Klissow take two: Polemos Great Northern War (1)

The Battle of Klissow 1702 has become my initial test game for rules for the Great Northern War. This came about as the first troops for the conflict that I began painting were Swedes and Saxons, to which I added some Poles. It seemed obvious to make the battle a focus for trying out rules (and for 'raising' armies). It helps that it is is a really interesting battle to refight!

The battle was the third of the trio of Charles XII's initial, against-the-odds victories over armies of the three powers who had seized on the opportunity of his ascension to the throne as a chance to take down Sweden. I won't be describing the battle here, but have listed some references below, from books and online, for anyone wanting some background.

Late last year, Julian and I played out a game of the battle using Twilight of the Sun King; Part 1 and Part 2 reported on this blog for anyone interested. Yesterday, Polemos Great Northern War by Nick Dorrell, published by Bacuss Miniatures, was the plat du jour. I was fortunate to be joined by Stephen and Julian for the game.

The Polemos 'stable' of rules are written for 6 mm figures, but adapt easily to any figure scale. They 'all'# have two key aspects in common: the basis of all movement and actions is a base of figures and they use 'tempo points' and bidding to determine initiative and movement. In Polemos Great Northern War a base of figures represents around 400–600 infantry, 200–300 cavalry and 4–6 guns, so roughly a battalion, squadron (or two) and battery respectively. There is a good description of the rules via the link on Baccus6mm page to the Wargame Vault. I'll describe tempo and some of the other mechanics as part of this report.

#He writes based on owning and having read the Napoleonic (x2), Great Northern War and Ancient versions and now having used each of the first three of these four rulesets.

The game early on, viewed roughly from the west. Saxon defensive position at right, attacking Swedes at left, Polish in distance on the Saxon right.

There is a scenario for the battle in Polemos Great Northern War with options for the historical order of battle or a more stylised, points-based version. Naturally I opted for the historical version. I set up the table using the map in the Twilight of the Sun King scenario book, but scaled 1.5 times larger.

I have the original, 2005 edition of the rules—which shows how long this has been in ‘gestation’! The current edition looks to be same, as far as I can tell from the preview. It seems to be a reprint, with some reformatting to make it ‘mobile friendly’.

A clear map of the opening of the battle , c/- Wikimedia Commons. Our action began with the Swedish attack, so the distribution of forces matches pretty well with that shown here. The wooded area to the north is off-table.

(Above & below) End of Swedish phase of the first turn. Rehnsköld (Swedish right) has moved his cavalry towards the Saxon left, while Charles has directed Liewen to advance the infantry. Vellingk has turned some of his cavalry (Swedish left) to face Lubomirski’s Poles.

Tempo is a form of pip system. Each side’s C-in-C gets a number of tempo points based on the leader’s tempo rating (six for Charles, three for Augustus in this case) plus the score of a D6. This is done as the first action of each turn. Each side then allocates, in secret, a number of the resulting tempo points in a bid to win the imitative. In turn 1, Charles rolled a two, Augustus a four. Each side bid four and, since it was the first turn, the initiative went to the Swedes as the attacker.

The C-in-C can then allocate any remaining tempo points to one or more sub-commanders (this could be considered as prompting or ordering, perhaps). Any tempo points sent from the C-in-C are added to the sub-commander’s own tempo rating. Commanders then use the available tempo points to pay for actions by a base or group of bases in the same brigade, up to a full brigade, of his command. Actions cost less for the side with the initiative (tempo player) than the side without it (non-tempo player). A player can attempt to 'steal' the initiative so as to move out of sequence, but this costs a whopping four additional tempo points for any action.

This all sounds involved, but is quite straightforward in practice and works reasonably well. That said, I don’t generally like pip points as a command mechanic. This was/is no exception. More on that later.

Bombardment is the next phase after tempo bidding and allocation of tempo points. In turn 1, the Saxons opened up with their four field guns, firing at Vellingk's cavalry, inflicting a level of shaken on one base and resulting in any base/group of bases requiring an additional tempo point to complete any action.

As tempo player, the Swedes now moved. Charles had sent his remaining four tempo points to Liewen, giving the latter a total of five. This left Rehnksöld and Vellingk with their own, three tempo points only. The Swedish infantry (Liewen) advanced; five brigades, costing one tempo point each. Rehnksöld moved his first-line brigade two moves (costing three tempo points). Vellingk used two of his points to turn two bases towards the Poles (normally costing one, but with an extra one required due to the artillery bombardment), losing the third.

For his part, Augustus sent his three remaining tempo points to Lubomirski, giving him a total of five. Sieniakwski, the commander of the second Polish line, Flemming and Steinau (commanding Saxon right and left wings respectively) had their own two tempo points only, while Schulenburg (with the Saxon infantry/centre) had just the one. Flemming advanced his first brigade of cavalry to cross the stream (requiring two tempo points as non-tempo player). Lubomirski used his five tempo points to make a double-move with a brigade of winged hussars/pancerni.

In their phase the Saxo-Poles advanced some of their cavalry towards Vellingk's (Swedish left).

Turn two

The Swedes again won the initiative, Saxon artillery bombardment was ineffective, the Swedish infantry continued to advance, while Vellingk's lead cavalry charged the Poles, giving our first adjudication of charging and close action.

Like tempo, the procedure charging/close action took a bit of time to work out, but was pretty straightforward once we had. Charges are declared in movement, but conducted in the 'range combat' phase. A charge may be conducted and paid for (in terms of tempo) as a group, but is calculated a base at a time. Each side adds the score of a die roll to their base factor for charging/receiving, a few modifiers are used (such as some match-ups, quality, shaken, flank and rear) and the difference determines the result. This can range from refuse to charge, charge/counter-charge, charge/receive at halt shaken, defender break (three levels of shaken)/charger pursues.

Once/if a charge goes in the outcome is similarly based on modified die rolls (for factors such as match up of troops, quality, shaken, support, outflank) and the result determined by the difference in the scores. Results here range from continue mêlée, loser recoils shaken, loser receives three levels of shaken and routs.

(Above & below) After the first charges of Vellingk's Swedish squadrons, then charges in the Saxo-Polish turn, a squadron (banner or two) of winged hussars has broken (bottom left of top photo), a pancerni squadron (banner or two) has been forced back, while another is still in combat.

Turn three

The cavalry action continued on the 'eastern' flank, with a further action between Swedes and Poles and also a mêlée between Flemming's lead Saxon brigade and the Södra Skånska regiment of Vellingk's command. Meanwhile, in the centre, the Swedish infantry reached the edge of the stream/swamp...

At the eastern end of the battlefield, the cavalry mêlées between Swede and Pole continued with wins and losses; mainly in favour of the Swedes, but not entirely...

A little further west, on the Saxon right, the Södra Skånska regiment of Vellingk's lead brigade was largely successful against Flemming's first brigade, but not entirely...

Meanwhile, in the centre, the Swedish infantry close on the Saxon line...

To be continued

We had played three turns in about as many hours, including some set-up time, a lot of reading and checking the rules, plus loads of banter and diversions. Julian and I considered doing one more turn after Stephen had to leave, but decided to leave it as it was likely to be a big one. We will reconvene in two or three weeks to complete the game and expect that this will take two or three more turns.

Impressions of the rules

Polemos Great Northern War are definitely 'in play' for me. I liked the overall feel of the rules. Once one has procedure clear they are easy to understand and to play. I especially liked that combat is done by base, so that mêlées break into a mingled mass of squadrons (and presumably battalions) here and there, as opposed to the more stylised representation of brigade on brigade. Having results determined by difference in scores is another mechanic that I like. As one who never enjoys a big effect of the random factor I am pleased that randomness is there, but the effect is not huge. It will be interesting to see how this goes when we get infantry v infantry fire and combat in our next session.

I am less certain about tempo and movement. They points and cost do not seem to be correct. In three turns of play we had far, far more troops that remained static than moved. As Swedish player, I was not as badly affected as the Saxons and Poles, but was still restricted and unable to advance the infantry, quickly and together, as I would have liked (and they did historically).

Julian and I discussed this after we stopped for the day. It could easily be rectified by having a base factor determined by the number of brigades (or even bases) in a command with additional points available from commanders. This is similar to the approach used in GåPå. We won't change anything until we have at least finished this game, but it is a distinct possibility.

Importantly for me, unless something changes, I have three sets of rules for the Great Northern War that I reckon I'm happy to use and that allow for different levels/scale of action. Twilight of the Sun King for brigade-scale actions, Polemos Great Northern War for unit-scale actions with a greater level of simplicity and GåPå for unit-scale actions with more detail.  

Thanks

It was a really enjoyable game/session and first go with Polemos Great Northern War. We all enjoyed ourselves and it was great to get on top of the mechanics with discussion and input from three people. Thanks Stephen and Julian for making the trek to the 'Ralph Fisher memorial room'.

I look forward immensely to part two.

Background

• “The Battle of Klissow 1702” In Kling (Jr.), SL (Ed.) (2015) Great Northern War Compendium The Historical Game Company. pp. 159–164.
• “6. Klissow” In Twilight of the Sun King – Scenario Book 2 – Great Northern & Ottoman Wars.
• The Battle of Kliszow, Poland 1702 Polemos Great Northern War pp. 50–54.
• “The Battle of Klezow (or Klissow) 9th July 1702” Weapons & Warfare.
  (https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/08/27/the-battle-of-klezow-or-klissow-9th-july-1702/).
• “The Battle of Klezow (or Klissow) 9th July 1702” wgamers.org.uk
  (http://www.wfgamers.org.uk/resources/C18/klezow.htm)
  

Rules

Polemos Great Northern War, 2005. https://baccus6mm.com/catalogue/WargamesRules/GreatNorthernWar/

Scales

Base width represents ~200 m, actual base width 50 mm, game area 1.5 m x ~1.2 m

Infantry: base represents 400–600 men, with generally 1–2 bases per unit.
Cavalry: base represents 2–3 squadrons, 200–300 men, with 1–5 bases per unit (most commonly 1–3).
Artillery: base represents 4–8 guns, with a battery represented by a single base.

Figures (all 1/72)

Saxon

• Infantry Mars Saxon infantry.
• Cavalry Strelets Russian Dragoons of Peter I with a few Polish dragoons using same figures making up the numbers.
• Artillery Zvezda Swedish Artillery of Charles XII and Mars Polish field artillery (standing in as the Saxon 3 pdr guns).

Polish-Lithuanian

• Hussars Zvezda Polish Winged Hussars.
• Pancerni Orion Polish Winged Hussars (with a few Tartars from
• Mars Lithuanian Tartars (1st half of the XVII century) making up the numbers.Reitars Strelets Reitars of Charles XII.
• Wallachian light cavalry Mars Polish 'Lisovchiki' (1st half of the XVII century).

Swedish

• Infantry mix of Mars Swedish infantry, Strelets Swedish Infantry of Charles XII & From Narva to Poltava.
  Cavalry Strelets Lieb-Drabants of Charles XII and Zvezda Swedish Dragoons of Charles XII.