The Road to Narva 1656

So it appears that I will be getting together with my friend Alex to roll some dice and push some (tiny) lead soldiers. Next week we will play a hypothetical battle from the Russo-Swedish War during the Deluge. The rules will be Liber Militum: Tercios and the figures will be from my freshly painted 6mm Baccus collection. 

I generated the scenario using ChatGPT and tweaked the OOBs to what I had and wanted to use. ChatGPT provided the following scenario background (I designed the crude map in MS Paint):

"In late 1656, the Tsardom of Russia launched an offensive into Swedish Livonia. After the capture of Dorpat, a Russian detachment under Prince Ivan Khovansky advanced towards Narva to secure the approaches to Ingria. A Swedish relief force under Governor-General Magnus De la Gardie marched south to cut off the Russian column before it could consolidate its gains.

The battle takes place on open ground near a small Livonian village, where the Swedes attempt to block the Russian advance while the Russians push aggressively to drive them back."

I swapped out Prince Ivan Khovansky for my Pyotr Potyomkin which is historically plausible. I gave De la Gardie and Potyomkin Colonel Burmeister and Ivan Poltev (respectively) as their assistant commanders and I will provide all of them with some traits for added flavor. Poltev was, in fact, Pyotr's assistant commander. Burmeister was a cavalry colonel who was involved in the Livonian campaign and seems to have been fairly aggressive and fairly successful.

The Russian forces have Potyomkin (on the left) commanding two streltsy battalions, a detachments of dragoon, one detachment of cossacks and both artillery batteries. Ivan Poltev has command of two westernized battalions and a reiter regiment. I bungled the picture and left both dragoon detachments with ol' Pyotr. 

The Swedes will begin the game with two pike and shot units, a green coated dragoon regiment, an artillery battery all commander by De la Gardie (on the right). On turn 3, a Swedish relief force will arrive commanded by Colonel Christopher Burmeister which is comprised of a pike and shot unit and a cavalry regiment. If you look closely, the dragoons and horse are in the wrong positions and I have yet to add static grass to Colonel Burmeister's base. I should have this rectified by game time. 

The scenario will task the Russians with seizing a small village and attempting to drive the Swedes from the table. They will have a slight points advantage and the benefit of having all their units on the table to begin the battle.