Great Northern War with BLB

We have had a few play throughs with Beneath the Lilly Banners recently and decided it would be good to try a small Great Northern War game with the Talon and Claw amends added.

The Russians have two squadrons of dismounted dragoons holding a farm ahead of their line and slightly left of centre with a sotnia of Cossacks and 2 squadrons of mounted dragoons covering the left flank. their centre and right is 3 battalions of foot and a double battery of field guns.

The swedes have 3 Squadrons of horse and 3 Battalions of foot supported by a light gun.

Steve's lovely new Eastern Europe buildings are on the back left of our picture from TM terrain. The Church is particularly lovely.

Up to press I have been pretty sceptical of BLB in particular due to the low movement rates. The Swedes being very manouvreable get bonuses on movement, infantry move 6 inches instead of 4 and wheel at full movement making them really easy to use. They also get some other rules bonuses making them a bit more effective. I was hopeful this would solve some of my concerns.

The Swedes always get one more level of orders than they have rolled to reflect their professional staff work and officer crps, so for most of the game I was able to order all of my troops, this makes a big difference when you are attacking and another reason they cost more in a points based game.

I used the Swedish Dragoons below to represent the two squadrons of drilled horse and Adelsfana as the Elite Veterans. 

Steve has his Cossacks deployed forward but pretty quickly pulled them back out of harms way.

King Charles was not a fan of artillery and often left it behind, in todays game I felt I might as well as done the same, not really much use in attack for the Swedes.

Initial moves I send my Elite horse squadron to my left to try flank the Russians and my dragoons right to try tie up the Russian Horse. My foot Brigade marches straight down the throat of the Russians to try for conclusions.

My Dragoons are immediatly shot at by the dismounted Russians int he farm and I take my first casulaty.

The double battery inflicts 3 casualties on my Elite Veteran infantry unit. Thats with a ,long range modifier and a new target modifier, next turn it will be easier, its a bit of a shock, that double battery will have destroyed a battalion before I am half way and another before we can close. I need to change my plan.

Steve realises that this will impact the playability of this as a test game and removes a gun. Something learned already.

Move 2 I change direction, as the Gusn are un manouvreable I decide to attack through the farm where the guns cant reach me and punch through the Russians on my right.

Even with the increases movement rate of the Swedes it takes me another two moves to get there and my bets battalion has 5 casualties now having taken 3 morale tests. Just as well we are manovreable.

Field guns are pretty devastating, well placed artillery will be a key factor for future games I feel.

I deploy my light gun to support the attack on the farm. 2 dice I score one hit, but as its cover I have to re-roll hits and miss. My musketry however inflicts casualties as does the return fire from the Dragoons.

Next move the Swedes declare a charge on the dragoons and convincingly pass their test.

The beat up Dragoons fall theirs and leg it out the back of the Farm.

on my left the Adalsfana have been advancing to try get around the flank of the Russians, I was planning to try charge the rear of the artillery, however one volley from the Russkies and they are seen off in retreat. 

The Adalsfana took a real kicking from that one volley and wont be much use for the rest of the game,.

On my right the Dragoons have steadily advanced as Steve has steadily retired denying me a target.

My lead battalion now charges the second dismounted Dragoon squadron, they stand but are not surprisingly defeated in hand to hand, Steve rolls well for them and they retire in good order out the back of the farm.

I push my Elite Veteran unit out of the farm at the left of the Russian line away from the gun and throw a wasted long range volley at them.

Its now 10pm and we have not quite got to grips again. Having said that I have enjoyed the game much more and we took our time going through every step to ensure we had it right. 

I am still concerned about the movements rates but much happier with the mechanics and the differences for Great Northern War.

We agree to have another game next week, slightly larger and try increasing movement rates slightly. We decide that we will add an average dice of movement for each unit.

I cant wait to get to a point where the Great Northern War collections are back on table regularly.