Medieval Bishop WIP

As there were quite a few militant Bishops in Sweden during the 15th century I reccon I had to have at least one commander that are a bishop in more formal derss. So far I have used ordinary Knight commander as the Bishops by all means was high nobility and well educated both in the holy script as well in the use of arms.

This time I wanted a Bishop commander in Mitre and with a Crosier.

I used a Perry WoTR mini that I cut the hat of and added a grenadiere miter from the plastic Wargames Factory WSS sprue.

The Crosier I made from some sort of medieval polearm from Perrys.

In the back of the base I will add two knights on foot with the banners of the Bishop.

The command will be represent the Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson from the House of Oxenstiern as well as his relative the Bishop of Linköping Kettil Karlsson from the House of Vasa

Allmoge soldier´s from Kingmaker

Adding to my Allmoge units, this time some pictures of the Kingmaker minis I painted lately.

The Kingmaker minis are a bit bigger and not as good sculpted as the Perry and Claymore minis, but they have in my minde the best equipment for Swedish allmoge soldiers. Even a bit bigger they mix well with the other minis I use for my allmoge units and I like them very much.

Battle of Visby 1361

During the weekend I was at the new exhibition at the Historical Museum here in Stockholm "Medieval Massacre – the Battle of Gotland 1361"

They tell the story about the horrifying medieval battle between the allmoge of Gotland and the well trained soldiers of the Danish army.

In May 1361, King Magnus IV of Sweden writes a letter of warning to the burghers of Visby:

“… some of our enemies are conspiring ... 

to attack your area by force of arms and a strong army …”

On 27 July that same year, the mercenary troops of Danish King Valdemar IV Atterdag kill 1,800 Gotland farmers. Men, old folk, youths, cripples – they all die in battle outside the city walls of Visby. Their corpses are thrown into mass graves.

Extensive archaeological investigations of the graves in 1928-1930 and modern science have provided new knowledge of what happened.

I have seen parts of this exhibition at Gotland in 2011, they have done some more research, but I must say that the Historical Museum of Visby had a better exhibition. Most of all I lacked new books or a fancy exhibition folder about the event, not event a reprint of the very fine book "Visby 1361: Invasionen" by Gun Westhom. Still, if you are in Stockholm by any chance it is well woths a visit.

...the backside about this kind of museum visits are that it starts some bad thoughts about new small projects... and in combination with the up comming Lion Rampant rules and the fine minis from Claymore Casting and Perry HYW range I might end up with one more project...

Here are a link to the exebition material.about the battle of Visby 1361 Its primary for touch screens so It isn´t that easy to navigate on a PC, but I think you manage...

Allmoge soldier´s from Claymore

Time for the second of three batches of allmoge soldiers I at the moment working on. This time some lovely minis from Claymore Castings, both pole-armed ones as well as some archers.

Donnybrook AAR#4

So here it is at last...The Ambuch at Örkeljunga Church 1676 AAR...from the test game I and Jonas run the day before our club game with Barry H. For this game I run the Danes and Jonas the Swedes, so the AAR will be a bit of Danish sided this time...

Annyway...here comes the background and OOB again if you might have forgotten them.

August 1676, the Swedish army was on the march to Halmstad to settle the scores with a Danish force under Commander Duncan that was on their way to seize the town Halmstad. 

This small scenario depicts an Ambush of a Swedish supply column that was awaiting new beasts of burden for the supply wagons. The animals should, according to the law, be provided by the local farmers. 

Most of the men in the Supply column are away to gather the reluctant farmers and their beasts. Just a few Swedish soldiers have been left to protect the supplies, it’s a perfect time for the Friskyttar to attack and destroy the supplies… 

Objectives 
The time are of importance as the foraging Swedish troops will soon be back the Danes just have 15 turns to accomplish their mission. There are 3 Wagons and one Artillery piece that need to be destroyed. To destroy a wagon or the artillery piece a Danish unit have to be in physical contact with the objective and as a activation succeed with a 6+ ability roll.

The Swedes have to stop them and resist until the Danes have to withdraw after 15 turns.

OOB - Swedish 
1x Hero - Lieutenant Johan Kruuse with the Dalregementet
1x8 Regular - Foot musketeers with a character, Sergeant Hård
1x4 Regular – Artillery and 4 crewmen and a character, Sergeant Kruut

Reinforcements (One unit arrives at the end of each turn in the order stated below)
1x4 Elite - Dragoons
1x8 Regular - Foot Pikemen with two characters, Ensign Skytte and Drummer Klang
1x8 Regular - Foot musketeers with a character, Sergeant Kvick
1x6 Regular – Cavalry with a character, Captain Löwenskiöld

OOB - Danish
1x Hero - Grenadier Lieutenant Nils Eskildsen (3 grenades)
1x8 Regular - Foot musketeers with a character, Ensign Olsen
2x8 Regular – Friskyttar, one group with Muskets and one with Göingebössor (Rifles). One group have a character, Scout Pher Månsson a.k.a. Uggletorparn
1x3 Elite - Cavalry with a character, Captain Madsen

Lieu of Character
Hide out – Due to their knowledge of the land the two units of Friskyttar may use the Hide out rule from the outlaw Faction (Page 48 in the Donnybrook rules). 

The Danish Scout made it possible for a unit of Snapphanar to deploy anyware on the tambe but not within 12" of an enemy unit or objective...So I decided to place them out of sight at the farm yard, guite close to two of the objectives.

I indeed had a good run of activation cards and was able to move all of my remaining units on to the table in the first turn. The plan was to have the cavalry to ruch up in the middel and destroy that wagon. 

The regular Danes under comand of my Grenadier Hero, with 3 grenades, and with support of the rifle armed Snapphanar should move up on my right flank to destroy the wagon outside the church wall. 

According to plan:) Speed was the key, as othervise the Swedes might have got to much reinforcements...

Not according to plan...my first thought was to ruch for the wagon by the Windmill but I was some subdue by the swedish cannon that was covering the approach rout...So I decided to hide the whole unit in the house...

You might notice the muskets in the windows...ready to fire at the approacing Swedish infantry...

...and fire the Swedes did...with the cannon...

As the Swedes was occipied to attack the Snapphanar in the house the rest of my Danes could advance in peace on the other flank...

As my elite cavalry approaced their goal, the center wagon, I decided to switch objective to attack, so the cavalry ruched forw to destroy the Swedish cannon...

My Cavalry managed to cut down the crew but was them self shoot to pieces by an unit of Swedish musketeers that appeared by the road...

It was just my Heroic Cavalry Captain Madsen that was still alive, but wounded, that managed to sabotage the cannon with his last breaths...hi fell victim for a Swedish dragoon that sniped him with his rifle from the Wind mill...

More and more swedish reinforcements arrived, I started to feel short of time...

In a desperate action I sent my Hero Grenadiere Lieutenant Nils Eskildsen to destroy the wagon by the church wall despite the fact that the crule Swedes had put civilian hostages on top of it...

Several grenades was thrown but despit the heroic deed they fell short... an act of God...that wanted to save the innocents...

A group of Swedish cavalry entered the scene, setting the farm on fire and fighting down all resistance from the Snapphanar that had hided out there...

Things started to crumble for the my Danes, and then the Swedish infatry in the center forect managed to shoot some of the Snapphanar behind the stone wall the Danes had gor to much of a beating...

The Danes made a heroic retreat to save their remaining forces for another day...

One again a realy entertaining game of Donnybrook, the rules realy lift when the players put a bit of role-playing in to the game, its indeed makes a better story and the use of the named character helps out very much in the narrative.

Thanks for reading !

More Medieval Swedish Allmoge

I have started to paint me even more Swedish Allmoge soldiers for my Kalmar Union war project. I plan to paint 30 or so minis from a couple of different manufacturers. First I have some Perry minis and then two from a talented Russian Sculptor.

Barry H in da House

Tuesdays club game was a blast much due to the visit of Barry Hilton from Leauge of Augsburg / Warfare miniatures.

I and Sören had the opportunety to guide Barry at the Swedish Army Museum in Stockholm during the afternoon and then we were of to the club for a Donnybrook game.

Barry had brought some of the test minis for Warfare Miniatures new Great Norther War range, beautifully painted by him. You can find better pictures of them here.

To our joy he also brought a bunch of the same minis as giveaways, especially as some of them might not eawen get in to production in the final range...

A closeup of the three I snatched, Swedish GNW NCO, Russian early GNW Musketeer and a Russian GNW banner carrier. The 2 to the left will be forced in to my Scanian War project...

Barry also introduced the Donnybrook rules for the club member that haden´t played them before and then we run a small game I had staged "The Ambuch at Örkeljunga Church 1676". 

As it was around 10 participants I didn´t realy gor the time to take pictures, to much work to run the game even with Barry helping out with rules questions, but at least a few pictures from the game...

The Danes made a quick move with their Elite cavalry and managed to destroy one of the Swedish wagons...

The Danish regulars didn´t manage to do much during the game...suppose they got distracted by the bacon...

In the end the Heroic Swedish troops managed to repell the Dansih attack...The Danes had to retreat after just destroying one of the wagons...

All in all it was a very nice game, evening and day. 

Many thaks to Barry for the visit to our club, much appreciated ! 

I will try to fix up a AAR from the test game I and Jonas run the day before....

I hope you all will have a really nice weekend !