Thursday, August 6, 2015

The Pikeman´s Lament AAR#1 - Raid in Örkened Socken 1678



Here are some pictures from my and Jonas first playtest game of My and Daniel Merseys new Pike and Shot themed wargaming rules "The Pikeman´s Lament" that are due to be published in the Ospreys Wargaming serie in January 2017....

We used my Scaninan War 1675-79 collection and the Scenario are a Raid mission on a small Scanian farm that havbe been toold to help the Danish Freeshoters so the Swedish authoraty have decided to burn it all to the ground as a punishment for them helping the rebelles, i.e.. "Snapphanarna".

OOB
The two companies used have a lot of different troop types in them as we wanted to test as many as possible in the same game;)

Danish
Officer - Second Lieutenant Niels Andersen, he are a Hothead and have a hard time with superiors - he have been demoted several times, but his freeshoter company loves that he cares for them and lead from the front.
1 unit of Shot with officer attached
2 units of Trotters
2 units of Dragoons
1 unit of Allmoge
1 unit of Detached shot

Swedish
Officer - Second Lieutenant Nils Skytte, he are an Officer and a Gentleman in fancy clothes that the ladies really love.
1 unit of Pike with officer attached
2 units of Shot
1 unit of Galoppers
1 unit of Veteran Dragoons
1 unit of Allmoge

Deployment, Danes to the left with a few units in the middle to defent the farm and Swedes to the right. The gaming area are about 120x120cm

Swedish Dragoons and Galoppers. As you see we have keept the unit sizes, 6 minis for Horse and 12 minis for most Foot, The Dragoons are some in between with a mix of Horse and Foot, but it have no effect on the game

Soldiers from the Swedish Dalregiment, one unit of Shot and a unit of Pike with the officer, Second Lieutenant Nils Skytte, mounted on his Horse so all enemy snipers can see him and his new hat in all his glory;)

Scaninan Allmoge that fights for the Swedes to hunt downt the marauders, the Snapphanar.
It was quite common during the Scanian war that the Scanian Allmoge fought for both the Swedes and the Danes.

Scanian Allmoge that under command of the village priest will try to defend their homes from the flames. Back in the small field you can see a group of Detached Shot, represented by the more potent shooter from the Scanina Allmoge.

Danish Freeshoters (Dragoons) advance to help out protect the farm.

Even more Danish freeshoters advance to protect the farm against the evil Swedes...

To the left a unit of Shot with the officer Second Lieutenant Niels Andersen on his horse that he stole from a Swedish general some time ago. To the right, on the road, two units of Trotters.

The Danish Trotters dashingly moves throught the farm eager to engage the Swedes, in the back some Danish Dragoons take cover behins a pile of timber.

The Scanian Allmoge hide out behind one of the houses hoping that the trotters will win the day for them.

At the same time the Swedish infantry have reached the stone wall and the Dragoons and Galoppers are on their way up to the farm.

Only the Scanian Allmoge that lagging behind in the general Swedish advance

The Scanian Allmoge that are defending the farm are still hiding behind a house while the Swedes advance...

The Swedish Galoppers ad Dragoons have taken some casulties due to shooting from the Danish Trotters and Dragoons...

The Scanian allmoge have at last advanced to a possition behind a hedge to start shooting on the advancing Swedes...

The advancing Swedes also recieve some flanking fire from the Danish Shot unit.

Just before the final Swedish assault...

Second Lieutenant Nils Skytte leads heroicly his Pike unit in a charge...

Fierce fighting...

The Pikeman´s from the Dalregiment manage to chase away the Scanian Allmoge...

Smells like a Swedish victory...

...but due to some shooting and a lucky blow Second Lieutenant Nils Skytte falls from his horse, wounded...but it seems like it was just a flesh wound and his Pikemen´s manage to bring him to saftey, but also stoping their offencive...

With just one Shot unit, a Pike unit and some no-god Scanian Allmoge left the Swedes decides to retreate in good order and launch a new attack another day...

To have been the first test game of The Pikeman´s Lament we both feelt most worked out good, we have some adjustment of troop stats, special rules etc to do, but we are on our way with the playtesting, expect more The Pikeman´s Lament playtesting AAR´s :)

Thanks for reading!

44 comments:

  1. Ok, that is awesome. Thanks for posting!!

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  2. Nice report. Looking forward to seeing these published. They'll be on my "to buy" list.

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  3. As a preview of how the rules look on the table this is great. I'm very much looking forward to their release.

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    1. Very appreciated, glad that you like the look of my game:)

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  4. Excellent report, I hope I can join you in a test game soon

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    1. Thanks Ulf !

      Indeed I hope so to, see you at the club !

      Best regards Michael

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  5. Enjoyable and interesting report.
    Alan

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  6. Your usual excellent narrative and some bloomin' lovely juicy pics in there too Michael :>)

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  7. Great to see things are already in motion on the playtesting front. As always a lovely table and figures. Nice to see a good mix of units too.

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    1. Thanks Steve !

      Indeed palytest are on the run at least here in Sweden, not sure if Dan have had time to set up any games yet.

      Best regards Michael

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  8. Great AAR, looks like a lot of fun. I see you have the Infantry based with two-three figures each, and some with a single figure, what do you think is best? Also I would like to know if I can participate in the playtesting. I have the Scanian War reference book so all I need to do is get some figures and paint them up to be able to have some troops. What Swedish unit would you recommend I paint up?
    Mark

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    1. Hi Mark

      Of course you can participate in the playtesting as you are a member of our gamingclub, you are most welcome to participate in the playtest games i Will host at the club.

      Regarding basing i use a 1-2-3 basing style that i think look good and speed up movement of the minis a bit. Sins all units are 6 or 12 minis and we use casulty removal I have baser each groupibpå of 6 minis on 3 bases, one with 3 minis, one with 2 minis and one with 1 mini. For the unit of 12 minis I just double the amount of bases, 2 bases with 3 minis on, 2 bases with 2 minis on and 2 bases with 1 mini on.

      I´ll be glad to talk more at the club regarding minis to paint and introduce you to the rules.

      Best regards Michael

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    2. Tack Michael,

      I have figures that I need to paint bur I should be able to field on unit of shot, pike and one galloper gun, I am a big fan of artillery. Plus I will have one mounted officer.

      Thank you for the info on the basing, I like the idea of having the basing this way. Yes we can talk more at the club about what unit would be good for me to paint up. I usually do a Guards unit since min Sambo is from Stockholm. That is why I did the Guards unit for the GNW project that Soren is doing.

      Talk to you soon!
      Mark

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    3. Hi Mark

      Ill sent you a mail, hope you have got it.

      Best regards Michael

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  9. Tremendous report Michael, enhance by your excellent miniatures and pictures. Looking forward to more.

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    1. Thank you very much Michael !

      Best regards Michael

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  10. As always a beautiful table and it inspires me, the soldiers too are very nice.

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  11. Fantastic to see it all on the table and great to see some playtesting going on. /Mattias

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    1. Appreciated Mattias ! I hope you will join in on some gaming when back in Stockholm

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  12. Awesome looking game Michael. Looking forward to the book!

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  13. This looks fantastic, Michael. Lovely figures and terrain, a sensible sized table, and a really interesting selection of troops. I particularly like the Scaninan Allmoge. This is looking really great!

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    1. Very appreciated Sidney !

      The Scanian Allmoge are a favourite:)

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  14. What a great looking game! This looks like it's going to be wicked fun! Oh, I can't wait to get my grubby mitts on a copy!

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  15. Thanks for a great game Michael and a very nice AAR. And, as always, thanks for letting me win! ;)

    The rules will be excellent when finished. Looking forward to some more play testing during the autumn.

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    1. Indeed I lett you win as I wanted you to like the rules matey ;)

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  16. Long live Skåneland!!!

    As interesting as always Dalauppror.

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  17. Great and very interesting AAR. Thank you a lot!

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  18. Awesome work.
    I can only watch in silence and admire
    How these long spears are (to stay) so straight
    Are they wood or hard plastic

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    1. Thank you very much!

      The pikes are plastic except for the ones with the flag that are a metal.

      best regards Michael

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  19. Congrats Michael on yours and Dan's book. Going by this post, it should look superb.

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  20. Ohhh. Nice. January 2017 you say, maybe just the right amount of time to be able to build a castle ;)

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  21. I am really looking forward to seeing these rules 'in the flesh', as the Pike&Shot period has been tempting me for a long time, but I have been put off by the number of models mostly seeming to be needed. I think the 'Rampant' system can easily easily be used for both smaller and larger forces than the 'standard' 24 ponts, so skirmishes can be fought after painting up just a few units.

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  22. Hey, this looks great and next year we are planning on getting into pike and shot for the Dutch 80 years war.
    Again it's nice to have a game where 40-50 models is a good start. Look forward to January but have some buying and painting to do before then!

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