Last night Dr. Zombie and I had our first go at Black Powder. I was inspired by a scenario presented in the newest issue of WSS by Steve Jones. It was originally written for the American War of Independence but could easily by used for other periods. The scenario pits a larger force attacking a smaller force defending a ridge. Reinforcements are on the way, but they are on the other side of a river that can only be crossed via a bridge at the top of the table. The attacher has to take the ridge before reinforcements arrive from behind them.
We decided to set the game in Scania during the Scanian Wars 1675-1679. Denmark attacked the Scania provinces that had be taken by the swedes 15 years earlier during the Karl Gustav Wars 1655-1660. Initially the Danes met only light opposition and sprede out to take as much land as possible before the Swedes could assemble an army. The Danes have found a smaller force of Swedish infantry holding a ridge and farm flanked by a deep river. At the other side of the river a larger force of Swedish cavalry is making its way through heavy forrest the help to comrades on the ridge. Will they make it in time?
The Danes deploy opposite the ridge with six infantry regiments, two cannons and two cavalry regiments.
The Swedish infantry brace themselves for the oncoming attack.Their commander rides out to encourage them.
The Swedish cavalry makes it way along a narrow road through thick forrest. Unknown to them peasant rebels known as Snaphaner have taken up position in the forrest to delay the cavalry column strung out along the road.
The battles gets underway and openness with an artilleri bombardment that causes disorder along the Swedish lines.
At the same time Snaphanes hits the cavalry relief column in the flank with precise musketfire.
On the ridge things are heating up as infantry regiments start exchanging closerange musketfire. The Swedes are giving as good as they can but the Danish numeral superiority allows them to bring up fresh regiments, where the Swedes are fighting in just one line.
Initially the cavalry decides to ignore the Snaphanes but this turns out to be a huge mistake. The Snaphaner are let by their most famous leader Svend Gønge who knows how to make to most of his small partisan force. The Snaphaner follow the cavalry all the way along the road and keep up a continuous closerange fire that causes many casualties (units in march column have reduced moral value in BP).
On the ridge the Swedish infantry is still holding out but the regiments have taken huge casualties and are close to breaking. In the top right corner you can see the bridge still held by the Danes while the Swedes strugle with the Snaphaner
Encouraged by their succes the Snaphanes start to engage the cavalry in HtHC. This turns out to be a great succes as the cavalry is hit in the flanks and sometimes while still in column. The cavalry can't defend it self and after each successful charge the Snaphaner retire back into the safety of the forrest. The Swedish cavalry commandes have started regretting that he did not deal with this peasant menace right from the start.
The cavalry reinforcements finally makes it across the bridge but they have lost many of their comrades and they infantry regiments on the ridge are still fare away. The small danish cavalry brigade prepares the engage the Swedes further delaying them.
As the Swedish cavalry is charged by the Danish horse the Swedish infantry on the ridge are finally broken. In a final act of bravery Svend Gønge leads his Snaphaner out of the safety of the forrest to engage the Swedish cavalry in the rear. Attached from two direction and with their infantry fleeing the cavalry also break. It is a total Danish victory!
This was truly a great game and definitely not our last Scania fight. As some of you might have noticed some older soldiers from the 30-years war have joined the fight. My collection of Scanian War miniatures is still not large enough to field an entire battle, but using early models works fine. I just need to give them some new standards (not that many Bavarians in the Scanian War). We used the unofficial supplement for BP written by Ian Hopping called the Blenhein Palace Rules. They can be downloaded for free. They give BP a great new twist to truly bring it into the 17th and early 18th century.
Cheers
Erik