Partizan 2025 - Battle of Kolin 1757

Well, that's the Partizan game sorted!

We were play testing Simon Miller's proposed 'Lust for Glory' rules, which will cover warfare in the 18th Century. The rules are a development of his 'To the Strongest' ancient rules and 'For King and Parliament' rules for the English Civil Wars. The games are played on a gridded table, with each box being wide enough to accommodate an infantry battalion in line, so about 150 yards across.

In order to try some optional 'epic' rules I decided to represent the whole of the Kolin battlefield on the 18 box wide table, so the boxes represented about 500 yards across, and each battalion about 3 real ones - it actually worked out quite well. The cloth in use has 200x200mm boxes (the crosses marking out the corners are not very visible on the photos), into which my 160mm wide units fit quite nicely. 

Thanks to the 12 volunteers who played the game in two shifts, the game was played in good spirits, and I hope they all enjoyed it. We did find some issues with the rules, the most noticeable one being that  cavalry seem to be on a path of mutual destruction, with most of the hussars eliminated by lunchtime - or it could be the gung-ho players.

Further thanks to those of you who called in for a chat. It was interesting to hear your views on the range, and I was pleased to hear that in general you thought the figure styling is on the right track. I hope it inspired you to get casting😊

Below are, in no particular order some photos, the better ones taken by Ian Notter - the others ones mine.

Starting positions with Prussians to the left on the Kaiser Strasse

Zieten's hussars on Prussian left.

Hussars on Austrian right.

Grenz garrison in Krzeczor.

Cavalry on Prussian right.
Cuirassiers are 'Rossbach' conversions (so small)

Battle mid way through.
Austrian cavalry on left are attacking.

Battle near end.
The hussars of each army have eliminated each other.

Wild Geese 2025 - Battle of Domstadtl

I was asked for some pictures of recent games, to be quite honest I've not been using the semi-flats much recently, however back in June I put on a game for the meeting of the 'Wild Geese' wargamers at our annual event in Kenilworth.

For something a little different I put on the Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758, which was a raid on a HUGE wagon train - a bit of background from my briefing notes for the players.

Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758

From May 20 1758, Frederick conducted the Siege of Olmütz, by late June resistance was nearing its end, just one last convoy of ammunition should have been enough to finish the siege.

On June 21, a large Prussian supply convoy set off from Troppau under heavy escort. The convoy consisted of some 4,000 wagons of which 818 transporting the vital ammunition. The convoy extended for about 32 km, with an escort in three brigades: vanguard, middle, rear-guard, with sparse pickets in between.

On June 28, Loudon attacked the convoy, however the escort managed to repulse him. To further support the convoy Zieten came from Olmütz with extra troops and Loudon was strengthened by Siskovics with an additional Austrian corps. The forces all converged on 30th June near Domstadtl. At a point where the road went through a pass and over a stream (I represented this as a bridge over a river), at this point Austrians sprang their ambush.

The best description of the battle I could find is on the Kronoskaf website - it's worth a read!

The game was played on a 12' x 6' table, so I placed the 'bridge' at Domstadtl at one end and the village of Altliebe at the other, connected by a road near the middle of the table.

I like to get the troop density about right, based on unit frontages (obviously all the other dimensions are way out). I scaled the battle based on the 3.5 Prussian battalions of infantry and a few hussars attacking Siskovics; which I represented by 3 battalions.

The units in the game are (very) approximately 75% of those present, for example there were 12 Austrian battalions in the battle, 2 grenadier, 6 infantry and 4 grenzer, which I represented with 9 battalions; 2 grenadier, 4 infantry and 3 grenzer.

The game was played with 4 players, who were sat in alternating corners, with Prussians controlling the two halves of the road, and the Austrians attacking from the south east and north west. In addition to defeating the enemy, the Austrians had to destroy as many wagons as possible, and the Prussians protect them and get as many as possible over the bridge as possible - simple.

Preparation

I had all the Austrian and Prussian troops needed (not the actual regiments, but the right types), however I was just a little short of 40mm wagons. Originally I was just going to use a few token wagons, but in the end megalomania took over and I decided to fill the whole road; so I have over 20!

The wagons themselves are 3D printed with the bodies on a filament printer and the wheels in resin. They are  Napoleonic types, but I decided they would do the job, even though they are obviously wrong, particularly the caissons - I did modify some of the later prints to look a little more in period, overall I was pleased with the result - and the players liked them..

The horses and mounted drivers are cast from the Karoliner range, some with SYW heads, although the wagons should have 4-horse teams I went for 2-horse, as I got fed up of casting horses that I would probably never use again.

The wagon driver on foot is a resin printed 'special', which Chris kindly sculpted for me, unfortunately being semi-flat his arm is a long way from the horse - and resin does not bend!

 How did it play?

We played using a modified version of 'A Gentleman's War', with the card based unit activation system replaced with a simpler one with whole army alternate moves. We played the game 3 times with games taking about 3 hours each. 

As planned the game was absolute mayhem, with units attacking each other and the wagons from all directions. I did not quite get the play balance right as the Prussians won all 3 games, but close enough to be fun.

As usual I forgot to take many photos, so the ones below are mostly pinched from Aly Morrison's blog.

Starting positions

I must paint more grenz!

Safety at last!

Commands & Colors - Seven Years War

In the comments to the last post I was asked about how we played C&C with the 40mm semi flats.........

Over the years we have played most of the C&C games, my favourites being:

Napoleonic, We generally play the Epic Battles version with 15mm figures on an 8' x 6' table with 120mm hexes. These give very enjoyable games with reasonably historical outcomes.

Memoir 44 (WW2), with 1/300 figures on the same 120mm hexes, not such a well designed set of rules - but still fun.

Red Alert - yes space ships - a fun game with all the plastic spaceships and cloth in the box, so it is easy to transport and set up,

I also have 'Tricorn', the AWI version, however this is one of my least favourite versions, having more of the feel of a skirmish game - not in my opinion suitable for the large clashes of the SYW.

A gaming friend has made a very nice  12' x 6' gaming cloth marked out in 180mm hexes, which he uses to play C&C Napoleonic Epic with 28mm figures. He also has the hills and woods to match, so an easy option for me to borrow for a participation game. My 160mm frontage units sit nicely into the 180mm hexes (which are just annotated with lightly marked corners - one visible to front right of the artillery).

SYW Rules Changes

There was not really a lot of change needed, the main ones being:

Infantry v Cavalry

In this period the infantry was generally better trained, and able to repel frontal attacks from cavalry without the need to form square, so we modified the rules as follows:

• In the C&C system the facing of units is not relevant, everything fights all around, For SYW we decided that the facing of the infantry does matter, so at the end of the movement phase all infantry, even those which have not been activated, are adjusted to align with one of the sides or corners of hex. The unit then has 2 (facing corner) or 3 (facing side) vulnerable 'rear' hexes.
• When infantry is attacked from the front (not the rear), the infantry ALWAYS fights first, and the cavalry can NEVER ignore flags. Note that if the cavalry has sufficient movement it can ride around the infantry to attack the rear, so the ends of lines need to be supported.

Artillery

Artillery in this period was neither as mobile or capable of combined arms training as later (although the Austrians were getting there), so:

• Artillery may never fire overhead.
• Artillery may not combine in melee unless in support of an adjacent infantry unit.
• Other than Austrians, artillery may not  make additional moves such as those on the 'Bombard', 'Artillery Reposition' or 'Call forward the Reserves' cards.

Prussian Infantry

Prussian infantry was (at the start of the war) better trained than most others, so they have been given bonuses when firing on the move and entering melee with opposing infantry.

Prussian Cavalry

Prussian heavy cavalry (and cuirassiers) could charge for much greater distances than others, so they are allowed an additional hex movement when charging (not additive with the 'Cavalry Charge' card

I've pasted in the playsheets we used for the battle of Kolin - I don't think Blogger has a file upload facility? (For Lobositz we did not apply the advantages for the Prussians, as they were tired and hungry after a long night march.)

 

Battle of Lobositz & New Moulds

As I'm sure is obvious, I have not done much casting or gaming with the 40mm semi-flats so far this year.

Battle of Lobositz

I did however put on a participation game (back in June) using the Commands and Colors (American!) Napoleonics system to play the Battle of Lobositz. 

The table was 12' x 6', a scan of the battle layout is below. The Prussians are stacked up exiting the valley, and the Austrians partly hidden behind the village and in the sunken road, with Grenz on the hill. We played it twice and the Austrians won both times - as they should😀

The scale was roughly one unit on table equates to a cavalry regiment, two battalions or a 10 gun battery.

Below are some photos, many of which are copied from Aly's Toy Soldiers

https://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2024/06/wild-geese-2024.html 

New Moulds

Prince August have also been very quiet with regards to the SYW range, Chris Tubb has been working on other projects, such as their 54mm Middle Earth ranges, however I understand that they may be sculpting for some new SYW moulds over the coming months. 

• Reprint/rescale the Austrian cuirassier to as the current moulds are way too big (3 moulds),
• Reprint the dragoon heads as they ware currently too small, just a reprint to scale (1 mould).
• Prussian cuirassier (3 moulds)
• British infantry (4 moulds) - see post January last year for suggested figures.
• British artillery crews in coats (2 moulds).

My personal preference would be to do them in the order above so that I can complete my Prussians & Austrians, however I suspect PA would sell more moulds if they did the British first.