Great Northern War AAR Swedes and Danes

Steve invited Mark and I for a game at his place, he would design the game and asked us to bring our Great Northern War collections along with my earthworks.

He had designed a slightly larger game that would test the rules we had developed from Black Powder fairly thoroughly.

The table was 9 by 6 and the Danish army occupied a hill with a fortified village at its base, the Swedish left flank was also covered by a wood giving only a small gap between the wood and the fortifications.

The Allies would be commanded by Mark and Steve, 18 battalions of foot, 12 Danish, 3 Norwegian and 3 Prussian supported by 3 guns and 7 regiments of horse. Divided in 4 brigades of 4 foot and two brigades of horse.

Most of the Allies were average quality but one of the foot was Veteran and two were poor.

One Brigade was thrown forward into the village with a supporting gun whilst the rest occupied the heights in a crescent formation.

The Swedes would initially be attacking with just 8 regiments of average foot (for Swedes) and 6 regiments of horse supported by 2 guns.

A guards brigade of foot would arrive on turn 4.

The Danes, Norwegians and Prussians are all Marks figures as are the guns. 4 of the horse are also Marks with the other three being my Saxons and Russians.

All of the Swedes were from my collection.

All of the Swedish commanders were good and all of the Allied commanders were Average.

Move one had the Swedes storm forward on the right flank charging the earthworks in the fortified village. The closing fire from the Prussians is good but not good enough and the Swede's win the ensuing melee pushing back the Prussians and occupying the inside of the works.

Things go less well on the left with the foot only moving once, luckily remaining just out of musketry range whilst the horse make heavy weather of closing with their allied counterparts.

Fire from the village and the hill dis-ordered 3 out of 4 of the right hand brigade and 2 of the left hand brigade too. Key to this then being that the second rank of battalion on the left could pass through but not charge the earthworks buying the village another turn with the Swedes not able to close.

On the left flank the horse from both sides now clashed, the Swedes had the better of the first engagement driving two units of Danes back and destroying another. However two Swedish units were shaken and the Swedes needed to regroup before taking on the rest of the Allied horse.

Wit the dis-orders off the Swedes charged the Prussian unit on the right that had been forced out of the earthworks and closed on the flank of the retreating gun. This time the Prussians luck does not hold and they break. However the swedes are unable to close with the gun this turn.

On the left the Swedes are finally able to charge, however as yet another unit is dis-ordered only one battalion is able to charge and is held by the Norwegian battalion to its front.

The Swedish cavalry sort themselves out and charge the next block of Allied horse and are again successful in pushing one back and breaking another, but again one of the Swedish horse is taken to shaken and unable to pursue combat

In the allied turn Mark then charges the shaken Swedish horse who are unable to counter charge and receive non of their bonuses. Fortunately his dice throwing deserts him at this point and the Swedes survive the initial onslaught.

Things are looking grim for the Swedes held up by 4 battalions in the village and 12 allied foot still entirely uncommitted, but at this point the Guards Brigade marches on table. If they can get there in time they may yet swing the battle in favour of the Swedes.

On the right the Swedes charge and destroy the gun and begin to march up the hill to take on the Danish main force, however the rear battalion is shot again and taken to both shaken and is-ordered, their luck runs out and poor dice sees them fail their break test miserably and leave the table.

The Swedish cavalry sort themselves out again and begin to push forward on the remaining Danes, another push on the village sees one battalion held but the other breaks into the defences and forces the Norwegians to retreat. One unit of horse scrambles over the earthworks and the Guard close in on the gap. The Allies swing their far right brigade around to give flanking fire into the exposed right hand Swedish brigade and things look grim indeed for the isolated three battalions facing 9 Danish battalions.

The Danish Cavalry take advantage of the shaken Swedes to charge again but are driven back, A lucky rally roll sees two Swedish cavalry units shrug off a casualty to put them back in action and the Swedes charge again. Two more units of Danish horse are lost forcing a break test and Marks dice a miserable on this occasion, the Allied horse have now left the building. Fortunately for the Danes Mark had foreseen this and deployed two battalions to refuse his flank 

The village is now largely untenable, there are two damaged battalions holding it but they are surrounded by 4 battalions of Swedes and two guns.  The Swedish Guard are about to storm over the now empty earthworks on the extreme left where the Norwegians have retreated and the Swedish Cavalry have no opposition and capable of putting 6 reasonably untouched units of horse into the flank of the Danish forces.

The badly damaged brigade on the Swedish right is in serious trouble with one unit gone another shaken and a third one casualty away from also being shaken, they are being fired on by 9 battalions and a gun and you have to wonder how much longer they can soak up the punishment.

But on the left it doesn't look good for the Allies at all, the joint effort of an untouched Guards Brigade and two brigades of cavalry seems set to give the Danes a real thrashing.

That said there is still loads to play for and we could carry on for another hour or two before getting a final result, however its after 10pm and the Allies don't think they can rescue the situation so we pack up for the night.

A bigger game tested the rule amends quite thoroughly and in particular we kept the better Swedish figures off table for most of the game and upgraded a couple of the Danish units to represent their veteran and guard units. It played really well, the fortified village in particular causing the Swedes some real headaches.

We are happy that the amends work and planning a much larger game in a couple of months as a final test of whether we have got it right or not.

For now though a fun nights game thank you Steve and Mark.