Minis to use for the Danish invasion of Gotland 1361

In connection with my article about the Danish invasion of Gotland 1361 that was in WSS issuw 75 I have got several questions about what minis to use. No easy question to answer and ther are surely some manufacturers that I have missed that also would work.

For the Danes I painte lately I have used Perry HYW minis mixed upp with Claymore Casting, leaving out the most modern armours in the Perry HYW range. Much of the Claymore minis would also work for the Gutes.

For the Gutes I must admit that I haven´t even painted a specific force, we decided early on to use my friend Jonas Dark Age minis. As the Gutes used much outdated equipment that they had gathered during their long jorneys to the east,

So use Viking, Saxon and Early medieval minis and not use much armour, and also mix round/kite/heather shields with most round ones.(leave out the TO Viking/Saxons minis) and I think you have a good base.

Mix it up with some Claymore casting Scots, Islemen etc and then throw in a few Soldiers from the Perry HYW range (Kettlehats) and I think you will get a really good mix for the Gutes to.

If I ever would build a Specific Gute force I would go Plastic... Fire Forge Foot Sergeants and Gripping Beast Dark Age warriors and kitbach them, You would also need some bowarms and the ones in the Perry WotR Bow and Bill kit are perfect as well as some of the bill arms, but just the arms not the bodys as they are to late medieval. Then I would build som minis like in the picture abow :)

This mix would work for most Swedish allmoge units during the medieval era, just use fewer shields during the later part of 15th century and mix in the leftover Perry Bow and bill minis and heads ;)

I hope it was of some help, and if you want to ask something please post a comment with the question and I do my best to give you a good answer.

Here are some pictures from our test games of the Scenarios in the Danish Invasion of Gotland 1361 Article.

Will I get my copy of WSS75 today :)

The Danes have landed at Fröjel beach...

Today I hope I will get my copy of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy issu 75 with my Danish invasion of Gotlan 1361 article and I must admit that it is a splendid feeling to see your own work in print, especially when it also made it to the fronpage :)

I really hope that the article will give you some wargaming inspiration and maybe even get a crave for a Scandinavia Lion Rampant force...

Ofcource the 4 scenarios will work in other settings then the Gotlandic one so I hope you can try them out and enjoy the game with what ever medieval minis you have around.

I have got some questions about minis to use for the Danish invasion of Gotland so I will try to put together a blog post about that to, but give me a day or so and I´ll be back...

Probably an AAR of one of the cenarios in the article to, as we playing the third one out at the club tonight:)

DFFCON 2014 AAR#2

So time for AAR#2 from our DFFCON 2014 adventure in Copenhagen. I, Sören and Jesper from the club run a Battle at Lund game at the Convention, we also got good help from our Danish friend Thomas that had painted 6 danish units for the game:)

We had made 3 different scenariots revolving around the Battle at Lund 1676 during the Scanian War. Sören had made a 4 page folder with some historical background about the battle that we gave to the participants and visitors.

Firs we had the Vanguard combat early in the morning 4th Decenber 1676 where the two Kings clashed with their cavalry in a contest of the high ground. Here follow some pictures fromthe first game game.

The two armies had marched on parallel roads that lead to the "Möllevången" (Windmill hights), Both forces was all cavalry and C-in-C´s was the Kings, for Sweden King Charles XI and for the Danes King Christian V, their objective was to capture the hill.

Swedish King and part of his troops

The Danish King on his way for the hill

Dividing the two roads wa a area with walled field

Both the Swedish and Danish Life guards got to the hill first so theu entered a swift combat without support of the remaining forces...

The Danish Guards was pushed back as the rest of the Swedish and Danish Cavalry unit had lined up and was entering the combat...

Final clash between the lines resulted in a broken Danish force, all as in the History books, the Danes started to retreat and was followed by the Swedish king and all his cavalry, the pursuit would go on for several houres and result in a lost Danish camp and that the Kings would be absent from the battlefield for almost all the day...

The Second game was the Center battle, that started with a Danish Captain from the Guards Challange a Captain from the Swedish Guards on a Duel in the area in between the 2 forces...The Swedish captain won and took his beaten enemys blade and raised it in victory, returning to the Cheering Swedish line...the fight could begin...

The Center for the both armys are deploied for battle, they both had 2 lines, Swedes to the left and Danes to the right.

As the Swedes historacly had less infantry they had deployed some dragoons in the second line. The Danes also got 2 guns as they historicly had more artillery then the Swedes... 

The areea between the walls in the middle of the gaming table are muddy fields and count ar rought going i.e. half movement...

Danes closest and Swedes on the other side of the muddy field. Only the guns was in range at the start of the game. We used only 2/3 of all ranges stated in the Black Powder rules to fit the game in to a 120x180 table.

The line from the other side, Danes to the left and Swedes to the right.

Behind the swedish line, Darlecarlian regiment in the first line as always covering the extrem right of the line. The Darlecarlian regiment was counted as Guards as they always performe more then well:)

As the Danes had their gun in range they forced the Swedes to act. A general advance by the Swedish line in the true "Gå PÅ" manner. The Swedes also sent their Dragoons from the second line out to flank the Danes...

Due to the Danish shooting the Swedes prety soon got a really scattered line...

Darlecarlian regiment shoot it off with one of the danish Guards batallions

The Danes repelled several atempts by the swedish dragonns to charge...

Although the Swedes realy acted offensive as they should the Danes could hold their line and start to tear down the Swedes that eventually started to breake and had to retreat to reform...

Once more a game that come prety close to the historical outcome as in the real battle the Swedes was pushed back to a high cost in men and had to retreat to the outskirt of Lund and re-orgonize their forces... The Danes did not have the will to pursue the Swedes and stayed in place to re-orgonize their forces to for the upcoming final battle...

Our 3rd scenario revolved around the final struggle by the Swedish forces from the center battle that by now had reorganized and formed a new line with Lund in the Back and the Danes in front...

A small Swedish force in fron of the winfmill and a quite larger Danish Force in the middle of the table...

The Swedish force was composed bu the troops that was left from the center fight erlier during the day. The mode of the troops was not good as the King hadent been seen for houres...

The Danish Line, both Cavalry and Infantry, even some artillery and under command of the danish King that had returned after the morning fights...

The Danes started to bombard the Swedes with their artillery, but the Swedes did not advance as they had a pretty good possition that protected their flanks...

The cunning Danes sent their left wing made up of 3 regiment of Jyska Cavalry  to flank the Swedes that promt responded by moving one infatry regiment and the remaining Finnish dragoons.

Somehow the Danish infantry commander Arenstorff managed to give a completely missunderstod order making two of the infantry regiments to turn about and march of from the Danish line...

Arenstorff was really a splendind cavalry commander...so after this blunder the King Christian V himself took command of the Infantry and Arenstorff was sent to the Danish Right flank geting command of the two remaining Mounted Gard units...

Arenstorff swiftly ordered the Danish Mounted Guards on a flank movement throught some muddy fields...

The fields was indeed muddy...

...very muddy... then dissaster struck on the other Danish flank...

The Swedish King was back with a major part of the Swedish Cavalry, he had been absent for almost the entire day, but now he and his Cavalry entered from behind the Danish line...

Luckey for the Danes the two regiment thet was missordered was more or less in the right place to protect the back of the Danish Line...

The battle field half way throught the battle...

Swedish Cavalry ready to charge...

The game now become so intense that I forgott to take picture...Sorry...

As I remeber it the danes was hard pressed, but managed to inflict quite much losses on the Swedish side to so in the end we decided that the Danes probably would have managed to retreat in quite good order and save some part of their force...

Not that historical out come as in real life the Swedes massacre the Danes, But the Danish King manged to escape and continue the Struggle for Scanin for 3 more years...

The one and only thing that saved the Danes in our game was the fumble order that got some of their infantry in the right direction to recieve the Swedish Cavalry... It was indeed some greate games we rund during the DFFCOM and I think the participants had a nice experience.

We did not only run some games but also had quite much Warfare Miniatures with us to sell,

I plan to post one more DFFCON 2014 AAR, with some pictures from the Lion Rampant game that aI run on Sunday afternoon.