Kraków hangover: Winged Hussars reloaded - Tales from a Wargame Shed

Kraków hangover: Winged Hussars reloaded

9/11/2016

After spending four nights in the wonderful city of Kraków, we came home wondering why we had left it so long since our last visit. The Wawel Castle is a fascinating place, and the Armoury museum is beautifully presented. Its focus is on late medieval and Renaissance arms and armour. In one room, the walls are lined with Hussar armour, mostly 17th century. Stunning. The horse furniture is quite beautiful too.

The castle courtyard has an unusual light, reflected off the white walls.

There are some great bookshops in the city too and I brought home two accounts of campaigns against the Cossacks in 1651, a history of Polish-Muscovite wars from the 16th to the 18th centuries and a history of the Polish Cossack cavalry, or Pancerni as they came to be known.

So what else is there to do but plan another Polish-Cossack wargame? I have been painting 15mm commander figures and a new unit of Petyhorcy (Lithuanian Spear-armed Pancerni), ready for a game on the 19th. We'll be fighting Slobodyszcze, a scenario I've been cooking for months. There is an excellent map of the field in one of my new books and the table should look pretty fine.

My latest unit, a squadron of Lithuanian Petyhorcy

I don't like to post scenarios until we've tested them but am hoping it will give a good game. We'll be using Tercios, a rules set that I think deserves to be better known. Unfortunately its online support is a bit limp, although things might improve soon with the release of a line of 28mm figures.

Adrian

10/11/2016 03:39:27 am

Ever tried With Fire And Sword? The rules were specifically developed for mid 17th century Central Europe and Eastern Europe. They also produce 15mm figures and terrain for the period.

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Tim

10/11/2016 06:47:35 am

Hi Adrian

Most of my figures are by them and I think their background information is excellent. The team at Wargames shows is always friendly and I've watched a lot of demo games. But no, I haven't played them yet myself and really should do. Maybe I'll pick them up at Warfare in Reading in a couple of weeks.

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General rules

The Map

The map has the following features:

Named towns (large dot)
Named villages (small dot)
Numbered farms (spotted dot)
Forest hexes. Each patch of forest is lettered for identification purposes.
Main roads (dark brown)
Minor roads (tan)
Rivers (blue)
Railway line (black)
Open hexes. Although ‘open’, these still represent farmland with fields and hedges, streams and ditches.

Hex rows are labelled with letters. Individual hexes are identified by counting away from the left of the row containing the letter (including part hexes). Thus, La Redoute is in hex E7; Saint Michel de Livet is in hex J3.

Assets

Each player has various assets, including fighting men and women, vehicles, technical resources and bases. As the campaign is under way at present I am not listing all of these on the website yet. But examples include

German infantry section with Opel lorry
Osttruppe section
Active Maquis cell
Sleeping Maquis cell
Arms cache
Safe house
Etc.

Issuing orders

Every turn, each player receives a briefing on events in the previous turn, along with one or more tasks for the turn ahead.

A turn is not a fixed period of time but an episode in which something happens. Each turn, the players will receive a briefing on the situation and should then issue orders to their assets to allow them to deal with the current challenge. Play is similar to a Dungeons and Dragons approach: they will not be constrained by mechanical rules although these exist in the umpire’s set. The umpire will try to carry out the players’ instructions and will report the outcome at the end of the turn.

That said, the players are given some guidelines:

Lorries can reach anywhere on the map using the road net. Their passengers can then disembark and move on foot. I will presume that lorry-borne units will return to base at the end of the turn unless a player orders them to stay in another village or town. The gas powered lorries risk breaking down but otherwise are the same as the Opel lorries.
The Steyr heavy car and kübelwagen can reach anywhere on the map, not just on the road net.
Troops on foot may walk up to 4 open hexes, either from their base or from the point where a vehicle has transported them. I will presume they will return to base at the end of the turn unless a player orders them to stay in another hex (troops on foot can bivouac in non-urban hexes).
The tank can travel up to 12 hexes in a turn and will end the turn where it has been sent (ie it won’t return to base at turn’s end). It derives no benefit from roads.
Players may issue contingency orders, for example to lie in ambush or to look out for a signal and then take another action..