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| Swedish view of the attacking Russian Army |
I was very taken with this 20mm scale game using Zvezda plastics. The guys running the game were from Germany but I confess to forgetting exactly which town they were from.
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| fine view of the Swedes with their backs to the river |
They ran the game as a participation effort but again I am unsure which rule system was used.
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| Swedish Dragoons defending a bridge |
The figures made for very attractive units and some of the groupings such as the artillery limbers, dismounted dragoons and personalities were wonderful.
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| Tzar Peter's Russian host about to launch themselves forward |
For those unfamiliar with Lesnaya in was fought in 1708 in what is modern day Belarus. 12,500 Swedes under Lewenhaupt were escorting an enormous supply column of 4,500 wagons and were attacked by 36,000 Russians led by Tsar Peter himself.
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| Russian dragoons on the right flank |
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The Russian line
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The Swedes furiously defended their wagons for 12 hours before night fell. Fearing a pursuit, Lewenhaupt ordered his wagons burned in order to make a swift escape to the main army commanded by King Karl XII.
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| Lewenhaupt's centre |
Having fought their enemy to a standstill many Swedes broke ranks and looted the train. Massed drunkenness followed and hundreds of Swedes were killed or lost to marauding Russian irregular cavalry.
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| The Russians emerge from the forest |
The poorly supplied Swedish army consolidated and marched to its glorious doom at Poltava in the Ukraine in the following year.
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| Wonderful Russian Priests group praying for the Swedes to go away! |
There has been some controversy over the exact orders of battle for both armies at Lesnaya and a recent thread on the League of Augsburg Fighting Talk forum has reignited some of those points about both army sizes and composition. I was not able to provide the missing information but I hope someone with a big brain (or a big library) will weigh in.
Anyway, well done gentlemen on presenting a very attractive game which I am certain people will much enjoy seeing.
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| Swedish and Finnish Horse |
