Muscovites at the river

 As weaker player my opponent got to choose the scenario taking river crossing and buying fortifications to bolster his defences.
As special effects he got one company of field dragoons delayed and unexpected reinforcements.
He deployed field dragoons with spears and halfmuskets on the bridgehead position leaving a squadron of reiters to keep the ford together and boyar sons as cavalry reserve beyond the bridge.

I had in my muster Gosievski foray - banner of hussars, company of dragoons, two banners of reiters and two weak banners of cossacks.

On round one I unleashed dragoons and reiters to shoot on the dragoon musketeers while cossacks got to pepper the spearmen. Dragoons on other side of river responded to fire and the Muscovite reiters advanced. For change Polish were in firefight and winning.

Round two Muscovite drew his musketdragoons from the bridgehead to the bridge, launcehd an ambush to my flank and advanced with his reiters.
I grew impatient and sent a banner of cossacks to charge the obstacles while continuing the fire and turning with my hussars to meet the new threat.
Cossacks were repulsed with bloody nose.

Round three - my dragoons occupied the banja at riverside, my right poured fire onto Russian dragoons and hussars jockeyd for charge position.
His reiters used musketeers as cover and tried to get a charging position. The musketeers-dragoons scored hits on the hussars who casually ignored these. Picture from early phases of round four. My well drilled reiters reformed and prepared to caracole the dragoons out of the field. Right wing tried to finish the spear dragoons with fire and dragoons in the house received defence order.
His reiters withdrew from threat of my hussars and his border dragoons took postition at the side of the house, ready to attack . Nevertheless, they received fire both from my dragoons and the caracoling reiters.

 Round five his delayed troops consolidated a position on the riverbank giving casualties to my cossacks but failing to dislodge them - leaving the bridge contested. My cossacks had spent their ammunition, but the reiters finished the lonely spear dragoons at the bridgehead. On his right his dragoons assaulted my dragoons in the house, but were repulsed. His reiters withdrew from the scary hussars who slowly loitered forward.

On round six hussars charged the hapless remanats of the dragoons and swept them off the table, but nothng else happened. Victory to Poles since I took no casualties and inflicted acceptable casulaties on the russians. Bridge was contested so none got advantage from that. More tactical game than the previous ones. Hussars did not really  achive that much, but their deterrent get the Muscovite reiters neutralized. Shooting the bridgehead was accomplished, but took too much time.

Painting - work continues.

WIP seems to be constant theme here.
I got my brave hussars to stage where they have their primary colors on. Tidying bases, inking and detail work remains. Roughly at midpoint from finished I figure, but hour or two from stage where I could get them on the table.

Hussar clothing should probably not be uniform. Variation here is very subtle though. Lances are painted separately except on the test figure on the right. Mixed in their is one Wargamer figure, rest are Legio Heroica. At this point I decide to base the guys since I have tendency to get green on figures when painting bases - corrections can be done at same stage as painting over inked figures.

Hussars have been the main project, but on the side Polish king Jan  with his retinue has been getting some treatment. 

Cossacks and Pancerni by QRminiatures are painted and inked. Some higlights and they are ready for varnish and grass. See the grass stained hooves...

New enemies

Since my opponent wanted to try his Muscovite skirmish force I had the joy of meeting a new enemy.
After looking at possible skirmish forces Muscovy can muster I decided to go with a strong Polish skirmish force again. I pondered on Gosievski foray which would have been historically correct, but decided to run with more numerous force using pancerni as main strike force.

My force contained 4 point colonel, with lieutenant-colonel, 2 banners of pancerni 3 strong, combined to a squadron at deployment, 3 banners of cossacks 3 bases strong, 2 banners of tatars and 6 bases of volunteers. My opponent fielded 2 strong formations of boyars son, formation of field dragoons having both spear and musket armed troops, 4 bases of servant cossacks, and a skirmish sotnia. He had a commander whose command he would find out at deployment and onepoint second in command.

As a weaker player my opponen got to choose the scenario from randomly chosen. He rolled patrol and twice the search of supplies. Cursing slightly he chose the  forage, where his task was to attack my force that was divided into two separate commands.

 On the left i had my colonel, 1 banner of tatars, pancerni as one large squadron, elite pancerni and a banner of cossacks. On the right I had volunteers, one banner of cossacks and lieutenant colonel.

Due to difference in our troop strength my opponent got to roll for special effects. My colonels command fell from 4 to 3 and banner of cossacks and tatars were delayed. As You can see I deployed a bit stupidly - sideways to my opponents deployment area and had thus my flank threatened already in the beginning.

 On the left at the side of the mill my troops saw hordes of Russian cavalry approaching.

At the half burned inn opponent was infantry, but the cossacks and volunteers were hampered by the walls. At least on the left it seemed crucial to get initiative. 

 On turn one I maneuvered a bit back from the enemy, to get room to turn towards him for possible countercharge. On this side he had not given charge except to skirmish sotnia that failed to make contact, but managed to keep the charge order by succesfully making a skill check.

 Field dragoons advancing in good order, cossacks forming a firing line and contemplating charge.

 To add injury to insult my troops pourerd bullets and arrows to advancing muscovites. Pancerni gave skirmish sotnia some hits. Tatars were the heroes of this operation though - puncturing enough boyars sons to kill a base and send the rest back in disorder. Way to go

 On the right cossacks harassed the spearmen with idea of disrupting them and then closing in for the kill. Volunteers just milled around.

 Round 2 Skirmish sotnia charge the pancerni, boyars sotnia charged the tatars who withdrew and were in turn charged by the elite pancerni. Muscovite infantry advanced steadily.

Rather disconcertingly pancerni despite their huge superiority of numbers failed to hurt the skirmish sotnia and were forced to withdraw.
Similarly the elite pancerni who attacked superior number of boyars sons lost and were forced to give ground. 

The lieutenant-colonel by the inn was surprised by the swift advance of the dragoonsand barely escaped with his life. Retalitory fire by volunteers and cossacks had no effect.

And neither did the carbine fire of cossacks in the center.

 Round 3 - round of knockout. The elite pancerni beat the boyars sons in the battle of the windmillhill and pursued them relentlesly. In the center cossacks took postition in the flank of skirmish sotnia - which was annihilated by the charge of the pancerni.

The better armor, pistols and elite status of the pancerni added with good to hit rolls by me and abysmal armor saves by the opponent made the day on this flank.

 On other flank cossacks fell back, leaving the contesting of objective to volunteers, who did suffer some injuries from
 musketry.



Round 4 saw elite pancerni driving rest of Muscovite cavalry, who had remained disorderd since being shot byt tatar arrows, off the battle field and ambush group of muscovite servant cossack emerging from a grove. 

  

On the right cossacks poured fire into the inn occupied by the field dragoons with no visible results. At this point we decided to call it a day. My opponent felt he had no tools to dislodge me from vicinity of objective and I had no interest in charging past the dragoons in the Inn.

Great victory to the commonwealth and quality of Polish pancerni. The lack of commandpoints by my opponent was sorely felt as was the fact that he lacked close support artillery he likes to use with his infantry. Similarly being used to disciplined Swedish Reiters he was not happy with the way the muscovite cavalry disintegrated when taking casualties.