War of the Spanish Succession Sunday Game

Today we played a WSS scenario prepared by Rick and predominantly using his figure collection, although Mark, Nick and I also contributed. Mark led the British, Dutch and Austrian alliance, whilst Nick led the French and Bavarian army.

Over a period of five hours, the two armies basically fought each other to a standstill. I led two brigades of Austrians with two Dutch battalions attached on the Allied left, facing Paul with two brigades - nine regiments - of French cavalry. Chris led our centre with around eight battalions of Brits and Dutch, John had two brigades of Allied cavalry and Mark was on our right with a grand battery of artillery as well as our reserves, which were my figure contribution to the game. Julian led th Bavarians against Chris and Barry was opposite Mark leading Spanish infantry, while Nick as commander controlled the guns and reserves of both infantry and cavalry. Please enjoy the pictures below

Allied deployment
Allied left wing...my command
French right..Pauls twin cavalry brigades
Allied centre
Allied reserve infantry (my figures)
Allied left advances
Austrian infantry repel French cavalry
French centre advances on Allied centre
Allied centre
Bavarians confront the British
French cavalry
Another French cavalry attack on the Allied left
Huge cavalry melee on Marks flank
Allied left advance towards the Bavarians
Allied reserve infantry fighting Spaniards in town
British v French cavalry fight
Allied left and centre combine to push back the Bavarians
Huge mess on the Allied right
One large British unit v three small French units
Austrian cavalry charge French cavalry
Brits in the centre
Swiss in Dutch service - my figures
Spanish infantry on the French left
Three regiments of Nicks French figures
Final position on my flank...Austrian infantry and cavalry face depleted French cavalry brigade
Final position in the centre ...not many troops left on either side
Final position on the Allied right

Last of the Portuguese Line Infantry

Despite the so called "real world" stealing two of my painting evenings this week, I managed to finish of the last line infantry battalion for De Silvieras Division, this being the twenty fourth regiment with light blue collars and cuffs, piped in yellow.

Now I only have to do forty eight Cacadores, representing four battalions, and the division will be complete.

Below are three images of the completed unit. Off to a WSS game tomorrow so will hopefully be able to post a report later in the evening.

New Recruits

A couple of days ago, I received an email from our local New Zealand on line retailor, Mighty Ape, letting me know they had 20% off certain 28mm Napoleonic figures.

Generally I ignore this sort of marketing, but I took a look and today these two boxes arrived at the painting desk...very nice looking the figures are too!

These will join my expanding painting queue and I shall report on them in due course.

A little Bit of Variety

On Sunday, as a break from Napoleonic Portuguese, I finished off four late seventeenth/early eighteenth century civilians from Nick Eyres range. I also did a couple of the recently recruited Bolshevik drivers from Siberia Miniatures. Tonight, it's back to my Napoleonics!

Progress This Week

As mentioned in a previous post, I have taken a break from female gunfighters this week and have worked on some Warlord hard plastic Portuguese Napoleonic infantry, in this case the 13 Line Infantry Regiment. I used the earlier Barretina shako heads for this unit and painted them with dark blue trousers, matching their coats. I have one more battalion, the 24 Line, and then four battalions of Cacadores, to complete the division I am building.

Here are three images of the completed 13 Line. All their facings and piping are white, which made the collars and cuffs etc easier to finish off.

War of the Spanish Succession Collection

As our next game is scheduled to be a WSS affair, I decided it was a good excuse to get the toys out of their boxes for a "show and tell"

This is a very eclectic collection, made up of figures from a variety of manufacturers including Front Rank, Old Glory, Ebor, Reiver and Wargames Factory (now part of the ever expanding Warlord empire).

Each unit comprises nine bases, several being eight bases of infantry plus a battalion gun, manned by grenadiers, as my research indicated was what they did. Using the Wargames Factory plastic figures made this a simple proposition, as I simply took spare grenadier heads from the infantry set and added them to the plastic gunners. One thing I liked about using the plastics was the ability to do simple conversions like this....I also took an infantry drummers arm and added it to a cavalryman to make a mounted drummer for a dragoon regiment.

Following is a list of the units represented. For space purposes, only a portion of each unit appears in the following images. For some reason, I have not recorded the names of the cavalry regiments...
(Slight issue with photos...the very first description is actually the very last image...and there are two copies of the Old Glory unit, apart from that, they are as below)

Dutch Regiment Nassau Front Rank
Dutch Blauw Gards Wargames Factory
Dutch Regiment Van Weiss Reiver
Battalion gun and mounted officer
Swiss Dutch Regiment Lochmann Ebor
Swiss Dutch Regiment Albermarle Front Rank
Dutch Regiment Pallandt Old Glory
Battalion gun
Two Dutch artillery pieces
Danish Regiment Prins Georg Wargames Factory
Danish Regiment Livgarden til Fods Wargames Factory
Danish Regiment Dronigens Livgarden Wargames Factory
Two battalion guns plus Danish King by Reiver
Two Dutch artillery pieces Ebor
Command group
Three cavalry regiments Wargames Factory
Mounted Dragoons Wargames Factory
Danish artillery piece Reiver.  Enjoy!

Some New Arrivals from Siberia

After a not inconsiderable wait, yesterday, I received a very small package from Michael at Siberia Miniatures. This contained eight Bolshevik driver figures, two each of the four variations he produces. These will be painted up to crew the various RCW vehicles I created last year using the very cost effective Matchbox Yesteryear models.

Following are four images of the figures, the first two showing the drivers in traditional Russian "Schelm" headgear, then the other two wearing peaked caps. Next, two images showing each pair in one of the Yesteryear models, to give an indication of how well scaled they are. Finally, for perspective, I thought I would share a picture of my eighteen year old sons latest "toy" purchase....cost more than I have spent on figures in the last three years I should imagine...but as he has been working as an apprentice builder since the age of sixteen, all bought and paid for in cash from his own savings...next day he bought a Karcher water blaster to clean it!