russian musketry and canister took it's toll. 


Here is the Swedish centre after the combats. One bold regiment is pushing into the Russian line but the other units have routed.  The C-in-C at the bottom of this picture now has to re-arrange the second line and the units that were delayed by the marsh. 


In a good move, the Russians advanced his cavalry around the wood to threaten the Swedish flank.


Luckily, I had enough cards to advance my cavalry to oppose the Russian flanking move.

 
Another view of the Swedish centre.  Sadly for the Swedes, the bold chappie who forced his way into the Russian line was overwhelmed. 


Both sides then took a couple of turns to re-arrange the lines and bring up supports.



By this time in the game, the Swedes has lost more units and their morale had dropped from 15 to 6.  Russian morale was 13 or 14.  We called a halt at this point with a Russian victory.

Here are a couple of final pictures from the Russian left. The cavalry duel between the woods was inconclusive, with the Swedes failing to defeat the Russians, even when using the Cavaliers card.



At the end of the night we'd had another great game of Maurice.  I was particularly pleased to see the fully painted armies on the table and I hope we can play again soon.   

For the future, we think we may need an army card or action cards to represent the Swedish GaPa.  And perhaps something to allow attackers that win an action to advance after combat. I'll work on those ideas.  In this game, the Swedes had the A la bayonette and Cavaliers cards, and the Russians had Steady lads. 

Next week is the final of the club ADG competition and my Wars of Roses army will be taking on the Scots-Irish.  

8 comments:

  1. Gosh! I enjoyed reading this post Tom, lots of photos of great looking painted figures/units - great games report, marvelous!

    cheers,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Phil. I've been meaning to do a report for a while, even though it's tricky to take photos and concentrate on the action.
      cheers,

      Delete
  2. Gosh! I enjoyed reading this post Tom, lots of photos of great looking painted figures/units - great games report, marvelous!

    cheers,

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. Thanks, Alan.
      And anytime you fancy a game of Maurice, just let me know and we'll see what we can arrange. We could even try the free Maurice-Lite simplified version.
      Tom

      Delete
  4. Great to see your armies finished and in action! The game looked great fun although a little one sided - this stuff happens! Maurice is an excellent game which we return to on occasion, it always delivers big action and genuine drama. Better luck next time, best wishes,
    Jeremy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jeremy.
      The game was great fun - I don't think we've ever had a bad game of Maurice. Part of the reason I lost this time was in trying to be too smart. My opponent had deployed quite wide and I though I would compress my frontage between 2 woods so I could benefit from a central command position while he would to burn command cards to move his cavalry. But I couldn't make it work in the space I had. As you say - hopefully better luck next time.
      cheers,

      Delete
  5. Hi Tom, I happen to see your post in LAF just now after some years:-)
    I like your figures, how they are painted and how they are based too. I would like to organize my armies in the same way. Can you tell me the size of your bases, both infantry artillery and cavalry, please?
    TIA
    Marco

    ReplyDelete

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