Wargaming Ideas: WECW and WAB

This Blog will be used to show some of the games, units and ideas that our group in Queensland Australia use to play WAB and WECW. The WECW lists our group has come up with enable players to game scenarios from the great Cossack rebellion in 1648 up until the defeat of the Ottomans at the second battle of Chocim. The lists are Polish Commonwealth; Lithuanian Rebels; Cossack Rebellion; Swedish; Danish; Austrian; Muscovite; Brandenburg; Ottomans and Transylvanian. I am also in the process of building GNW armies to use with the excellent and fun set of rules 'Under the Lilly Banners', many of the figures from the earlier period will be useful for this period as well. Cheers Scott Robertson

Deluge game: Victory without Quarter

Finally had a game set in the Deluge period on Wednesday. Mark Temple came over with with 4 units of cavalry and a couple of guns. The rules used were Clarence Harrison's 'Victory without Quarter' (Quindia Studios), with a few extra modifications to cover some of the different Eastern troop types (bow, lance etc.). The Poles had 4 brigades and the Swedes had 3, so they were easier to control. I must say that they were very easy and enabled us to finish a large game in 4 hours (with chatting and coffee in between). I like these rules and will continue to play them when we all get together but I am looking at Piquet's 'Anchor of Faith' which need proper army lists for Eastern Europe. The new army lists are being done in the style of 'Band of Brothers' and I have taken the ideas from the 'Pike and Plunder'Blog (fantastic site on the Italian Wars). I will post some of these in the near future, so if you are interested leave a comment on the site. Cheers Scott

Muscovite and Ottoman 1644 lists

Muscovite Cavalry brigade (Boyars and followers)

Hey guys hope everone had a great Christmas and got some good figures to paint, I got none but I do have a full cupboard of bare metal to paint. I will post some pictures of games in the New Year but if you go to the Esnips link you will find the new Muscovite and Ottoman 1644 lists. They have yet to be played tested so if you fiind something you disagree with just change them. Have a Happy New Year and I my first New Years promise is to post at least every week in 2008. Cheers Scott

P.S I have reloaded the lists to enable them to be read by Microsoft Word 97 (I had used 2007 and people had a problem reading them).

FINAL DELUGE LISTS

Hey guys here is the link to the final lists and army background that I will be posting here.
I have also posted a series of ruses (18) that you can use in your battles, they have been adapted from the WAB Art of War supplement and are lots of fun.
The lists and additional rules all seem to work together and our group seems to be happy with them. Like always I have left them in WORD format so that you can change anything I have missed or you don't agree with. The lists have been published as seperate folders so that you don't have to wait an age for them to download (sorry about the first volume).
I will now concentrate upon painting and translating and posting information about the armies and regiments involved with the Deluge period. Please remember that Dan Schorr's excellent website (link on the right) has some fantastic information on the period and he is adding more and more every week.
http://www.esnips.com/web/wab-ramblingssBusinessFiles

1644 army lists

Hey guys I had forgotten that I have written up a few new army lists for the 1644 rules. The Polish, Cossack and Muscovite lists can be found here :
http://www.esnips.com/web/wab-ramblingssBusinessFiles
I have yet to finish the Ottoman and other lists but this is a start. I really like the rules but there are parts that leave our group just scratching our heads. The owner of the Yahoo Eastern Renaissance discussion group (Pan Mark) has an excellent list of small additions which will help you enjoy the game and rule system even more (I use about half of his suggestions).

Army Lists

Thought I might post a quick note before I go away on a much anticipated break about the lists I have posted, as some people have been less than happy how I have rated such and such unit (especially Winged Hussars). These lists and additional rules developed from an interest that my friends and I had in the period and because there wasn't any rules around that we really liked we decided to try WECW as the system (new 1644 rules look interesting). Our group loves the period and I especially love the books of Sienkiewicz and the subsequent movies by Jerzy Hoffman and so from the very start I have wanted some type of character identification within the rules and lists. I decided to structure the rules and lists with this mentality from the start because at the end of the day I wanted to use the figures and terrain we had all spent a lot of money and time creating. It is after all just a game to me and I wanted to have some fun with friends and there is no way in anyones stretch of imagination that WECW could be classified as a historical rule set anyway (if you think so than good luck with that one).

I have had emails from one or two people that have corrected or disagreed with the rating or placement of such and such unit in a certain list (because they have more knowledge than do I or they have read a source in some other language). I have no problem with this because at the very begining I stated that if you disagreed with something than change it, that is why I left everything in Word form anyway, so this could be easily done. I have no connection with Warhammer Historical and have done everything on this site in my own free time and let anyone and everyone have access to the lists and the rules so they can at least start and get gaming with their figures. Finally for those that dislike what I have done then just change them but don't come back and say that they are not completly historic because I have used Sienkiewicz as a influence or have left out such and such unit because the WECW system could never in a month of Sundays ever achieve that (just look at the firing of muskets and cannons as an example or the confused pike rules). These lists are my interpretation and my hard work so if you don't like them change them or do your own work and write up your mega hard and invincible Winged Hussars (but don't expect anyone to game you). I game for fun and the spectacle of well painted figures and terrain on the table and make no claim at being the font of all knowledge on the period. Hopefully that has cleared up my view on the lists etc. so until next time (when I hopefully will have some new Muscovites up for viewing). Cheers Scott

Thursday Game

Played my first game with a Muscovite army proper yesterday and had a very good win over Robert's Ottomans. It did help that I had Kevin on my side and his dice rolling was inspiring but 5000 points allows a player to put a lot of troops on the board which can cover some lost combats. I used my 2 Cossack pike and 2 Cossack cavalry as Muscovite new regiments, as I have yet to paint them up (got them Wednesday from Old Glory). I also recieved two cavalry unit packs from TAG yesterday for my Ottoman and Polish armies. I will start painting Ottomans when the Muscovites are finished but the next unit on the painting desk after the Jiltsi lancers are a 12 man Hussar unit using Polish Winged Lancer figures from Essex miniatures. These figures only need a bit of work with green stuff and of course no wings to pass muster as Muscovite heavy Hussars.

The Muscovite army used on Thursday had a German mercenary pike unit and cavalry regiment that Kevin had just finished painting, so this battle was the first blooding of his troops and they went well. Kevin is building an Austrian/Imperial army for the Deluge period whilst his brother Kenny has started a Mercenary army with 2 units of Scots which he will add German troops to later on. Karl X enlisted 3 regiments of Scottish foot totalling 3000 men for the Polish invasion in 1655 and a lot of German regiments (foot and horse). I am in the process of translating and listing a brief regimental history of these units from my newly purchased books from Sweden (Carlbom and Stade). Kevin's 15 year old son James is also building up a Brandenburg force that can be used as allies for the Swedes and then later on for the Poles, Austrians and Danes. The new gaming recruits and Russ (with Swedes) makes our group now number 6 very keen players, so I hope to start the campaign anew in the next few months and even sooner if Robert sells his very large collection of ECW figures to Kevin (come on mate I know you want to). Anyway will post the seperate lists over the weekend but now I am going to the movies to see 300 and see how dire the film really is. Cheers Scott

Muscovites and Easter weekend

Hey guys had a great Easter weekend of gaming at the Brisbane Muster put on by friend Gerry Webb of Castaway Arts (thanks mate). My friend Nathan and I put on a very large game of WAB using the draft rules from the yet to be released "Successor Supplement", that I have been lucky enough to be a part of (hope these get published one day). We played the battle of Gabiene between Antigonus and Eumenes in 317/16 BC (see my Slingshot articles issues 233-34 if interested), and had a ball. This period has always been my favourite period and one that I hope to finish a PHD in one day, however my gaming enthusiasm has been tested by the long wait Jeff Jonas has had to endure to get this published (WAB headquarters seem to be interested in publishing supplements about little known periods from UK based authors or so it seems to non based UK gamers). Anyway anti WAB rant over, we used 12 x 6 foot desert terrain built by Robert Fletcher for the Sudan (the battle was in Iran and thanks again BOB), to recreate the battle and it looked and played very well with nearly 1000 28mm figures on the board. The battle was lots of fun and flowed backwards and forwards as a Macedonian civil war game should. I should have posted a taster picture of the game but as this is Blog is really about the Deluge period I will ask those who are interested to use the links page to visit Nathan's 'Lonely Gamers' page to see loads of pictures of the great game (he also has Broadband compared to my very slooooow dial up). I would also like to thank Kenny for taking loads of great pictures as my poor digital could not handle the poor light.

Anyway back to the Deluge period and my lists especially those concerning the Muscovite army which I have been busily painting. I recieved my Old Glory order today and am now able to build 5 x 8 units of New cavalry regiments (Reiter regiments) and finally have the pike components for the infantry units. I have added a Hussar unit to the lists that I somehow left out. I know the first unit was raised in 1662 but one squadron of each of the new reiter regiments were equipped in this fashion from the beginning. I don't really don't know how to simulate this in WECW, so the ability to field a seperate unit seems to be the best option in a Muscovite army of the Deluge period and very historical after 1662. Anyway it gives me the excuse to paint a very different unit which I can use the newly purchased Essex Miniatures to represent (without wings of course and Redoubt Miniatures heavy cavalry head conversions). The spare wings from the Polish Hussars that I now have can be used to represent Tartar nobles who nearly captured Karl X whilst fighting with the Poles. I have my first game with my Muscovites tommorrow versus the Ottomans (5000 points) and look forward to seeing how they play and I will post the photos ASAP. On the weekend I will post all of the improved and hopefully streamlined army lists by themselves on this site on the weekend so they can be quickly downloaded. Cheers Scott

Rules and more rules

I have been searching for a set of rules to play the bigger Deluge games that our collections seem to push us towards. I and the play testers have put loads of thought and work into making our Eastern adaptions to WECW, and they work pretty well up to a point. I have found that over 6000 points the games become clumsy and very longwinded. There is no real command and control and the bigger games just don't seem to come together. I know this is a problem with several of the others ,so I have been searching for that other mythical rule set that may solve our problems with the larger games and I think I have found something we can use, "Piquet and the Anchor of Faith" supplement . Now I am not saying that these rules are for everyone but they seem to hit the nail on the head for me and I really like how they have based and created units. I have yet to play them but having just also purchased the FOB (Field of Battle) set I think I am into a Piquet frame of mind. I will keep you posted on these when I get time to sit down with someone and play a small game.

I leave you with a picture of a Swedish camp sometime during the period of Karl X (lots of modelling inspiration here).

Saturday Game

Here are just a few more images of the game we played on Saturday. The top left one shows just one of the very strong Polish columns. Each column had five cavalry regiments of 12 and a 40 man mercenary pike and musket unit. The fort held 30 dismounted dragoons, a 12 man heavy cavalry unit and 2 very lucky mortars. If you hadn't guessed, I went down in a screaming heap with my 4 newly painted Muscovite units being utterly destroyed (I put it down to not having any flags on these units as I am awaiting their arrival).

Cossacks and Muscovites versus Poles game

Had my first game in over a month on Saturday. We played a relief game where two columns of Poles had to advance and relieve a fort that was being besieged by a large Cossack and Muscovite force (circa 1656). I played the Cossacks and Muscovites whilst Kevin and his son James (15) led each of the Polish columns, Kevin's brother was in charge of the small force holding the fort but they did have 2 mortars that did soooooo much damage to my forces.

The fort is a heavily modified 20mm plastic kit from the Russian company Zvelda (something like that). I placed the fort on a MDF base and built up the earth parapets with foam. The walls were widened with scribed balsa so that 40mm bases can be placed on them. The fort cost 30 dollars Australian when I bought it about 18 months ago but since then I have seen them for a lot more, which is a great pity as I want 1 more to make it large enough for a great siege game.

The picture on the left shows the view from the fort as the 2 columns advance but are seperated by an impassable section of forest. The table is 12x6 feet and if you look closely you can see that Kevin has added a small section around the edge which he has painted to look like hills, forests and the sky, which is pretty cool and it means that your figures will never get knocked off the table.