Scanian War Naval Battle AAR

Hi all!
Yesterday Soren (over at Black Powder Games) and I played a game of Form Line of Battle with our ships for the Scanian War. 

Things got hot in this battle!

We both had 3 ships each, Soren commanded the Danish squadron consisting of: The Flag ship Christianus V (85 guns), Churprindsen (74 guns) and Christianus IV (58 guns).

From front to back: Danish ships Christianus V, Churprindsen, and Christianus IV

I commanded the Swedish squadron consisting of : The flag ship Kronan (110 guns), The Nyckeln (84 guns), and the Armarant (52 guns).

From left to right: Swedish Ships Kronan, Nyckeln and Armarnat

This game we assigned a flag ship and assigned an Admiral to the flagship.  Each Admiral has his own ratting and the Danish had a Superior Admiral and the Swedish had an Average Admiral rating, Which I think worked out well.

The set up at the beginning of the game

The game started off with the two of us setting up the scenario and who had the strategic advantage, which fell to the Danish. This allowed Soren to set up his fleet after I had set up mine and he had the weather gauge in his favor.  This means he was able to direct the direction and flow of the battle.

The first shots fired by Christianus V at the Kronan

Soren was able to maneuver into position to get off the first shots that were at long range at the Kronan.

The first shots of the game

The long rang shots from the Danish squadron fell short and Soren started to maneuver his ships to get close to me, where I was trying to keep my distance and use the advantage of having the Swedish "Death Star" the new name for the Kronan!

The first shots fall short of the target

Well I took the opportunity to turn and fire at the Christianus V with Kronan and my first shot hit home and started to wear down the broadside factor of the Christianus V.  I will do a break down of the starting hull, crew and broadside factors and the damage each ship took at the end of the AAR. You will see that the Kronan did very well for herself, probably better than the real ship. At least she survived the game and did not self destruct like the real ship.

The Kronan scratching the paint on the Danish ship Christianus V

Kronan firing here full broadside!

The game contained with all ships getting into the fight and firing at long, then medium and then finally short range.  Soren soon found out that it was going to be hard to take down the Kronan. He started to be more aggressive and started to get in close to try to board the Kronan.

The Danish Squadron dealing death on the Swedish ships

Sometime the shots hit and sometime they missed

The fight was very good and Soren tried to board the Kronan with the each of his ships. each attempt failed, which is good because at one point Soren was very close to boarding the Kronan with two ships and if he had been able to board with those two ships I do not think the Kronan would have been able to win the combat.

The Nyckeln takes a critical hit and loses her fore mast

Soren was able to do some heavy damage to the Swedish Nyckeln who lost a mast early in the game due to a critical hit when she was hit by a full broadside fired from the Churprindsen. This was the first time a critical hit had been scored in our two games. So it was fun going though the process of figuring out the damage received by the critical hit.

The Danish making a run for the Swedish Squadron

The battle rages as the range gets shorter

The Swedish ships score hits as well as the Danish

The Nyckeln scoring a hit on the Churprindsen

Another devastating hit on the Nyckeln, she is now on fire!

Later on as we continued to pound away at each others ships the Nykeln again is hit by a salvo and gets a critical hit which starts a fire! Fire on a wood ship loaded with gun powder is bad!!! Luckily the crew was able to put the fire out fast!

We are at close range here and the Nyckeln was able to put out the fire

The first boarding attempt by the Danish, Christianus V tries to board the Kronan, which fails

After the boarding attempt Soren's and my line of battle fell apart and the fight became ship on ship. A lot of damage was dealt out to ships of both sides. We did have a boarding action between the Nyckeln and Christianus V.  During this boarding action we ran into our first issue with the rules and I will be writing the authors of the rules for a clarification on how to to settle the issue we had.  Basically the result of the boarding action is that I was able to defend the Nyckeln and repel the boarders with both of our ships losing crew parties to the point we had just the number of crew to run the ship and man the guns. Both ships cut free and started to sail away in a hail of gun fire!

A view of the fight from above

The flag ships sail past after the failed boarding attempt

The start of the one boarding action that took place!

Stern rake on the Kronan did little damage from the smaller Churprindsen

Soren continued to try to disable the Kronan and was able to manuver to get in some very good shots but the difference in size of the ships and the reduced broadside factors on the Danish ships did little damage.

The battle lines are gone and the fight becomes ship on ship

The Danish fleet was doing OK the Christianus V had taken a lot of damage and was almost to the point that she would not be able to fire anymore. The Churprindsen had taken some damage but she was not at full strength and would not be able to take on the Death Star alone.  Christianus IV was in good shape but again she was a smaller ship and the her ability to defeat the Kronan was limited.

Point blank range!!

Lots of smoke!! I can smell the gun powder!!!

At this point we called the game due to time, we had planned to play two battles but we only had time for one since we had more ships and more unique events take place.  We called the battle a tie but that is to be debated. Ships on both side were severely damaged and will need a lot of repair while other ships were in good condition.

Holy Smoke!!!

 

In close and personal!!!

Please check out the charts below for a breakdown of the starting condition of each ship and the damage taken. 



Who do you think won???

AAR coming soon!!

Here is a few pictures from today's epic battle!

AAR Coming soon!!

The Red Army / The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

Hi all,

Well I have been busy painting some miniatures.

These are all Skytrex 15mm Soviet Infantry and command figures. Again I have to say that the miniatures are very well made and are easy to paint.

 
I have painted up the command group as well as the first squad of infantry. Eventually I will have a full platoon of Infantry for the Chain of Command campaign, Konigsberg 1945 Westwind.

I also painted up a T34 M1942/43 Tank as part of the support for the Soviet Infantry.

Please take a look at the pictures of these great troops.

The Red Army took a beating from the Germans early in WWII but they gave back as much as they took and they were the ones who took Berlin.  They suffered high casualties but they continued to fight until Germany was defeated.

Red Army victory banner, raised above the German Reichstag in May 1945

 

I recently got my Military History magazine in the mail and I picked up the Flames of War Colours of War book at the local game store.

Have a good week!

The Flagship duel of the Battle of Mon 1677

Hi everyone!
As promised in previous posts Soren and I meet at the club yesterday and fought our first Naval engagement of the Scanian War. 

Both sides fire but the Swedes miss there mark

This was the first time we used the rules so we only put out one ship for each side. Soren had the Danish flagship Christianus V (85) and I had the Swedish flagship Amarant (52).

Christianus V comes to claim her prize

The basic set us was around the historic battle of Mon.  Here is an overview of the battle

"A smaller Swedish squadron under Admiral Erik Sjöblad attempted to sail from Gothenburg to join the main Swedish fleet in the Baltic Sea. It was intercepted by a superior Danish force under Niels Juel and decimated over the course of two days. The Swedes lost 8 ships and over 1,500 men dead, injured or captured, including Admiral Sjöblad himself, while the Danish losses were insignificant."

Christianus V scores a heavy hit on the Amarant

With this in mind, during the actual battle the ships broke from line of battle and the fight became a fight between individual ships. Here is a description of what I was trying to set up in this game

The Amarnat is stern raked by the guns of the Christianus V

"Since the wind was too light for coordinated maneuvers, Juel gave orders for every captain to attack the nearest enemy ship to sink or capture them. By 4 o'clock, Juel's flagship Christianus V had caught up with Sjöblad's Amarant and after an intense artillery duel that lasted two hours, the Swedish flagships lost a yard and had its largest topsail shot to pieces. Per Rosenlund of the Andromeda tried to turn around to assist his admiral, but his crew refused to follow orders since they "did not want to go back and let themselves be slaughtered like sheep".^[5] Sjöblad had to surrender and was taken prisoner." 

tools of the game

 Well Soren and I set up the game and we started to learn to sail and eventually we got within range and Soren was able to score first blood in the game.  I was not able to score any hits on Sorens ship.

 

a pregame shot of my two ships

 We maneuvered and Soren was able to score two stern rakes on my ship and the damage was sever and eventually the Swedish failed the strike test. The Swedish ship had to strike her colors and basically the game was over.

 

my Danish ship looks good on the board

 

 The rules were perfect for what we are looking for, we were both able to start playing with little prep time and we plan to play another couple of games with more ships.  this way we can see how the rules work when we have multiple ships in line.

learning to drive....sail

 Enjoy the pictures from the game.

 

moving to get into a good firing position

 

the Danish score fist blood

 

both sides get in shots

 

another miss

 

a view from the Danish side of the game

the Amarant took a lot of damage early and was not able to recover

 

a historic end to a great game

 Thanks for stopping by and checking out the battle pictures.

 

My Scanian War Ships

In my last post I posted pictures of ships that Soren had painted.

Now I have finished up my two ships.

These are the first two ships that I have painted for our Scanian War project that Soren and I are working on.

So here are the pictures of the Swedish Ship Amarant with 52 guns and the Danish Ship Churprinsen with 74 guns.

Soren and I have a game on Monday night at the club to try out our the rules and to have the first meeting of these ships on the gaming board. I will be sure to take pictures and to post an AAR on how the battle went.

I am not as good at painting as Soren and a number of other members of our local club but I am very happy on how these ships came out.

Have a good weekend.