Archive - League of Augsburg/ Grand Alliance/ GNW

Between 1990 and 2000, the main thrust of my wargaming focus was the period of the late 17th century/ early 18th century - namely The League of Augsburg, Grand Alliance, and Great Northern War.
From 1992 this involved attending many shows and putting on demonstration games that were featured frequently in the wargames press under the banner of "The League of Augsburg", a name I conjured for our group during a telephone conversation with Alan (now more famous as "Tradgadmaster" in blogger-land) in the run up to the Kirriemuir show in 1992 where, along with two others we were to run a game.

My fascination for the period had begun with Charles Grant's book, "From Pike to Shot", wherein there is a wonderful section on Sedgemoor, and I had begun to build the Royal Army. Soon after, following chance meetings with like-minded gamers, this "grew arms and legs", and an interest in Killiecrankie meant Hastings Regiment was also raised along with Balfour's. And before long, I was adding Dutch and sundry other allied troops to the collection, plus a smattering of French.

A number of these units had distinguished tabletop careers, notably Oxford's Horse who were the scourge of French, Irish, Scots Jacobites, and anyone else they could plough into the ground! I won't tell you what my regular opponent referred to them as, such was the terror they struck into the enemy! They are on "long loan" to a good friend these days who still plays the period, and so their tabletop adventures continue!

Around 1996-7, we embarked on The Great Northern War project, to add to our repertoire, and again toured the shows around the country.

Of this whole period, I have kept very few photos, and most of the units have been broken up and re-organised, or simply sold on down the years.
Here are just a few of the units, shown here for posterity...


Above: Dumbarton's Regt.
Below: Balfour's Regt.

 

 Above: Bavarian Cuirassiers.
Below: Bavarian Grenadiers.

 

Above: Dutch artillery
Below: Dutch regt von Bulow.


Below: Dutch horse.

Above: English Dragoons, mounted, dismounted and horse holders.
Below: English horse.


Above: French regt Blaisois.
Below: French Dragoons - regt Dauphin


Above: English light gun.
Below: English Foot: Princess Anne of Denmark's regt (PADs)


Above: Prussian Kronprinz regt - undergoing some re-basing at the time of the picture.
Below: some of the many vignettes created.

 
Finally... Jonkoppings Regt - Swedes from The Great Northern War.
 
 
Being also a willing volunteer to produce scratch-built buildings for our games, I adopted the Games Workshop style, and made many that were to adorn front covers of Wargames Illustrated during the 1990s...
 



 

1 comment: