Last weekend we carried out a play-test of the Battle of Bila Tserkva 1651 at the Wargaming Association of Metropolitan Philadelphia. The game will be played at Fall In! at 9am next Saturday. Bila Tserkva is a town in modern day Ukraine, located about 50 miles south of Kyiv. I believe that Bila Tserkva is the Ukrainian spelling and Biala Cerkiew is Polish. In English the literal translation is White Church, which of course required me to build the white Church.
The Battle was between the forces of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Cossacks of Khmelnystsky.
In this post I will discuss the research, give the orders of battle, show the initial deployments, and discuss key features. I don’t want to discuss the play-test itself too much as I don’t want to give things away prior to Fall In!. I will do an after action report following the convention.
Research.
I have used a Polish book by Marcin Domagala titled “Biala Cerkiew 23-25 IX 1651” as the main text to research the battle. There is very little information in English on this battle, so I have spent many hours with Google Translate.
The other main information used to recreate the battle were two period pictures. I really wanted to capture the feel of the pictures while staying true to the account of the battle in the book.
The main item that I wanted to capture from this first image is the double wagon tabor camp of the Poles. This required a huge amount of work in preparing a load of wagons, but I think that it was worth it. The other item of note is the defenses of the cossacks on the right. These were old, poorly maintained defenses of the Bila Tserkva fort. I also wanted to make sure these were represented.
The second photo show the Polish checkered deployment which was typical of their battle tactics of the time. The other item of note from the photo is the mass of cossacks on the right. It was important for me to recreate both of these items. This photo required me to paint a mass of cossacks for this battle over and above the ones I already had.
Order of Battle.
The following is the order of battle that I plan to use. I make no claims as to the accuracy of this order of battle, but I feel that it gives a good representation of the forces used and makes for an interesting game:
Polish and Lithuanian
- Overall Command Base
- One unit of 8 German Reiter Style cavalry
Center
- Heavy Cavalry Command Base
- One unit of 8 Winged Hussars
- Three units of 8 Pancerni
- Infantry Command Base
- Two units of 12 German style pike
- Four units of 12 German style shot
- Three units of 12 Haiduks
- Two medium cannons
- Forty two wagons, some with small cannons
LEFT FLANK
- Noble levy cavalry command base
- Five units of 8 Noble levy cavalry
RIGHT FLANK
- Polish cossack cavalry command base
- Four units of 8 Polish cossack cavalry
- Polish cossack cavalry command base
- Four units of 8 Polish cossack cavalry.
Cossacks and Tatar
- Tatar Overall Command base
- Cossack Overall Command base
LEFT FLANK
- Tatar command base
- Four units of 8 Tatar cavalry
- Cossack command base
- Four units of 8 Cossack cavalry
CEnter
- Infantry command base
- Three units of 12 Register cossacks
- Four units of 12 Moloitsy cossack
- Three units of 30 Cossack Peasants
- Infantry command base
- Three units of 12 Register cossacks
- Four units of 12 Moloitsy cossack
- Three units of 30 Cossack Peasants
- Three medium cannons
Right Flank
- Cavalry command base
- Four units of 8 Tatar cavalry
Reserves
- Tatar Command base
- Four units of 8 Tatar Cavalry
- Cossack cavalry command base
- Four units of 8 Cossack Cavalry
Deployments for Bila Tserkva 1651
Photos of the Polish initial positions
Here are some photos of the Polish initial deployments going from right, through center to the left.
Photos of the cossack initial positions
Here are some photos of the cossack initial positions:
Key features of the battle Bila Tserkva 1651.
The Battle of Bila Tserkva 1651 took place between two rivers which join behind the Cossack defenses at Bila Tserkva. These rivers are off table. Adjacent to the Ros river on the cossack left were some marshes, burial mounds and apiaries. I felt that it was important to represent these as they had a role in the battle.
Of course the Battle of Bila Tserkva (“white church”) needs a white church and other buildings.
The Polish wagon tabor is an essential element of the game and took a lot of time to build. They are two rows deep rather than the three in the period picture but that is a compromise I was prepared to make for the sake of my wallet and sanity.
The Polish wagon tabors
The final feature that I wanted to recreate was the Cossack defenses and the massed cossacks behind them. I think that I managed to achieve an accurate representation of the images.
Summary
This blog post is intended to give some of the background of the Bila Tserkva 1651 game and information on orders of battle and deployments. I feel that I have captured the spectacle that I was trying to achieve. The book and pictures of the battle really helped me design this game.
I will give details of how the battle played out in an after action report in a few weeks.