New Minden Observation Corps Musketeers

Here are some pictures of the new Minden Russian Observation Corps Musketeers (see the previou post for the pictures of the grenadiers). Again, I apologize for the slightly blurry photos, but I think that they convey how the figures will look once cast and in production. There is also a musketeer in waistcoat figure (not shown). The figures were sculpted by Steve Barber using the Minden dollies and equipment made by Richard Ansell, so there is a nice similarity/consitency in style. I am pleased that Steve has been able to step in and help get the Russian range going as we have plenty of other figures to keep Richard very busy.

Observation Corps Musketeer Drummer in waistcoat

Observation Corp Musketeer NCO in waistcoat.

Observation Corps Standard Bearer in regulation coat.

Observation Corps Musketeer Officer in regulation coat.

The greens were sent to Griffin Moulds last week so it shouldn't be too long before we have the production castings ready for sale.

New Minden Observation Corps Greens Are Finished -Part 1

We will be adding 10 new figures to our growing Minden Russian SYW range of figures, with 9 new Observation Corps musketeers and grenadiers and one regular line musketeer on their way to Griffin Moulds to have the moulds made and the first spins of metal to be cast.

The Blogger Gremlins are making it exceedingly hard to post pictures in this post so I will split the article into two different posts, the first for the Observation Corps Grenadiers and the second for the Observation Corps Musketeers.

Observation Corps Grenadiers

Here are some pictures of the Observation Corps Grenadiers including an officer and standard bearer wearing their regulation coats and the NCO, drummer and rank and file grenadier wearing their summer waistcoats. Most of the Russians' battles were fought during the summer months, so the rank and file men and NCOs would discard their green wool coats at the baggage train and sensibly wear their long sleeved red waistcoats.

The pictures are not the greatest but I think that they give you an idea of how the figures will look.  I'm sorry that I couldn't get the lads to line up in close order, but the Blogger App is sometimes clunky when it comes to picture positioning.

Grenadier Standard Bearer

Grenadier Officer

Grenadier NCO

Grenadier Rank & File

Grenadier Drummer

SYWA Convention Pictures - Part II Zorndorf

Der Alte Fritz contemplates a game ruling in his Zorndorf game.

The second batch of pictures features the Battle of Zorndorf game that I hosted on Friday and Saturday. Most of the figures are Minden Miniatures with a few RSM and Crann Tara figures sprinkled into the mix. All three of these figure ranges are completely compatible in size and appearance.

Zorndorf Cavalry Melee

I added some new rules for cavalry melees that are designed to speed up the melees so that they do not slow down the game in a convention setting. Essentially, there is only one round of melee now and the attacker either wins or retires back to its own lines.

The charge procedure begins with the Attacker declaring his intent to charge; he tests his morale and if he passes, then his cavalry unit closes in on the Defender. There is a possibility that the charging regiment will fail its morale test, either going Shaken and standing still, or horror of horrors it decides to rout.

If the Attacker passes his morale test, then the Defender tests his morale next. Again, the Defender can advance into melee if it passes his moral test. A Shaken results causes the Defender to fall back a full move and a rout does ... you know how that ends.

Assuming that both sides pass their morale, they move into contact and conduct a round of melee. Morale tests ensue after one round. The Charger must win the melee or else it is considered to have been "repulsed" and it must retire back towards its own lines. In the event of a tie in melee casualties, all ties go to the Defender because the onus is on the Charger to win the ground.

At the conclusion of the melee, I now have a cavalry pursuit table based on the roll of one D10. In most outcomes, the Winner will stay put. There is an opportunity that it will continue to charge and another outcome is that the unit halts, but remains in good order rather than in Shaken order.

Cavalry action on the Prussian right wing (Russian left wing) near the Langen-Grund.

Russians (right) and Prussians (left) cross swords.

The Russians gain the upper hand in the melee as fresh reinforcements arrive .

The aftermath of the cavalry melee: each casualty disc represents the spot where a melee was won - red and green discs for the Russians and blue discs for the Prussians.

The picture above depicts a number of casualty discs on the ground. Everytime there is a melee, a casualty disc is placed on the spot where the melee occurred: red and green for Russians and blue for the Prussians. For example, if the Prussians lose the melee then it falls back and a blue casualty disc is placed on the ground where the swords were crossed. At the end of the game, the side with the most casualty discs on the field is generally the loser of the game.

 Zorndorf - the Infantry Battle

The mainstay of the Zorndorf game is the infantry battle that covers approximately 12 feet of the overall 16 feet of table length that was used in the game. In the first game on Friday, the Prussian did something that I have rarely seen in one of my wargames: they bombarded the Russian infantry for about three game turns before launching their infantry attack. That is a pretty smart tactic.

A view of the whole table, from the Zabern-Grund stream heading towards the Stein-Busche wooded area. Russians are on the left and the Prussians are on the right sides of the table.

The initial Russian deployment with the Zabern-Grund in the foreground and the Stein-Busche near the top of this picture.

Galitzin's Russian Division awaits the attack of Manteuffel's advance guard of the Prussian army.

Minden Russian infantry in waistcoats are "seeing the elephant" in their very first game.

The Russian Observation Corps and Dohna's Prussians fight it out in the Stein-Busch.

Eventually a break occurs in the Russian line and they have to retire.

The Prussians lost the cavalry battle on their right flank, but they broke through the Russian battle lin in the center and won the game. They also had the least number of casualties on the field, as represented by the casualty figure discs. This was one of the victory conditions in the game. Each disc is a Victory Point f(VPs) or the other side. Additional VPs can be earned by capturing cannon and flags, killing a general, and for each melee won. The Prussians won on points 23 to 34, with a low number being the winner.

The Second Zorndorf Game - Saturday

The battle of Zorndorf was played again on Saturday, with the outcome being the same as in the first game: a Prussian victory. The Prussian cavalry won the battle on both flanks of the table and Seydlitz's cavalry was roaming around behind the Russian lines at the end of the game which was bad news for the Russians.

I posted a map of the strategic movements of the armies that occurred prior to the Battle of Zorndorf. The map is courtesy of Jeff Berry (Obscure Battles blog) who creates some wonderful battle maps. The map is printed on foam core board and laminated. I think that it helps the players to give them a strategic overview in order to get the context of the battle and why it was fought.

The Prussian infantry close in to engage in a close range firefight with the Russians.

Bill Protz makes a surprise appearance as the Prussian cavalry commander of the refused right wing of the Prussian army.

Russian horse grenadiers and Cossacks square off against the Puttkamer Hussars.

Seydlitz negotiates the passage of the Zabern-Grund with his Prussian cavalry
and eyeballs the flank of some Russian infantry

Russian infantry is in a bit of a pickle with Prussian infantry to their front
and Prussian dragoons hover on their flank.

Prussian dragoon regiment Meinicke (D3) reforms after crossing the rough terrain of the Zabern-Grund
and prepare to charge the Russian infantry.

I have been painting Russians since August 2017 almost nonstop. I had started with 4 Russian battalions and one squadron of Horse Grenadiers. Over the period August 2017 through March 2018 I painted 8 battalions of Russian infantry, five artillery pieces with crew and limbers, and 10 squadrons (12 figures per squadron) of cavalry.

 Most of the Russian musketeers were part of the new range of Russian infantry that has been added to the Minden figure range. We will soon be adding Observation Corps musketeers and grenadiers probably by June 2018. The figures have been sculpted and they are now at Griffin Moulds, where they will be turned into production castings.

SYW Association Pictures - Part I

My Battle of Zorndorf game - Minden Miniatures

CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE

The Seven Years War Association held its 34th annual convention over the weekend of April 5th through April 7th at the Waterford Estates Lodge in South Bend, Indiana. There were 23 games hosted by a very talented group of game judges spanning the years 1703 to 1781. 

I hosted the Battle of Zorndorf game on Friday and Saturday with the Prussians winning convincing victories on both days. It was their cavalry that made all the difference in both games. I also had a dealer booth for the Fife & Drum and Minden Miniatures figures and I enjoyed chatting with old familiar customers and cultivating a few new ones with some free sample figures.

I have a lot of photos from the convention, so I will break up the recap of the convention over two or three posts.

Let us take a look at some of the convention games with the picture captions telling the story:

Jude Becker's Marlbourian game set in 1703. Combat General rules were used.

A closer view of the superb terrain and figures in Jude Becker's game.

Dean West's 15mm Battle of Breslau, using his Final Argument of Kings rules.

Paul Petri's Battle of Chotusitz using Volley & Bayonet rules and well painted 1/72 plastic figures.

Marshal Maurice de Saxe arrives onto the battlefield with his escort of uhlans.
Ed Phillips created this vignette using largely Minden Miniatures figures.

18th Century medical ambulance vignette by Ed Phillips.

The Redoubt d'Eu at the battle of Fontenoy. This was a spectacular looking game with excellent terrain and lots of the Crann Terra Miniatures War of Austrian Succession figures. Kaiserin Krieg rules and around 1,000 miniatures were used in this game.

The French defenders of Fontenoy.

The British and Hanoverian battalions getting ready to attack their French adversaries at Fontenoy.

Tod Kershner's version of Fontenoy, using 20mm plastic figures and his Age of Reason rules.

A close up view of one of Tod's British cavalry regiments.

Tod's rendition of the town of Fontenoy. I really really like the look of this town,
especially the windmill in the center of town.

A picture of my Zorndorf game, using Minden Miniatures figures.

Russian Horse Grenadiers and Cossacks attempt to hold the Prussian Puttkamer Hussars at bay in the battle of Zorndorf.

Many of the convention attendees arrive on Thursday evening to set up their games for the next day, set up dealer booths, or simply to socialize and catch up on the doings of long time friends. Since the venue is booked for Thursday through Saturday, we had a couple of games scheduled for Thursday evening - this being done for the very first time in the history of the convention. Paul Petri really stepped up by hosting two games on Thursday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. It was a great  idea to take advantage of the open time and space to run a game. I hope that next year there will be a few more Thursday games.

The quality of the terrain and figures plus some challenging game scenarios were very impressive to me. A couple of games really checked all of my boxes including Jude Becker's Marlboroughian game, Steve Dake's 40mm FIW on the frontier game using 40mm Triton figures, and both of the Fontenoy games. I was very busy running my game and manning the dealer booth at the same time, so this limited my wondering around time during the convention. Thanks go to my nephew, Alex Akers for assisting me in both the dealer booth and judging the game. This way, we always had one of us in both places at the same time.

Steve Dake's Pontiac's Rebellion in 40mm using the Triton Miniatures figures.

40mm fort in Steve Dake's game.

Triton 40mm Indians are brought to life under the skillful brushwork of Steve Dake. The word "awesome" is used a lot, but these figures truly are AWESOME!

Late Saturday afternoon, we held a panel of old Grognard association members in which the history of the of SYWA was discussed along with their philosphy on rules writing and development. The panel consisted of Ken Bunger and Bill Protz, both of whom were instrumental in starting the SYWA, Tod Kershner, author of "The Age of Reason" and many other historical era rules, Dean West of Johnny Reb and Final Argument of Kings rules, and me. A lot of good discussion, ideas and history were exchanged back and forth during this session.

Professor Fritz does a little bit of 'splainging in front of the crowd.

After a break for dinner, we returned to the convention hall to play in some light hearted and fun skirmish games. Tom Miller/Dan Hoodin hosted an old school French and Indian War game using Charge rules. Thom Osborne put on a really small skirmish game set during the AWI using Forager rules. Each player managed 3 or 4 figures and each figure had its own unique personalty/skills/traits that made the game fun. Ken Bunger hosted a large Tricorn game with 28mm figures and the Battle of Breslau continued on from the afternoon game.

Alex and I played in the Charge game set somewhere on the frontier during the French and Indian War. Alex played the French and I had some Indians. A British foraging party was ambushed by the French and Indians and then we carried on towards the fort/supply base of the British, who were seemingly protected by a couple of warships, one huge and the other smaller.

I was holding my Indians back a little bit after conducting a successful ambush of the foraging party. At this point two kids about 12-something joined the game and added more Indian warbands to the game. They rushed forward down the road and when they reached the clearing in front of the warships, they surged forward to charge the British garrison. This spurred me out of my lethargy and I joined in the charge towards the British regulars. In short, we made short work of them. Kids have a contagious energy in games and they really made the game work because they had no fear.

Saturday Night Charge Game set during the FIW

Tom Miller's terror of the Great Lakes - a large tall ship armed with cannon having a  range of 6 feet.

Herb Gundt and Ed Phillips have a good laugh during the Saturday Night Skirmish Game

Exceelent terrain in Herb's skirmish game

I was glad to see some games on Saturday night because in recent years, members were bugging out on Saturday afternoon rather than staying over for the evening session. As far back as I can remember, Saturday evening used to be when the best of the best games were scheduled for prime time viewing and playing. Also light, fun skirmish games were presented as a sort of after-dinner apertif. Somehow this tradition has withered away, but I am hopeful that we will see more skirmish games in the evening with more people staying at the convention for Saturday evening.

I will post another thread showing more pictures of the Fontenoy game of Fogleman/Goetel which featured hoards of Crann Tara War of the Austrian Succession figures as well as pictures that I took during my two Zorndorf games.

Stay tuned for more and do come back again for Part II.