Friday 12 June 2015

Russian Dragoons and a Great Northern War Club Campaign

Russian Great Northern War Dragoons.
Minis from Warfare Miniatures.

After the engaging attendance of our Great Northern War Holowczyn participation game at this year’s Lincon Gaming Convention, Jesper and I decided to prolong the GNW project to accommodate for a GNW Campaign for our local gaming club, Little Wars, here in Stockholm.

The Campaign Overview. Our scenarios will follow the historic march
of the Swedish army into Russia and Ukraine.

The general idea is that each player will take control of a regiment; much like one would take control of a character figure in a roleplaying scenario based board game.

Wonderful GNW artwork by Marc Grieves.
The Swedish Guard at Narva.

We then string together 6 scenarios, based on the Swedish army’s historic march 1708-1709 through western Russia, via the battles of Holowczyn, Lesnaya and ending up at the fateful battle of Poltava in the Ukraine. 

A view of the Dragoon officer. Tsar Peter greatly expanded the number of Dragoon
units in his army, 
as they could cover the huge Russian theatre, but at the same time dismount in and fight on foot in battle.

A game master will play the Russians in all games, while each player then controls his/hers regiment through the historic battles, hopefully gathering some victory points along the way, enabling the purchase of new skills after each game has ended.

An example of our unit cards.
Here the units points and performance will be recorded for each scenario, along with any special abilities purchased for the victory points. Mind you, if a unit is slain in battle, it looses all abilities, and has to be raised from scratch with new recruits from the Swedish homeland.

We’ll be basing the rules on Black Powder, and the skills up for purchase will be taken from the BP tool box of extra abilities, like Brave, Elite, Stubborn etc. It’s really an experiment in combining historic wargaming with some of the elements from well-produced board games like Imperial Assault from Fantasy Flight. 

Another of Marc Grieves fantastic paintings.
This is Värmlands Regemente at Narva.

After a test game (Here is an AAR from Jesper’s blog) co-player Pål suggested a fun addition to our initial idea. One of the players on the Swedish side, will take permanent control of the C-in-C role for the Swedes, and dish our orders for each regiment/player before the start of the game.

The ensign. I mounted him with a rather inconspicuous infantry sized flag,
in support of their dismounted abilities. 

This proved really fun and smooth playing, so it was added to the concept, as we now draw closer to kick off. I will be documenting each game in the campaign via our club blog, and for anyone remotely familiar with the Great Northern War, the storyline in our games is evident when viewing the scenario names below:

1) Holowczyn: Surprise attack in the dawn

2) Holowczyn: Russian reinforcements

3) Lesnaya: A Russian snare

4) Lesnaya: “Defend the train at all cost”

5) Poltava: Men, storm that redoubt!

6) Poltava: The final charge; “Gå På”.


Thank you very much for reading.
Any comments are welcome!

37 comments:

  1. Soren, you always produce such beautiful work regardless of period or scale.

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  2. Lovely painting and basing Soren, the Warfare miniatures are really well sculpted too!

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    1. Cheers Chris, I agree - these dragoons were particularly nice sculpts. Part of the new range that Barry and sculptor "Clib" have produced.

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  3. Nice to see how the campaign idea is progressing and Marc Grieves artwork is simply superb.

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    1. Yeah, Marc is incredibly talented and I really love his work on the GNW period. He is a British-born, but now Swedish based painter, and should be credited for putting this period in Swedish history into life.

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  4. Beautiful figures - always love to see green coated dragoons. Nice supporting artwork too - as always.

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    1. Thanks Dean, yeah its a nice color scheme to work with, and the added blue in the Russian version really gives an extra dimension to the result.

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  5. Mmmmm...where to begin? I had a look on Jesper's blog, wonderful pictures and minis...I'm very impressed by the painting quality of Marc Grieves, I almost put on gloves to watch his pictures, very atmospheric...scenarios seem to be very interesting, waiting for some AAR. And to finish Sören, these amazing units...top notch job, and yes, this flag in big, but splendid and could be useful when dismounted!

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    1. Thanks Phil, glad you took the time to drop by Jesper's blog too. He is very talented, versatile and super productive. He is really one of the driving engines here in the Stockholm wargaming community! We're hoping to get started with the campaign in early July, so there should be a campaign update by then!

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  6. They really are rather beautiful.

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    1. Thanks Michael, I appreciate your visit and kind comment!

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  7. Awesome painting Sören! You know you should do a tutorial on painting horses. don't you? ;-)
    Your 'campaign' system sounds interesting and I'm looking forward to read about how it worked out in the end.

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    1. Haha, thanks - and yes, I'll work out something during the next few weeks. But please, let me know how you make those insanely spectacular tanks!

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  8. Fantastic painting Sören! Now, myself having painted a number of the Warfare Miniatures karoliner, I have an even greater admiration for your painting skills! :)

    This campaign sounds like so much fun, but sadly I don't have the time to join in for more than a game or two. Looking forward to hearing all about it here though!

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    1. Cheers Jonas, and thanks for some pleasant company at the club painting day. I'm looking forward to fielding our 15's soon, and to a fresh start to our ITW project in 2016!

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    1. Thanks Stephen, with a flag of that size, I'm hoping they will perform well too when they reach the gaming table!

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    2. Let's hope they don't get blown away ;-)

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  10. Excellent painting yet again and I think your campaign ideas sound very interesting!

    Christopher

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    1. Thanks Christopher, I'm hoping the extra dimension of victory points as a currency for buying unit upgrades, will add to the campaign feeling, and inspire some players to take chances they otherwise would have refrained from. We'll see :0)

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  11. Stunningly good painting. I'm a fan of everything your brush touches. I adore campaigns and you've cooked up a winner here. Good luck and give us some AARs!

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    1. Thanks a lot Monty, yeah I'm hoping the campaign will be fun. We're about 6 players who will be participating, so it has potential for some nice gaming during the summer.

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  12. Love the work. I had not seen that picture by Marc. I like that too.

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    1. Thanks Steve, yeah Marc is very talented indeed!

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  13. Simply lovely figures and painting

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    1. Thank you very kindly! The newly added Swedes are fantastic sculpts, but these Dragoon models from a previous batch of the Warfare Range, really fitted the GNW project very nicely.

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  14. Very creative as always!

    I am currently working on dolls for Russian dragoons for Warfare, but they are a few months away yet.

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    1. Thanks Clib, and a big thank you from all of us here in Stockholm for the wonderful Swedes you've added to the range. They are a pleasure to paint! I'm sure the coming Russians will be likewise spectacular!

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  15. You're right MM, the Swedish army introduced many fascinating tactical innovations during the TYW-GNW period. Thanks for dropping by for a read an a comment!

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  16. Fantastic Figures & Painting. Real Eye Candy to view. Yes Indeed. Beano Boy

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    1. Cheers Paul, appreciate you taking out time for a read and a comment!

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  17. Beautiful brushwork yet again. I look forward to hear more of your campaign system as you get some games played. /Mattias

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    1. Thanks Mattias - yeah looking forward to some Napoleonic gaming when things quiet down after the summer. Drop me a mail when your schedule shows potential!

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  18. Really look forward to follow your campaign! I'm planning to do something similar @ our club in Helsinki. Unfortunately I'm suffering from lack of other players joining in the idea (yet).
    See my project page: http://25yearsofminis.blogspot.fi/p/project-great-northern-war-in-28mm.html
    Maybe we could have a game in Stockholm?

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  19. Also: please share your campaign concept in more detail, for example "victory points as currency..."

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  20. Sören, could you please contact me regarding this campaign / co-operation? Contact @ teemu dot kujala at kolumbus dot fi
    Tack ska du ha!

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