GNW - And so it begins.

[Hertsblue]

I thought long and hard before opting to go into the Great Northern War, in view of the numbers of figures I have for the WSS. Finally deciding that the conflict was sufficiently different to warrant the outlay here are the first few units to come off the painting table.



First battalion of the Swedish Upplands Regiment in column of companies, and two squadrons of the Smålands Cavalry Regiment. Each base is a company or squadron.



The buildings in rear are also Pendraken.



The bases are labelled so that casualties can be carried on them to create a paperless game.





The opposition, two first battalions, the Kazanski Regiment in blue, the Pskovski Regiment in green; two battalions down, fifteen to go.

[Subedai]

Now they are nice. Nice setting as well. What rules are you using?

[Matt J]

really nice Ray - can't beat big battalions and lots of flags

Your roads - are they integral to the board or are they laid on because they have a really low profile and look great (I want to copy  )

thanks

Matt

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very nice late!

[soheitb]

They look awesome!!

[burnaby64]

Impressive! I like the label--unobtrusive and very helpful.

[Hertsblue]

Now they are nice. Nice setting as well. What rules are you using?

I shall be using my own Corporal John rules, with slight modifications. They're here if you're interested.

http://rulesdepot.net/page65.html

really nice Ray - can't beat big battalions and lots of flags

Your roads - are they integral to the board or are they laid on because they have a really low profile and look great (I want to copy  )

thanks

Matt

They're actually integral to the board, Matt, which explains their low profile. The complete four boards actually make up the battlefield of Blenheim, which was our club display game in 2000.

[paulr]

Impressive! I like the label--unobtrusive and very helpful.

What he said, particularly about the labels 

[Techno]

Terrific work, Ray ! 
Cheers - Phil

[fred.]

Finally deciding that the conflict was sufficiently different to.

I do like this as a qualified justification!

The figures look very nice - the labelling works well.

[seano1815]

Now those I like, great job all round Hertsblue

[Hwiccee]

Nice figures and buildings.

Can I ask who makes the buildings?

Also I am a little puzzled on the basing. Is there any reason why you have spread the pike around? I would have thought it would make sense to have them in a block on 1 (or maybe 2) bases?

Finally I have seen the Swedes based in a shallow inverted V, which is the formation they used. I would guess for you this would be the 2 middle figures at the front of the base. The 2 outside of these slightly behind the front 2 and the last 2 even more behind. This looks great and makes them very distinctive. Unfortunately I only saw this after I have based all my guys so hopefully you will look at this before you do too many of yours.

[Hertsblue]

They're genuine Pendraken, Hwiccee, PS39, PS40, PS42 (PS41, not illustrated, might also be suitable.)

The whole pike question is very confused. The sources I have give the numbers available to the Swedes as anything from 12 to 48 per company. I'm also given to understand that the company was the basic manoeuvre unit of the Swedish infantry. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I assumed that each company would have its own pike component. Since every musketeer was equipped with a socket bayonet, I wouldn't have thought that they were entirely reliant on the pikes for protection against cavalry. I did, however, plump for solid blocks of pike for the Russians, on the grounds that they were probably less tactically sophisticated than the Swedes.

As far as the "chevron" formation of the Swedish cavalry is concerned, I did try, but the bases, once the labels were in place, were just too shallow to allow it. I might do a little experimenting in future, but I don't really want to go to deeper bases. 

 

[Hwiccee]

Buildings: Duhhh I have never noticed the Pendraken buildings!!!!! Looks like it is time for another Pendraken order

Cavalry: Just a thought and because I messed up my basing.

Swedes: The Swedes had 48 pikes per company in theory (i.e. about 1/3rd of the unit), although of course not always in practice. Poor quality units, units in secondary armies and units after 1709 were all likely to have less pikes, because of shortages of pikes. The pikes were normally massed in the middle of the unit like in ECW units. The main anti cavalry protection for the infantry was having the best cavalry in the world. Pikes (and bayonets) were not really for anti cavalry duty, they were for shock action - the Swedes are all about shock.

If without cavalry support the Swedes fraised the battalions- this is basically making all of 1 or 2 ranks across a unit pikes (usually the 2nd or 3rd). But this like square was very rarely used in this period and normally after the battle was over.

Russians: The Russians were by no means the unsophisticated 'mob' that they are sometimes said to be and indeed arguably were more sophisticated than most armies. But for a gamer they are a bit of a problem. Up until 1707 the numbers of pikes per unit varied from unit to unit and no one is really sure how many was 'typical'. The best guess is that the units had 1/3rd pikes before the war.

When the war started the Russians decide to switch to Saxon tactics (the Saxons were their allies) having reject other tactics, including platoon firing. The Saxons didn't use pikes and it is thought that this meant that in the early stages of the war the Russians were swapping pikes for muskets. It seems likely that this would result in units having anything from 0 to 33% pikes in this period.

Probably the pikes were massed in the centre but basically no one knows.

As the war continued and more importantly the number of Saxon defeats grew, the Russians had 2nd thoughts on using their tactics. Most likely this halted the replacing of pikes at first but in 1707 it resulted in the Russians changing tactics/organisation. So from 1707 they had 1 pike to 7 muskets in a battalion. They formed up in 4 ranks with the first rank 1/2 pike and 1/2 muskets - mixed up and not in blocks/groups - ie PMPMPMPMPMPMPM across the front.  Sometimes they left the pikes at home, when fighting the Ottomans for example or for sieges, but they used them when fighting Swedes.

This all makes it difficult for the gamer I suspect that you have to just choose some way of basing and accept that it won't always be right. I use 12 figures per base in 2 ranks of 6. I went for 2 pikes per base in the middle of the front rank.

[Rob]

Those are lovely figures Ray. 

A note on the term company in in the horse and musket period:
In this time period the company tended to have an administrative function only. Usually infantry would fight in one of the sub-divisions in a battalion/regiment variously called platoons and confusingly companies often grouped in pairs and called divisions. The key point here is that they had an administrative organisation and a battle organisation. The sub-divisions were equalised before going into combat.
For example:
7 years war Prussian infantry administratively used 5 companies but for battle divided into 4 equal companies.
Napoleonic Russians administratively formed each battalion in 4 companies but for battle manoeuvred in 8 platoons. When using battalion column these platoons were formed by division i.e. a frontage of 2 platoons.
Napoleonic (later) French line and light infantry used 6 companies to battalion as the administrative org but 6 equalised platoons (pelotons) for manoeuvre in combat.

Cheers Rob