30YW Work In Progress

 I've been spending a good deal of the last fortnight 'finishing off' my long neglected 30 Years' War project - begun maybe 30 years ago.  It kinda went into limbo when I made the monumental blunder of converting the thing from my own system (down to my own rule set) into DBR format.  That might have been OK had DBR been properly 'finished' (in my view), and had that game system retained its following at the club. It wasn't, and it didn't. 

But I have always intended at some time to revive the project, and the publication of the Portable Pike and Shot Wargame rather inclined me to do something about it. But, there as the small matter of the unexpected Sengoku rule set... 

At any rate, I can point to considerable progress on the 30YW front.  The Swedish have some cavalry now, and many of the unconverted troops have been rebased and the bases flocked. 

A few Swedish cuirassiers and pistoleers. The cuirassiers
I suspect are more in the way of allies.

The Swedish pistoleer cavalry units will comprise 4 stands (elements) of 3 figures each - 12 figures. There are six such units.  For battlefield purposes, they may be spit into 2-stand tactical units. The Cuirassier units each comprise 2 stands of 3 figures.  I have 2 such units done, but they may get 2 more. The Swedes will also have a unit of harquebusiers - probably allies, such as Saxons.

The bulk of the Swedish charging cavalry. I've 
not worried over the correctness of the flags -
so long as they belonged (more or less) to the right army.

Imperialist horse: cuirassiers.

At the moment the Imperialist cuirassiers are in 3-stand (9-figure) units. The original idea was that the Imperialists would favour the deep columns that formed Graf zu Pappenheim's method of cavalry warfare. However I'm thinking of their being reduced to 2-stand tactical units, they being split from 4-stand regiments.

Imperialist harquebusiers and, behind them,
'commanded' musketeers

The Imperialist harquebusiers - pistol bearing horse, are to be 9-figure (3-stand) units, appearing as 3 ranks of 3.  These represent the deep pistoleer columns fighting by caracole. In my original set of rules, my Imperialist horse were to form 2 shooting ranks of 6 figures each; the Swedish just one rank, but of 8 figures. Shooting was by single rank, but it would take a whole move to reload. Howver, the existence of a second rank permitted the unit to shoot every move. Given the chance the Swedish cavalry would move into contact with the sword without shooting, and counting the two extra front rank figures as overlaps.

How the Portable Wargames version will play out may be something like what happened in this action, but it requires further examination, I think.

Artillery limbers. 

At the moment, my Imperialist foot are made up of several 6-stand 'battalia' comprising 8 pikemen and 12 musketeer figures. At the moment I have 8 such units. In addition are 12 elements of 'commanded shot', forming 6 2-stand units.

Imperialist foot: units of 4 musketeer stands (12 figs) 
and 2 pike stands (8 figs) each

Below: Swedish foot - 7 battalia of 20 figures (6 stands) each, plus 4 commanded shot units of 6 figures (2 stands) each.

Swedish battalia - 6 stands, 20 figures -
same as the Imperialists

More Swedish battalia

Swedish 'commanded shot' - 4 of 8 stands in 
2-stand units

In front of the Green Regiment, 2 more 2-stand 
units of 'commanded shot'.

Both armies may field a couple of stands of dragoons. For these I used the kneeling figures firing light muskets/ carbines (?) plus a command figure, of which Revell has given a lavish supply. Unfortunately, some time in the intervening 30 years, one of these fellows has gone walkabout, vanished, completely disparoo. So one of the Imperialist stands has just the two shooting figures. If there happens to be - if a scenario calls for - some qualitative difference between the two stands, guess which will be the poorer.

Imperialist dragoons

The dragoon stands are much deeper than the other foot stands in order to include the horsed figures that identify the stands as dragoons.

Swedish dragoons

There follow some command stands. These have only a 4cm (instead of 6cm) frontage, and they can be attached to other units. At the moment they are still 'works in progress'. The stands with the flags are to be the Army commanders' stands. 

A couple of Imperialist command stands

A couple of Swedish command stands

I plan on adding a couple of stands each of commanders on foot.  If I can find the spare mounted command stands, both armies will receive one more of them.

Foot figures as yet unassigned. I imagine some will
form for each army a 'forlorn hope'.

Mounted figures and artillery - still to be sorted out.

Finally, there remains a fair number of figures to be sorted. One more 9-figure unit of Imperialist pistoleers has been determined, and there are more cuirassiers to be assigned an army (probably Imperialist).  Artillery, too, are a long way short of 'finished'. Finally, those officer figures in the foreground will most likely end up as 'generals of foot'.