Sneak Peak of the layout for Eagle of Empire wargaming rules

I got some sample pages from the ongoing layout work of the upcoming Eagle of Empire wargaming rules. As with the exellent looking unitcards included in the miniature boxes the sampla pages look great in my mind.

I don´t know how much of the rules i´m allowed to reveal, but I feel the need to ease my mind a bit;)

The units in the game are considered to be Squads and if you have a officer present they can be grouped in to Sections, equal to the minis included in an Eagle of Empire infantry box, might be a coincidense ;)

To start playing very small games of the Eagle of Empire rules a box of minis will be enough, but to explore the depth of the rules I would suggest that each player at least have two boxes of minis so there will be 4 Squads at each side.

The rules are considered to be "big skirmish"game, the scope are not to playout a complete battle but a small part of a bigger picture. This will be reflected in the rules by different resourses that higher command might make available for your part of the battlefield as the game progress in the form of  new troops and the abilities from the national specific Doctrine cards that will be included in the rules and yes, there will be a couple of different Doctrine cards for each nation.

To manage these resources during the game you will gain Command Points that you can spend to use the abilities on the Doctrine card you have choose to use during the game as well as call for new reinforcements in the form of new Squads and Sections, BUT you have to economize your Command Points as you also need them to get Victory Points that are essential to win the battle.

The management of the Command Points and to decide when to use them for Doctrine Card abillities, Reinforcements or Victory Points are a key factor to be sucessfull in a game of Eagle of Empires.

I hope to be able to tell more about the rules later on.

Napoleonic Sailors

I really loved the new British Napoleonic Naval landing party and Sailors from Perry miniatures, 4 different pack with in total 24 minis gave me enought minis to make some charging sailors, Naval Officers and some gun crew.

They will most often see service as Swedish sailors from "Arméns flotta/Skärgårdsflottan" The army fleet or The archipelago fleet:)

Eagle of Empire skirmish wargaming rules introduction and basing

I have posted some unboxing posts of the very nice 28mm Eagle of Empire miniatures, Prussian Infantry, French Infantry and Bavarian Infantry and as they are Sold with the still unpublished Eagle of Empire skirmish wargaming rules in mind some questions have come up regarding basing for the Rules.

I have been involved in the play test with the man behind the rules Sören that also run Eagle of Empire miniatures. As it is still under playtest i reccon all are not set in stone, buy the basing of the minis have been the same all the time.

In a box of Infantry from eagle of Empire you will get 16 individual minis, Officer, Ensign, Musician and Core troops. For the Eagle of Empire rules these minis included in a box represents a Section with an attaced Officer. A Section are made up of 2 Squads, each squad have 3 bases. A Section may have a Officer attached.

As you can see by the Section Cohesion picture abow the minis are bases on round bases, each Squad are made up of 3 bases and 7 minis. 

• 2 man bases are 30mm 
• 3 man bases are 40mm

Rules wise it is good if each Squad are made up of 3 bases or you have to keep track of losses in some other way, the number of minis on each base are really not that important, but it look good on the gaming table and give a good skirmish feel to the game to use the sugested basing style. 

Below you can see some examples of the minis from a French Line Infantry box that have been based according to the Eagle of Empire rules. 

First you have the Squad of 3 bases abd 7 minis, then you have 2 independant squads of 2x3 bases (2x7minis) that can form a Section if the are given an Officer.

The last picture show the whole content of the box, 2 squads that are  formed as a Section as they have the Officer with Ensign attached and within the command ranges.

I hope this helped you out to start basing you Eagle of Empire minis for the Eagle of Empire skirmish wargaming rules.

Napoleonic British Marines

I have built me a group of British Marines using the Perry plastic British napoleonic line infantry and marine heads from Brigade games and of course 1,2,3 basing :)

Eagle of Empire miniature size comparison picture.

Seems like there have been some questions regarding the miniature size of the 28mm Eagle of Empire minis. They should be of the same Size as the North Star minis and a bit Birger than the old foundry ones that are more 25mm.

Sören that runt Eagle of Empire miniatures have elaborated on the subjekt at his blog.

I will post something about the Eagle of Empire skirmish wargaming rules later on, just have to get the time.

Prussian minis from Eagle of Empire

I just got me two boxes of the new Prussian infantry from Eagle of Empire miniatures so I thought that I should let you have a closer look to them.

Here you also can find my unboxing of the Eagle of Empire French Infantry or the Bavarian Invantry.

The minis are of course 28mm and are sold as a box with 16 minis  that are broken down to 11 infantry, 1 Ensign, 1 Bugler, 1 Drummer, 1 NCO and 1 Officer.

The minis in the box are enought to create a 2 units with command for the upcomming Eagle of Empire rules. There are also 2 greate looking units cards for the rules included in the box.

As I understand the Franco-Prussian war the Prussian troops fought more agressive than the French and I really feel the minis in the Prussian Box are capturing that movement, most of the minis are advancing with a few that have stopped to fire. The box have no duplicated amongst the 16 minis as they all have individual sculped heads and arms and Equipment so even if the bodys are from 2 or 3 basic ones the minis feel really individual, a very nice concept, perfect for skirmish wargaming:)

The last picture below are from the 2 Historical character minis sets that Eagle of Empire have started to Produce, really nice ones that add even more to the setting.

Polish War 1626 AAR: Supply Column under Attack

Last week Riccardo, Franscesco and Fabio from Verona in Italy visited Stockholm and the Wargaming exebition at the Swedish Army museum, so I thought we should throw them a game of The Pikeman´s Lament and invited them to participate in a game in our Polish War 1626 club campaign, commanding a company of Polish cavalry each.

First a short re-cap of the campaign setting:

The Campaign revolves around the war between the Swedes and the Poles in 1625-1629 and we have started of during the autum of 1625.

The Polish–Swedish Wars were a series of wars between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. Broadly construed, the term refers to a series of wars between 1563 and 1721. More narrowly, it refers to particular wars between 1600 and 1629.

The Polish–Swedish War of 1625–1629 was the fourth stage (after 1600–1611, 1617–1618, and 1620–1625) in a series of conflicts between Sweden and Poland fought in the 17th century. It began in June 1625 and ended four years later with the Truce of Altmark and later at Stuhmsdorf with the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf.

In 1621, the Swedes besiege and conquered Riga, which attracted attention, as it was the first time a Protestant leaders defeated a Catholic power. The Swedish army was worn and the Poles could regain the initiative at Dorpat. Truce was signed in November 1622 and was extended until March 1625. Any acceptable terms for peace with Poland, could not be reached, so Gustav II Adolf planned a new campaign against Poland, which began in June 1625. Kokenhusen, Birze and Mitau was captured and Dorpat was taken after six days of siege. During the autumn of 1625 two Polish armies appeared against the Swedish forces and Gustav II Adolf decided to get into a clash before the Polish forces managed to unite.

So this is the starting point for my Polish War club campaign.

By now the campaign have moved on to the early spring of  1626. The Swedish army have after the victory at Wallhof in January 1626 been on the offensive and moving further south forward the Polish mainland.

The Swedish advance are slowed down by poor and muddy roads making the soldiers exhausted and the supply wagons get stuck at several occations.

The Scenario we was seting up revolvs around a Polish Attack of a a part of the Swedish supply column. The Polish objective is to destroy the 4 wagons and the swedes to stop that and protect the civilian camp followers.

Swedish OOB
1st Company (protecting the Supply column)
1 unit of Pikes
1 unit of Commanded Shot
2 units of Forlorn Hope

2nd Company (half protecting the supply column and half enter as reinforcements)
1 unit of Veteran Pikes
1 unit of Pikes
2 units of Shot

3rd Company (enter as reinforcements)
1 Unit of Gallopers
1 Unit of Trotters
2 Units of Dragoons

Polish OOB
1st Company
1 unit of Elite Gallopers
1 unit of Agressive Elite Gallopers
1 unit of Veteran Dragoons

2nd Company
3 units of Veteran Dragoons

3rd Company
3 units of Dragoons

The game in short, The Polish attacker had divided their companies on both sides of the road and aiming for an all-out attack before the Swedish reinforcements arrives. This proved to nbe a good plan as wery early on the Polish attacker had managed to destroy the two wagons closest to the Swedish reinforcements.

The Swedes main problem was that they in the first turn got one of their officers killed, badly depleate that companys chanses to activate and  that they decided to let all reinforcements arrive from the same table edge, despite the option to split them.

So now the Polish attacke let their swift Veteran Dragoones Skirmish down the lenthg of the Swedish supply column dealing death...

After about two hours of gaming it all ended in a Decisive Victory for the Polish attacker.