Poltava 2009
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Poltava 2009 is a project of recreating the battle of Poltava 1709, using Gå På rules.
Read more about the battle at Wikipedia.
To Do
- We need to decide what to play. Only the battle? The advance?
- The game table has to be drawn up on the map.
Time table
Things we have to do.
- Layout of the first scenario's gaming table set.
- Layout of gaming table set.
- Material for building the terrain has to be bought.
- The basic shape of the terrain has to be finished.
- The model has to be painted.
- The model has to be flocked.
- The model has to be fixated.
- The complete model has to be finished.
- Test game has to be finished.
The armies
The terrain
We don't have any good layout of the planned gaming tables yet, but to the right is a map of the area where the battle took place.
So far we have discussed breaking up the battle in smaller parts to make it easier to handle. You have to reach the miniatures on the table and you have to give the players some room to maneuver and in the same time show the limitations of the terrain.
The terrain was very three dimensional at the site of the battle and by representing that you get a better understanding of why the maneuvers was made the way they were historically. It is seldom that war gamers make a great effort to model the terrain more than painting a correct map on a flat surface. Our ambition is to make a great looking three dimensional battle field, not just a lot of nicely painted miniatures.
The actual placement of the redoubts has been questioned lately. Several of the maps drawn shortly after the battle have been hard to match to the actual battle grounds, but differ in how the redoubts were placed. The classic placement is based on the battlefield description made by Peter I in his report, in which there are a lot of inaccuracies. Most of these were made to make him look better, as adding Swedish regiments not present, and the new suspected placement of the redoubts might not be the most optimal, but can be explained by looking at why they were built. The first few would have been built to protect the building of the camp. Then more were added to make a line of redoubts to the Budischtje forest. As this line wasn't that well placed another was built in an angle to the first one, but perhaps not in a 'T' but rather in a 'L' or 'V'. This second line was not completely finished when the battle started and the Swedish attack came at an angle to the direction the Russians were expecting. That would explain both why the Swedes thought they came upon an end of a line and why they could go around the line at the Swedish extreme right and why they, when doing so came under fire from the Russian main camp.
The model
There will be a lot of ground to cover. Below is some things to consider while building the actual model of the battle field.
The ground
So far we haven't discussed any specifics but as the landscape had a lot of height differences it will probably be sculpted out of Styrofoam to be able to properly portray it.
It would probably look a lot better if it's flocked after painting. The cost might prohibit use of model railroad flock and weight might be a problem if sand were to be used. Sand also wears on the miniatures.
The roads
Probably set in the terrain directly. Preferably modeled and not just painted.
The redoubts
Since their actual placement is in question they probably should be loose models to be placed in the terrain instead of fixed into it, even though we loose some possibility to model the surrounding ditches properly.
There are five finished redoubts with a modeled ditch and two without. The two redoubts that was still being built during the battle are not started yet.
The buildings
We use buildings made for 10mm scale. We find that they still look good with the miniatures but won't take up as much space on the battlefield while still having several houses. TexaS have bought .stl models of slavic houses and may be able to 3D print many of them.
The trees
We have to find out what kind of trees we will use but probably we will have to buy new ones as several different makes of trees will look strange and there will be a need of a lot of trees.
Water
We need to find a way to make water look good on the gaming table.
Game specifics
There are some things that you can do on the model to make gaming easier.
Assault zone
Mark the assault zones of 50 steps in front of the Russian camp and redoubts.
Exit zone
Mark the area along the edge to where units flee.
Hindering, Slowing
In some way we have to clearly define borders of hindering or slowing terrain. Different flock?
See Also
- TexaS' Swedish Army
- Roger's Swedish Army
- Johan's Swedish army
- Thomas' Swedish army
- The complete Swedish Main Army
