Refighting Lund 1676

Latest addition to my collection. The 2nd Jutland Cavalry Regiment. 

Figures are from Warfare, the flag made by Peter Smith.

After a summer of diversions to Napoleonic treats and Franco-Prussian joys, I have now returned to my Scandinavian call of duty – Lund 1676.

October approaches, and on the weekend of the 25th and 26th, a handful of Danish and Swedish wargamers with myself at the rudder have agreed to host a table at this years Danish wargaming convention “DFFcon” in Copenhagen. 

A historic venue for a Wargaming show.

The Royal Danish Armory.

DFFcon is one of the best shows in Scandinavia, with a great diversity of games open to participation over a two day period, while the backdrop for the whole event is the beautiful and historic 16th century Royal Danish Armoury building, today home to the Royal Danish Army Museum. Gamers are literally throwing dice and refighting history, between muskets, armours and displays containing Scandinavian military history relics.

Jacob Bülow leading his 2nd Jutland Cavalry forward

with unmistakable enthusiasm.

It goes without saying that the theme for our table is of course going to be the cataclysmic Battle of Lund. Fought on a frostbitten 4th of December 1676 outside Lund in central southwest Scania, it is the single bloodiest battle ever fought between two Scandinavian states (54% total casualties on both sides). As Sweden ascended into Empire, a series of bitter wars were fought between Denmark and Sweden over Scandinavian political and military supremacy in the 17th century, and it saw its pinnacle at Lund, where national conscript units preferred standing and dying rather than give ground to their hated adversaries.

The Royal Danish Armory as it would have looked ca. 1700.

From here the troops were equipped and could be marched directly on to troop transports.

Today, some 340 years later, and with things considerably more amicable in Scandinavia, Swedish and Danish Wargamers will come together to refight this most grand and iconic of all our battles.

From DFFcon 2013.

Over the course of the two DFFcon days, we plan to host a series of different scenarios, offering gamers a chance to refight to most important sequences from the battle of Lund. This of course also means that we need to be able to represent a diversity of the units actually present at the battle. To reach this goal we are 4 painters (2 Danes and 2 Swedes) working on the project, and results so far have been fantastic.

Weyher’s Regiment painted by Fellow Dane,

 Tomas Guntzelnick Poulsen. Figures Warfare, flags Peter Smith.

I will over the next weeks leading up to DFFcon post more from this “arms race”, but before returning to the painting table I want to send out a short message to a man, without whom, it would have been hard to recreate many of the units. 

When we started building the armies different choices were made in terms of miniatures. Warfare Miniatures, NorthStar, Wargames Factory and others were mixed with careful consideration, but flags were hard to find.

A view of the amazing flag Peter Smith created for us.

Luckily fellow blogger and graphic artist, Peter Smith, agreed to help us with a sheet for the Danes. After gathering source information from historic archives and the Danish Army compendium made by Hasselager, Snorrason, Henriksen and Schorr, I was able to give Pete the necessary details. His work resulted in some first class, richly colourful and wonderfully detailed flags.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to Pete from all of us – you’ve helped us make this part of history come alive again!

Thank you very much for reading!