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| Herr Heim's GNW Saxons in all their glory |
Günter Heim - First, there was
nothing... no, that is not correct! There was already the thought it should be
a country which no one has modelled so far.
The Pre-History:
I am by birth a half
Austrian-half Saxon. My mother’s parents are from Bohemia and my father was
born in Dresden, Saxony. In the early days of my life I was always interested
in history and military history from the Romans until the WW2. In the 1980s my
interest for wargaming was awakened by a small Napoleonic game played on a
kitchen table.
Since this time I
was drawn to the large nations like a moth to the light only to bounce back and
realize that it was impossible to play them on a domestic gaming table. With my
first approach to Napoleonic armies I started with a few French units only to
hit the brakes, reconsider and make a decision that changed my life as a
wargamer. I chose to model small armies as they were more easily done in full.
So I first went for the Westphalians. And so a scheme was born for all my
future approaches to build a force for playing a war game. After this time and
my attendance at the first Derby
Napoleonic weekender organized by Barry, Adrian and Bob I once again looked for an army
to build and again I was drawn to the French...Silly me! Bounced again! Looking at my own
history my decision fell for the Napoleonic SAXONS! But that is another story.
After my attendance
at the following Derby BLB event I saw a faint light on the horizon that told
me to do something in this era too. Once again I searched for wisdom considering
the armies of the great nations: Russia (my all-time favourite) France (the
Ogre), England (perfidious Albion) or Austria (aka Holy Roman Empire).
All of them appeared too large to do even a
playable portion! After re-reading my "Bible" (I call it so because
it guides me since I found it as a reprint) "Schuster u. Francke: The History of the Saxon Army-From its Foundation
to the Present Day" I recognized that Saxony has took part in this
timeline as well. So I made my decision to build another Saxon Army!
Now I stood realizing that I knew almost NOTHING about the Saxon Army of these days*howl*! I started to search through the I-Net and after a time, by a stroke of luck, stumbled across the now closed website of Dan Schorr "The Great Northern Wars". There I found all I needed to light up the dark episode of Saxon involvement in this time with such unlucky endings. I used his research and knowledge base to find out more and more details about my Saxons.
Being a member of
the League of Augsburg Forum Fighting talk I took my questions there and got some very
good hints and advice finally getting in contact with Dan Schorr himself! He
selflessly offered me his notes and his collected data about the Saxons of the
GNW which I gratefully accepted. That built the foundation on which I raised my
Saxons of the Great Northern War!
More from Günter in part 2 of his epic journey...