Some Great Northern War stuff at last

I finally got some of my Great Northern War stuff based and finished.  Here's what they look like now with 16 figure infantry units and 8 figure mounted units.  

First up are the Russians; the Ingermanland regiment in yellow and the Belograd in green. 

A couple of dragoon regiments. I can't remember the regiments, but I think the yellow uniforms are the Archangel regiment.  

And the Swedish.  It's infantry only at this stage, but not too bad overall.  I think the first unit is the Skaraborg, the red facings are the Jonkoping with that colourful flag, and the third unit is the Uppland regiment.   

And some group shots.  

  
More to come. There's only about another dozen Russian infantry, 7 Swedish infantry, 10 Russian cavalry and 9 Swedish cavalry to go, along with generals and artillery.   

Here's some of the work in progress. Artillery and Swedish infantry.   

 

 

Last Thursday at the club

I missed a couple of Thursdays, but last week 6 of us were back to the ADG ancient rules.  This time, three separate games were in action; Medieval Germans vs Knights of St John, Umayaad Arabs vs Romans of some flavour, and Burgundians vs my Medieval French.  All players had very good games.  

I didn't take photos on the night, but here is what my French looked like.  First, the whole lot.  200 points worth.  We didn't bother double basing the infantry and it looked OK.  (And please just ignore the 2 flank generals with Wars of Roses flags - in the right lighting they can look French from a distance.)     

The left flank command of 4 knights and a couple of Genoese crossbows, plus the general at the back.  

The centre command of 6 knights and a couple of scruffy horde, plus the CiC at the back.  

The right command of 2 mounted serjeants and 6 mediocre French crossbows, plus the general at the back.  

And the game - well, I'll blame the dice gods for my misfortune.  The crossbows were outshot by Burgundian longbow, my serjeants could not ride down other bow, my knights failed against cavalry and mediocre spears.  And, OK, it wasn't a smart idea to charge pike frontally, but when everything seems to go wrong, it just seemed something to try.  

The only thing I'll change is to do some single figure general stands for my armies so that the generals are more easily distinguished from other troops.  Also, another little work in progress is to remove all the green highlighted basetex and replace it with flock.        

And finally, just for a laugh, this was what was left in this medieval box - more French plus some Wars of Roses.  ADG doesn't need so many figures.      

This Thursday is Dystopian Wars again. Four of us with 750 points each playing a two-a-side game.  

progress on the great northern war

Work on the Great Northern War figures stalled a bit, but here is where I am.  Most figures are finished and I've just got to add flags and finish the basing for the infantry.  

I almost went back to the start when painting these.  I found when viewed from a distance, there wasn't a lot of differentiation between the yellow of the Russian uniforms and the buff belts, and with the red breeches and stockings.  It was similar for the Swedes with yellow facings and stockings and buff waistcoat and breeches.  So I did a bit of black lining - or very dark brown lining to put an accent on the borders.  Not too bad.  I'll probably continue with this for these armies to keep them consistent.    

And the Swedes. The chaps in red facings and stockings will be the Jonkopings regiment because they have a nice colourful flag.  

And the nearly finished first two of the Russian cavalry units.  Just got the flags to add.  Cavalry are 8 figures units, mounted 4 on 60mm front x 40mm bases.   

I'll get some better pictures when I get more units finished.  

more messing about with basing for SYW

I missed the club for the last couple of weeks, but was able to mess about with some basing for the SYW figures.  I also saw what Tamsin (Wargaming Girl) did with 15mm Essex Russians over the past couple of months and that was an inspiration.  

So it's about time I put on a tricorne again and got the Austrians, Prussians, French and British sorted.  The French last saw action many years ago in an Age of Reason campaign but the others have remained in boxes.  Basing is intended to be used with the Maurice rules, though I might also experiment with the new DBA 3 variant on the Fanaticus site.    

Here is where I started. 12 infantry figures in a battalion, on 4 stands of 30mm front.   

 Cavalry figures in 8 figure regiments on 4 stands of 30mm front.  

Here is the stuff with the sand on the bases. Chaps at the front are the grenzer, and the other picture is chasseurs. 

But then comes the first of the brain melts and I try 12 infantry on 4 x 40mm bases. I start to like the idea of a longer thin line. (At the back are the command artillery stands on a 30mm frontage).   

And then the idea extends to go to 2 ranks of infantry and I get the idea I could use the mounted officers.  So now I have an infantry battalion on 4 x 40 x 30mm bases. The mounted officer replaces 2 infantry.  Quite a nice mass effect.  At the back are French cuirassiers, partly rebased from Age of Reason on 40 x 30 bases, but the intention would be to base cavalry on 40mm square bases.     

I quite link this mass effect, and I reckon I have enough figures to do 8-10 infantry and 6 or so cavalry for each nation.  I may do some more basing experiments, but this may be the one to go for. 

15mm Byzantines and an ADG test

I missed the club last week, so I thought I post some pictures on how an old DBM army might look for the ADG rules.  

First up, the whole lot.  This originally started out as a DBA army to challenge my Arabs, then it just 'growed'.  I can't actually remember how many figures there are in total.  

The cataphract types supported by light horse archers (and surplus generals at the back).     

The centre with some skirmishers, generals and the mixed spear/bow skutatoi supported by the main thema, some second rate-thema behind and the tagmata on their right.         

The right flank with varangians and a spear-armed variant, supported by the tagmata and light horse on the flank.       

Some close ups.      

 

And so to the ADG army.  For the first 200 point test, I had 3 generals, 4 thema, 2 tagmata, 2 cataphracts, 4 skutatoi, 1 varangian, 4 light horse and 4 skirmishers.  The cataphtacts don't have to be double based but I like the wedge formation so I left them in place.  

For the second test, I doubled up the thema basing so it would look like the front rank lancers were backed up by bows.       

For the last test, I took away the doubled up cavalry units, and just had them as recommended in the rules, i.e. only heavier infantry units are two bases deep; everything else is just one base. I'm now thinking I could have reduced the infantry to one base deep, though I would have lost the visual appeal of the spear and bow combination.          

More experiments another time.