Sunday 28 April 2013

Austrian Ne'er do Wells.

Dug my collection of Croat Grenzers out of the cupboard today prior to re-working the bases:




I can't just remember which regiments they represent, an oversight I will rectify shortly. They are all from Crusader Miniatures Seven Years War range and if memory serves were the first miniatures I used dark brown undercoat on.

Thursday 25 April 2013

More Von Kleist Horse Grenadiers.

Progress as ever has been painfully slow but I'm quietly getting to grips with these:


A ham as promised in last post.



Having fun with these so far, another three to go under the brush very shortly.

Sunday 21 April 2013

Von Kleist's Horse Grenadiers.

This week I have whole heartedly embraced the resurrected Seven Years War project with a purchase from Foundry Miniatures & subsequently some painting.

The initial thrust of the project will be to field a Prussian force consisting of Kalben's & Von Kleists Freikorps in their entirety and to follow at a later date with a couple of Prussian line infantry regiments. In the meantime I'll finish painting the Crusader Miniatures Austrian troops currently lurking at the back of one of my chests of drawers.
Fortunately for phase one of the project Foundry still produce miniatures for all of the weird & wonderful troops that made up Von Kleist's Freikorps, the first of whom features below:



There are a few more of his compatriots lined up on the Workbench of Doom soon to be followed by Uhlans & Jaegers du Fuss. One of these miniatures will feature a finely rendered leg of ham!

Sunday 14 April 2013

Warfare in the Age of Reason.

Inspired by yesterdays AWI game I've decided to dust off my modest Seven Years War collection and get it finished off.
I started this project in the mid nineties using Revell 1/72nd scale Austrians & Prussians then moved into 28mm with Crusader Miniatures Austrians & Hungarians and later on Foundry Prussians.
This all fizzled out a few years later when the Foundry release schedule went off the rails & never got going again, until now that is.

So far I've made tentative in-roads into rebasing my painted figures, starting with a few command figures & some light infantry types. I don't want to start on any of the line units until I settle on a set of rules to use, so far I can't decide whether to stick with Warfare in the Age of Reason or try Age of Honour which are based on the Fire & Fury system.

Anyway her are a few tasters:

A rather portly Prussian Officer.



A rather less portly officer of Frei Husaren Kalben.


"Green" Kleist with two members of his Band & a Croat of his Freikorps.

Scythian Nobles Finished.

Finally polished of my 1st Corps Scythians this morning, its been a slog but there is an awful lot to colour in on them.
Still not keen on the horses but I'll live with that.



These will be the last Ancients painted for the time being as there are a couple of other long term projects that I want to get finished, but more of that later today.

Fire & Fury War American War of Independence

Yesterday in celebration of his Birthday my regular gaming opponent Mr. Ireland put on a War of Independence game based loosely on Guildford Courthouse.
He took the part of the defending continentals leaving me to attack his position with the dastardly British.


The initial British deployment. The Continental militia can be seen lining the rail fencing mid table.

The Continental deployment in three lines.



My basic plan was to launch two parallel brigade strength attacks on the first line of Continental militia & then exploit the expected breakthrough with a third brigade of foot & a small unit of dragoons. That at least was the theory, what actually happened was an unexpectedly staunch defence by the militia which halted my left hand brigade & threw it back with substantial losses requiring me to reinforce that flank with part of the reserves to prevent a counter attack into the rear of my army.



While this disaster unfolded the right hand brigade attack developed into a prolonged firefight which was ended by the British going in with the bayonet although this tactic was only partially successful with one battalion bouncing off the militia defenders. Subsequent assaults were more successful but by now the Continental second line had entered the fray and the attack was again held.



At this point we called it a day as it was obvious to us both that the British would not be strong enough to achieve anything more than glorious defeat. All in all a good game, one that we will re-visit in the future- though perhaps with the militia 'tweaked' so they are less stubborn when facing regulars.