A Swedish Leuthen: Kliszów (1702), Great Northern War

Hooray! I have reduced the list of battles I'd never heard of by one.

The Great Northern War is a conflict I have never dabbled in before. I knew it was basically Sweden plays Russia, but that's about it. However, I understand it is a particular passion of the great Pete Berry at Baccus. Consequently the Baccus catalogue is well endowed with 6mm figures for it. I believe this range has recently been updated or expanded. Anyway, it got some of my buddies excited enough to build GNW armies. You can see Matt's beautiful new Russians and Poles on his Pushing Tin blog. Meanwhile, Crispin has painted up a very smart Swedish army to oppose them.

Matt is also a prolific scenario designer. He has posted no fewer than eight GNW scenarios in the BBB groups.io files. (NB - you do have to join the group if you want to see these, but it costs nothing and is easy to leave.)

Crispin and Matt therefore laid on the battle of Kliszów for us at the Oxford club. This was early in the war. Having repelled the Russians in the first campaign, Charles XII of Sweden turned south against Saxony and Poland. After Charles captured Warsaw, Augustus II of Saxony mustered an army to confront him in a defensive position at Kliszów. Despite being outnumbered two to one, the Swedes attacked and defeated the allies. They had to shift left to avoid marshy ground, fend off Saxon and Polish attacks on both wings, then smash the Saxon centre-right.

For our game, I commanded the Swedish infantry in the centre, with Ben taking our left wing and Crispin the right. We were facing Dave, Matt, Mark and Luke.

The allies had to deploy first, after which we Swedes were allowed free deployment in the northern half of the table (so long as we kept our cavalry on their designated wings).Being so heavily outnumbered, yet having to attack, it was imperative that we made an effort to come up with a good plan. Attacking across marshy streams into the teeth of enemy guns didn't seem a great option so, without realising it, we did what Charles did historically and went left, aiming to "do a Leuthen". The allies' deployment helped us, as they'd carelessly left their right flank open to be hit. That was Ben's mission, to brush away the enemy cavalry so that my infantry could then march against the enemy infantry's right. Importantly, we didn't go all in on the left, but kept Crispin's cavalry on our extreme right to pin enemy forces there.

Nine annotated photos tell the story, followed by reflections arising.

The battlefield, looking south. Blue patches are marshy ground. Objectives are denoted by white counters: the Kulaki Heights (the high ground marked by a rough yellow chalk ellipse containing the main Saxon line); the village of Kliszów, on the Heights upper right; and the village of Kije, top centre/left. We needed to take one for a draw and two to win. The Heights belong to whoever has most unspent units on them at game end.

There's a lot of cavalry. All the allied units on the flat ground top left are cavalry, as are the two at the other end of their line. The Swedes have three cavalry units on the left wing and two on the right.

Although the Swedes are seriously outnumbered (and have virtually no artillery), they have an important edge in quality. Their troops are almost all Aggressive Veterans, while the Saxon infantry is unremarkable and most of the allied cavalry decidedly inferior. Furthermore, the Swedes get four Generals to the allies' one and all the allies are Passive, which will make it hard for them to react to the Swedish left hook.

Allied cavalry massed in front of Kije. Front left of pic, everyone's favourite - Polish winged hussars. That blue marshy area by the village would prove the undoing of the horse deployed in front of it. Baccus 6mm figures from Matt's collection. Smart unit labels also by Matt.

And a solid Saxon infantry line with a lot of guns on the Kulaki heights. By going left, we managed to avoid most of their fire for the first half of the battle.

Echeloned Swedish infantry from Crispin's newly painted army, poised to attack the seam between the enemy cavalry and infantry. Note the pikes. In this period the Swedish army was less reliant than others on firepower, preferring to use 'Gå på' tactics - roughly, "Get stuck in!".

A monarch's-eye view on Turn 1 as our advance begins. Charles XII commands in person (bottom right). Top left and top right: most of the enemy cavalry have prudently evaded back away from us. Single mounted figures indicate Disrupted units: in the enemy's case, from evading; in ours, from changing direction instead of just marching our lines straight forwards. (Per Matt's GNW rule mods, available from the groups.io files.)

The winged hussars evidently don't believe in evading, preferring to charge Swedish pike. They got their wings clipped.

A couple of turns in and the action is hotting up. I didn't want to tangle with the Saxon infantry until our cavalry had swept away the enemy right, but Mark had other ideas. Bottom right: my righthand infantry unit was pinned down suffering casualties from artillery fire, leaving my upper right unit unsupported. Mark chose that moment to charge out of Kokot (top right), which could have turned out badly for us and rolled up our infantry line, or at least stalled it. Fortunately, a lethal defensive volley stopped Mark's charge. A 'pivotal moment', perhaps?

Next turn, my supporting unit finally arrived in position to beef up my line (centre right). Ben combined with the rest of our infantry to drive the enemy right's horse from the field. The mass of cavalry floundering in the marsh here was unable to extricate itself in an organised fashion and was smashed. The Wallach irregulars fled. (I had to say it: "Never mind the Wallachs".)

Once we'd swept away the enemy right, our infantry dressed their ranks and advanced onto the heights. Mark attempted one more desperate charge to drive us off, but to no avail. More inexorable 'Gå på' cleared the Saxons out of Kokot, while our horse smashed into the Saxon rear, after which it became a mopping-up operation.

What the photos above don't show is the excellent job done by Crispin as General Rehnskiöld with his mere two cavalry regiments - just 6 bases. These effectively distracted four large enemy units (two cavalry and two infantry) with more than three times their strength (20 bases) for virtually the whole battle. If just one of these had been able to join in against the right flank of our infantry attack, it could have been a different story.

Reflections:

Linear warfare can be fun! In our previous C18 games I have struggled at times, partly because of not being used to the much more constrained manoeuvre, but also because that factor has limited the tactical options and the number of decisions in the game. No such problems this time. On the contrary: manoeuvre limitations were an important factor in our initial plan (both in lining up our forces to head in the right direction from the start, and in capitalising on the defenders facing the wrong way and having trouble reorienting). The situation allowed - indeed, required - both sides to manoeuvre, so there was plenty to do. The result was a distinctly 18th-century feel, quite different from our usual C19 battles, and a downright exhilarating game.

I love it when a plan comes together. On a bustling club night, I'm often too distracted by the social and the occasion to give full attention to either devising a plan or executing it. That's OK - I long ago grew out of caring too much about winning. Still, it was pleasing this time to do a proper appreciation, make a sound plan, and see it through to fruition. As Mark so generously put it, "great to see a well-crafted plan so flawlessly executed". I suppose there are worse people to copy than Frederick the Great.

The dice even out! After his atrocious run of snake-eyes in our previous Kumanovo game, it was good to see Ben's luck change this time.

"Gå På = Ker-Pow!" (To quote Crispin.) Quality vs quantity and shock vs firepower made for a nice asymmetric match-up. We were all left with a definite impression of ferocious Swedes as Vikings in tricornes. These armies have character.

The terrain shapes the battle. Matt's scenario allows both sides relatively free deployment, but we both ended up unwittingly mimicking the historical set-up and, indeed, broadly following the course of the actual battle. This certainly wasn't intentional on my part - I'd only scanned the history and actually misunderstood where Charles had attacked (I thought he'd culminated by charging straight up the middle, and I didn't see how that could possibly work, hence went for what I thought was a different plan).

Replayability. Our Saxo-Polish foes are now sadder but wiser and would certainly deploy differently next time. That different deployment would no doubt necessitate a different Swedish plan in response. We will surely call on Crispin to roll out his Kliszów battlemat again. It will be fascinating to see how the rematch goes.