Even more Ledung Soldiers

Some time ago I posted some "work in progress" pictures of the next unit of Swedish Ledung Soldiers, sins then it have started to snow here in Stockholm as well as in my Baltic Crusade project.

I have at last finished the minis for the 3rd group of Ledung Soldiers.

The Ledung Shieldwall so far...

Skirmishers for the Baltic Crusades

Fresh of the painting table, here are some pictures of a group of Swedish Skirmishers for my Baltic Crusade project, these minis will eventually be incorporated in a ordinary ledung unit as I plan to make me some Skirmishers wearing skis...

Any suggestions of how to make medieval skis?

The minis are from the left: Artizan, Crusader, Crusader and Gripping Beast. As I got some questions about the minis I will clarify, still from the left:

1. Artizan viking bowmen, I just added a GB plastic viking sword in the belt and a medieval heater shield on the back.
2. Crusader crossbow man from the Later Crusader range, he to got a GB plastic Viking Sword as well as a Saex from the same kit and a GB metal kite shield on the back.
3. Crusader crossbow man from the Later Crusader range, he got a new head from West Wind Saxon range, a purse and saex from the GB plastic viking set and a medieval heater shield on the back. The sword he have stuck in he´s belt under the shield are from Curteys medieval range.
4. GB Plastic Saxon with a head from a Crusade mini (from the one in the green cap) and with bow arms and arrows from a Perry WOTR box and a GB metal kite shield on the back.

I hope that cleare everything out;)

AAR: Raid on Penningby 1466

Here comes the first AAR from my and Jonas Dux Suecia campaign. Dux Suecia are my migration of TooFatLardies excellent game Dux Britanniarum to the Civil Wars in Sweden during the 15th century in the shadow of the Kalmar Union.

OOB Raid on Penningby 1466

The OOB for this scenario, there we used the Village Raid scenario stright from the book, was:

Swedish rebells forces (Commanded by Jonas)

Influence: 3

Commander Nils Bosson Sture of the House of Natt och Dag (Owner of Penningby)
3 units of 6 Allmoge each from Roslagen

Leader Sten Gustavsson of the House of Sture
2 units of 6 Hardened Allmoge each from Dalarna and Hälsingland

Leader Ivar Axelsson from the House of Tott (That just have turned side from pro union to rebell)
1 unit of 4 Frälse

Union forces (Commanded by me as our Danish, and ofcourse pro union, friend Sören got sik in the last minute)

Influence: 3

Commander Erik Nilsson of the House of Oxenstierna (Cousin to the Archbishop)
2 units of 4 Frälse each

Leader Erik Karlsson from the House of Vasa (Brother in law to Erik Nilsson)
2 units of 6 Fotknektar each

Leader Trotte Karlsson of the House of Eka
1 unit of 4 Skyttar

Basing of the minis
As you might have notice I don´t have my 15th century minis on single bases as stated in Dux Britanniarum. We used my multibased minis as 1 base in the game was 1 mini in the rules.

Infantry 3-4 minis on a 40x40mm base
Cavalry 2 minis on a 40x50mm base
Commanders and Leaders 1 Mounted and 2-3 fott on a 40x50mm base

So here are some pictures from the game, click on the and thet get sligthly bigger:

This was a splendig game, although I didn´t achieve the Unions goals to plunder Penningby. Even using the same rules as for our Viking adventure with Dux Britanniarum this game feelt completely different in style, might be the use of mounted units, or that we used quit much terrain or may be the size of bases? Any way was it a very enjoyable gaming session. 

The results of the raid that would effect our campaign was:

• Swedish Victory, recived Light losses and would recover them in a month time and will be ready for action in Juli, they also rais their Influence to 4.

• Union Loss, recived Moderate Losses and would recover them in two month time and will be ready for action in August...

Using this opportunety the Swedish Commander Nils Bosson Sture of the House of Natt och Dag can commence a raid as early as in July and get a advantage of that the Union forces arn´t fully renewed...

So our next game will be a Swedish raid of a under strenght Union supply column...

Historical re-cap: The Swedish Commander Nils Bosson Sture of the House of Natt och Dag was probably not present then the Archbishops troops raided and burnt his estate at Penningby.  Nils Bosson Sture retaliated with his 8 svennar (Squires) by traveling to Hälsingland and capture all the Archbishops gathered taxes and rally the Allmoge to a rebellion, more about that later...

Awarded :)

I got awarded the "Liebster Prize" both by Jehan from the blog L'antre de Jehan AND by Anibal Invictus from the blog Gaming with TooFatLardies, Anibal Invictus nomination text was:

"Next one to Dalauppror, from the icy Scandinavian countries but you'll get really hot on the outstanding painting excellent levels, mouthwatering high-quality gaming tables and engaging battle reports."

Thanks for the very nice review:)

I´m  most honoured by both the Awards ! Very appreciated !

One more bennefit of the award are that I can award it to five more fellow bloggers, chainletter warning, but I´ll pass it on anyway:)

The rules are very easy:

•  "Copy and paste" the award on your blog, and talk about it a bit.
• Select for the award your five favourite blogs with less than 200 followers, leaving a comment on one of their post to notify them that they have won the award. You need also to list them in your own blog.
• Enjoy the moment, knowing that you have just made someone´s day. 
• Of course, there is no obligation to pass the award, but it is a good deed really.

If you read the rules careful you will notice the max 200 follower...i managed to get the award anyway...twice... thanks again;)

And now, my selection for the next winners, in no particular order:

• For having put up with all my different gaming project the last time, my quite newly found gaming friend Jonas need´s a puch for his excellent blog A Conflict of Interests, a blog with too? many inspirational pictures and posts.

• From the darkest part of Småland in Sweden we have Engel and he´s blog Kampfgruppe Engel with lots of nice pictures and projects, especially he´s Skägglavefantasy project are pure inspiration.

• The chaps behind the blog Northern Wargaming absolutely deserve a Award for joining me in promoting wargaming in the Medieval Swedish History, GOOD WORK FELLOWS !!!

• From the north of Sweden we have one more excellent blogger Hobbyworker and he´s blog Hobbyworker, loaded with god painted minis and very nice after action reports.

• I you to were an Englishman in exile in Denmark you to needed and deserved an Award for your blog. Stephen arn´t only a very talented miniature painter, he also a very good friend that, out of the blue, offered to guide me around in London during this years Salute, be sure to make he´s blog Janner´s Jaunt a visit.

YES! I admit that 80% of the Prizewinners are from Sweden, but it is just a coincidence, I promise;) As Stephen also learning Danish I suppouse he to count as almost as a Swede...

My congratulations to all my winners and to all other wargaming blogger that have recived their Awards !

Dux Suecia first draft?

Here comes a first draft of some of the changes I made in my migration of TooFatLardies excellent game Dux Britanniarum to Dux Suecia i.e. Civil Wars in Sweden during the 15th century in the shadow of the Kalmar Union.

The picture are from the Bondeuppbådet webb site, unfortunate in Swedish, sorry.

I and Jonas will run a campaign starting in the may 1466 to capture the struggle between the pro union Swedish Archbishop and Lord Protector Jöns Bengtsson of the of House Oxenstierna and his relatives and allied against the Swedish noble man Nils Bosson Sture of the House of Natt och Dag and his allied that claimed to fight for the reinstate of the disbanded Swedish King Karl Knutsson of the House of Bonde for the 3rd time...

I have tried to make as few changes as possible to the basic Dux Britanniarum rules most often just re-nameing the abillity or rule, like shieldwall are now considered "Close order formation", but it gives the same pro and cons.

Here are some of them that I changed a little bit more...

Welth
Welth was re-name to "Influence" as for us it was more appropriate, as in Sweden by this time you need to have a god influence on your surounding so you could use that influence to gain support from fellow noblemen and even more important the Allmoge. No nobleman could get long without the support of major part of the allmoge...yes, maybe if you got soms support from the Danish/Union King, but that also demanded influence and connectios:) Our Influence works just as Welth rules wise.

Campaign Structure

• Campaign Seasons: As much of the medievla warfare in Sweden during the middleage was depending of that the Allmoge participated the nobles had to adjust their campaigns to the periods then the Allmoge didn´t have to work the field. This meaning that the campaign year are split in two and there are no campaigning take place during March and April as ther are spring time work on the farms and no campaigning during September or October as ther are harvest and autum sowing.
• Raiding: In the beginning of the campaign both sides are allowed to condukt raids go gahter Influence to be able to be apointed Hövitsman (Rebellion leader) for the Swedish or apointed Marsk (Lord High Constable) for the Union.
• Battles: After the Commanders have raise in ranks by using their Influence they have gathered enough strenght to start to conquer the opposition regions by Battles and Sieges. In the end they might be apointed Lord Protector of Sweden or even King of Sweden...

Troop Types 
To get the real swedish flavour in the gaming I also renamed the troop types, so you all have to learn sone Swedish;)

Frälse (Elit)
Frälse (literally ‘the saved’) was the contemporary Swedish term for nobles and churchmen ‘saved’ from paying taxes. There were no more than a few hundred actual dubbed knights ('Riddare') in the entire country. The Frälse units include Riddare, Svenner, militant Bishops (of which there were quite a few), and un-knighted nobles along with their retinues

Knektar (Warriors)
This is the trained soldiers and mercenarys that do the dirty work for the nobles. They are devided in 2 sub-clases.

• The Skyttar (‘shooters’) were professional soldiers serving as mounted crossbowmen. They relied mainly on shooting and were more mobile than the Frälse, but did not really skirmish. Many of them were well armoured, but rode rather small unarmoured horses. They were often used to ride ahead of the main army to seize terrain defiles. 

• The Fotknektar (‘Mercenary Foot‘) depicts the large numbers of mercenaries primarily used by Union armies. The mercenaries were often Germans and well equipped with good armour and halberds. 

Allmoge (Levy)
The Allmoge depict the yeoman infantry of Sweden. They were unusually well equipped and effective for non-professional medieval infantry and fought in mixed formations of men with polearms and crossbow-/bowmen. The numbers of polearms and crossbows in the formation seems to have been roughly equal with 2-3 ranks of crossbow-/bowmen and 2-3 ranks of polearms.

Allmoge units varied in quality during the period, especially regarding leadership, so some of them might be uppgraded to Battled Hardened Allmoge, using the stats as per Knektar but are considered Allmoge in regards of Fate cards.

Skärmytslare (Skirmishers)
Skärmytslare ('skirmishers') depict detached small units of mercenarys with handguns. At the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, the King of Denmark was wounded by a bullet from a Swedish handgun.

This was a some of the changes we will tryout and YES! the AAR of our first game "Raid on Penningby 1466" are almost finished, will come tomorrow or latest on monday...

Have a nice weekend !

Swedish Allmoge making a Bråte

Dux Suecia

Here are some pictures of the Activation and Fate cards I made for "Dux Suecia".... 

Inspired by the article in the TooFatLardies Summer Special 2012 about migrating Dux Britanniarum to other periods I have made a go for my favorite wargaming period, “Kalmar Union War” i.e. warfare in Sweden during the 15^th century. 

Kalmar Union War is my own designation of the decades, 1434-1471, of struggle for power over Sweden and the wars between Sweden and Denmark that dominated the Union at this time.

My main focus of this migration are the later parts of the period 1463-1471, starting with the imprisonment of the Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson (Oxenstierna) in 1463 to the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471.

Sweden was almost continuously at war. Various factions either hurried favour with the Union monarch or rebelled against him. The result was a confusing series of wars between factions of noble houses vying for power while supporting or rejecting the Union King.

Sweden had never really implemented feudalism and the commoners, the ‘Allmoge’, had quite extensive legal rights and political agendas of their own. The Swedish ‘Frälse’/nobles were a wilful lot and very keen on the King not getting too powerful. Efforts by the Union to extract more taxes and to modernize the country at the expense of traditional rights and privileges met with stiff resistance.

The Allmoge in each region, ‘Landskap’, roughly the equivalent of an English county, to a large extent made their own decisions and frequently found themselves fighting against the Allmoge of other regions.

The Union King, usually a Dane or German, responded to rebellions by sending an army bolstered by lots of mercenaries. He also always tried to "lure" Swedish nobles with theirs Allmoge over to his side. Rebellions could be very successful militarily, but infighting among factions meant that the country most often returned to recognizing a Union King after political compromise, treachery and/or the odd murder.

The perfect setting for some smal scale raid wargaming like in Dux Britanniarum:)

Of course the monday night game "Raid of Penningby 1466" was played using a first draft of Dux Suecia and we have decided to make some more playtest and run a small campaign to see how our small rules changes turn out. More about tha changes and last nights game in the AAR I´m working on...hope to have it finished untill the weekend....

Raid on Penningby 1466

Here are some pictures of the gaming table I just set up for tomorrows Kalmar Union War game.

This time we will not use Hail Caesar as our rule set, more about the rules in the AAR...

First a short recap of the history...

The Swedish King Karl Kutsson of the house of Bonde have just been overthrown for the second time by the Union friendly Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson from the house of Oxenstierna. The King are in exile at his estates in Finland and the Archbishop rules the contry as Lord Protector, to secure his possition he starts to weaken the opposition and folowers to the King.

During the summer of 1466 the Archbishop let his troops attack several of the oppositions estates that are plunder and burnt. One of the first to be attacked was the estate Penningby belonging to the Knight Nils Bosson Sture of the house Natt och Dag.

Tomorrows game are inspired by that event...

Set-up, the Union/Archbishops troops advancing towards penningby.

Trying to hide the cows...

Loading or unloading...the inhabitans of Penningby 

should run for it...

Just pictures of the Union force as the Swedes luring in the forests to spring a well planned ambush... or they just made a run for it...

The winter is here...

As the winter are here I have decided to let it start to snow in my Baltic Crusade project... now on all the Baltic Crusaders will have winter bases and I also have to fix me some winter terrain, sledges and scouts on skis...

...and I blame it all on my friend? Ogge as he was the one that sow the sead of winter, as it would difference the project more from my Kalmar Union Project and as winter raids was very common in the Baltics as it was in Sweden during the time it wan´s a hard decision.

Anyway I think it turned out quite well, I hope you think so to as its no turning back;)

The daughter want to paint...

A couple of days ago my 9-year daughter asked if she could join  in for some painting, ofcourse ! First time she asked in a couple of years, so it was very welcome.

She wanted to paint some fantasy mini and the only thing I had ready to be painted at the moment was a Dwarf.

Here are some pictures of the result :)

The Snow base was chosen so the mini would mix in with my "Chronicles of Hel" minis, we might even play a game or two I hope as shes already started to paint the next mini:)

AAR Vikings v. Saxons #4

Some three weeks ago I and JonasM run the 4th Dux Britanniarum game in our 9th century cronicle about Gutorm the Coward, the unliked son of a Viking King. Gutorm tries to carve out a kingdom for himself and his seariders on the other side of the northsea...

The Defenders of the Anglo-Saxon realms have repulsed tree of the attacks and are in a good spirit, to protect their property Aethelbald the Cruel have to move it all to the old roman fort and now he sends out patrols to locate the Vikings to be able to run them away for good...

Here are some pictures from the game...

Yet one realy nice game of Dux Britanniarum. Now Gutorm the Coward have to sail back to the north to pay dady, the King, a tribute and tell stories of all he´s deeds...he might be back next summer to follow up he´s achievements...

If you haven already visit Jonas M´s exellent blog "A Conflict of Interests" please take a look.