Battle of Wallhof Jan 17th 1626- Baroque

A couple of us assembled around Ross' gaming table on Friday night a couple of months ago and Ralph put on the Battle of Wallhof fought between the Poles and Swedes using his 15mm collection.

 

I love this period ( like all the others I play -I guess!) The Swedes have excellent infantry and more of it- but the Poles have more cavalry- and three units of the dreaded winged Hussars- classed as 'Feared Units' in the Baroque rules.

As we played through the game- a thought hit me- I also have these figures in 28mm...and have a home grown set of rules.....so a replay in a larger scale was on the cards too.

One of the Swedish foot units and a gun.

The Table at the start of the battle.

Poles vs Swedes

 Trying out our own rules and wanting to put some of my Poles and some of my 17th Century Swedes on the table, I dragged a couple of boxes over to Ross' house. The armies weren't big, we just wanted to get a feel for the period and our rules modifications- and see if I made the right choice in basing the infantry the way I did- see previous blog on TYW/ECW basing!

Poles to the left, Swedes to the right.

Renaissance Poles.

 My Renaissance Polish army is growing and so is my collection of relevant books. I had a Polish army 30 years ago, sold it, but always figured I would rebuild it one day. 30 years ago I had limited sources of information; the 2 Osprey books and a few articles in magazines as well as George Gush's book on Renaissance armies. 

Recently there have been quite a few on the market by Helion- so they have all been added to the collection!

I am particularly taken with the books on the Swedish Deluge- so many armies and fascinating campaigns! 

All my new books are at the end of the post!

Polish Winged Hussars...one of the most iconic of all wargame units!

My two all time favourite Osprey books- and my one of my favourite Osprey pictures ever is the cover of Volume 1! I have two copies of these; much thumbed, dog eared and well read over the years.

More Renaissance Poles.

 I sent away to The Assault Group a few weeks ago for some more figures to add to the Poles. 

They arrived a couple of weeks later- Cossacks, Artillery, some Tatar light cavalry. 

Now painted and added to the collection. I think I will order some more!

Renaissance Poles

I once had a 25mm Renaissance Polish army, a long time ago and sold them off to start my ACW stuff. But I had a yearning to rebuild one. So, after painting up some winged Hussars earlier in the year (see previous post) I decided that they looked rather lonely sitting on my shelf - right next to a couple of hundred Ottoman Turks. So they clearly needed some support!!

So over the last few weeks I painted up some Pancerni from the  "The Assault Group" to go with them and some Hungarian Haiduks for fire support!

So a small force....but growing....... 

( I know it's growing....I ordered some Tartars, Cossacks and artillery.)

Thirty Years War and English Civil War- The Horse..my kingdom for the Horse

      The Horse..my kingdom for the Horse...or something like that..
Following on from my musings about my basing for my infantry (see last post), I was struck by the basing conventions of many rules as being rather random. Sure, some tried to be proportioned and approximated some ground scale.  Some rules insist that each figure is based on 25mm frontage, or 20mm , or 15mm. Other rules- those with a "big base= one unit" approach tend to have a standard frontage for the infantry and perhaps the same for the cavalry (or Horse!) (Baroque) . Some have the Horse on smaller bases  (Tercios). 
SO many rules, so many variations, so little time...... I am so confused.....and a little disheartened.
(Not withstanding phone calls and emails from so called friends calling me after the last post - inquiring as to the state of my mental health!)

I got my classifications from all rules that I have: Pike and Shotte, Polemos, Field of Glory (Renaissance), 1644, Warhammer ECW, Baroque, DBR,  George Gush's WRG rules, For King and Parliament, Liber Militum Tercios and Twilight of Divine Right.  I think there is a small fortune in every wargamer's library that consists of rules never used- or intended to be used but 'never got around to it'.
Anyway with the categories, I just unashamedly copied them: Sipahis, Cuirassiers, Trotters, Gallopers, Arqubusiers, Light Cavalry and Mounted Dragoons.
Some people say this is too many categories.
Other say not enough.
I say "Go away". 

THIRTY YEARS WAR AND ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. - Problems with Pike and Shot.

 I'd always wanted to give the Thirty Years War a go- or even the English Civil War and have bits and pieces packed in boxes....Lockdown is a good opportunity to sort the mess out! 

Like most wargamers I've got rule sets galore on my shelves: Warlord Games Pike and Shotte, Polemos, The Warre Game, 1644, Warhammer ECW,  Baroque,  DBR, the old WRG rules,  For King and Parliament (TtS) and Liber Militum Tercios and too many others to remember.

Everyone has their own favourite set. However I find myself getting caught up in some of the details. The big issue for me started to become pike to shot ratio and how to depict this on the table. For some rules it is easy. With Warhammer, individual figures are used so just build up the unit with the figures in the ratio you want. A shot heavy unit with pike to shot 1:2 with thirty figures? No problem- 10 pike in two ranks in the middle with 20 shot, 10 each side of the pikes. It is a period that lends itself to BIG units, but I just wanted to stick to the figures I've got and make a little go a long way!

ECW- Montrose, the Irish and the Covenanters.

I was taking stock of my Highlanders the other day- thinking about the fact that this year was the 300th Anniversary of the battle of Glenshiel- the Rebellion of the '19 and preparing to do the battle again!!
(Click on "Jacobite Rebellion of the '19" down the right side! )

Now all these Highlanders could also be put to use from just about any period from the 1600's to 1746, so I started ticking off in my mind what I could use them for- and had an idea after reading Trevor Royle's book: Civil War, The Wars of the Three Kingdoms  and decided on one word- Montrose!!