Friday 22 March 2019

28mm Pike and Shotte - Ottoman V. Poles . The set up

Having finished our mammoth 1866 game, both Bob and I thought it was time for a change.  With the improvement in weather here in the UK, we were able to start to make use of Bob's wargame room/garage.

Bob has some large and lovely eastern and eastern European armies and it seemed an ideal opportunity to get them on the table.   I particularly like his Polish army and the Turks can match them in both style and grandeur. So it was a fairly obvious choice.

Bob developed the following scenario:

'Gothrin the mad has been riding along the Polish frontier, leading a force of light, irregular cavalry and infantry. A poor commander whose position is due to his father being Grand Vizier, he is returning to the Turkish base of Stara Hrad in occupied Poland. His father Etrogul the Brutal, Grand Vizier and commander of the army, plans to celebrate his son’s raids by coming out of the fortress and saluting him and his troops as they pass by and into the fort. He will have his own person guards in attendance but the army will be inside the fortress. For the first time in years he will be a target of the Poles

The Poles must kill Etrogul – if possible they can also kill his son Gothrin. It does not matter what losses are sustained if Etrogul is killed'.

I went over to see the set up and take some pictures.  

The Ottomans










The Poles









 The Poles also had reserves in the forms of Winged Hussars and Pancerni and light cavalry.





We tried a couple of moves to test the Polish deployment.  The Ottomans had low command levels ranging from 6 to 8.  Whilst the Poles all had a command level of 8.

The Polish infantry advanced and began to move from column to line.



 The Polish reserves entered 'en masse' and the next move with Gothrin trying to make a mad dash to the safety of the fortress with his bodyguard he was caught by a massed charge of the Polish winged hussars, who also hit the Wallachian infantry.





Needless to say both Gothrin and the Wallachians lost.  Resulting in a very short 'test'.  

The scenario has lots of potential for a good game but we needed to address some issues.  The first was getting the Ottoman forces out of the fortress.  The unit nearest the gate failed a command test and blocked everyone else.  We think we have solved this one.  The other was the size and positioning of the Polish heavy cavalry reserve.  Again we have sorted this out and reset the game for another try next week.  Look out for more pictures of Bob's forces!


6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. hanks Jonathan, Glad you like it. Bob’s Polish army has developed over several years, without any plan. There are figures from many different manufacturers including Foundry, TAG, Irregular, and Redoubt. Older figures include Minifigs and Citadel Winged Hussars from before they became Warhammer. My favourite units are the Winged Hussars and Pancerni from Hinchcliffe. These are 40 years old but I think they can match any modern figures. The Hussars can be seen facing up to Warlord’s Wallachians. There are also figures from different ranges such as the Archbishop. Flags come from various sources including Wargames Designs. Others come from the internet and Bob has made some of them.

      The Turks are again a large army built over several years, using most of the companies above but including Parkfield. An Essex Ottoman army bulked up the figures and the white robbed “horde” are from Lancashire Games – Bob read on TMP about using deeper bases for light cavalry and so arranged his “mobs” on irregular bases.

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  2. Great looking game, the flags look awesome.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Ray, the Poles in particular are a mass of flags and lance pennants which really makes them. Glad you liked them.

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  3. Splendid troops...and flags!

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    1. Thanks Phil for taking the time to post, much appreciated. As I have said to Ray and Jonathan, Bob has made a great job on the flags and pennants which really adds to the splendour of the army.

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