Complaint to the Maréchal général des logis

The supplementary supplies mentioned in the last post have begun to arrive. First the magnetic bases on Tuesday, then the polypropylene boxes yesterday, and today the MDF bases, scatter material and sticky labels.

The Maréchal général des logis needs a kick up the derrière  because look how he sent them. Bear in mind the plastic boxes and the labels were on the same order to the Range. What a waste of wagon space.

The tiny little flat white thing are the labels.

You have to go out of your way to do something this stupid. It's actually harder to do this than do the common sense thing. Why put that much effort into getting it wrong?

************

More happily some progress has been made on painting the Carthaginians and re-boxing the SYW figures. Just waiting on news on the arrival of the reinforcements.

Supplementary Supplies and Clearing the Decks

Right, having placed a big order for more SYW/AWS figures*, I did a check on the ancillary supplies that I would need. This resulted in several more purchases:

• Black spray paint for undercoating, picked up with yellow and orange acrylics from Warhammer locally.
• MDF bases - I had just about enough for the figures on order but not enough for the Carthaginians that I hadn't got around to yet.
• Some 'Summer grass' scatter material.
• Magnetic squares for the underneath of bases to hold the figures in place in their boxes.
• Polypropylene storage boxes, internal dimensions 310x335x25mm.
• White sticky labels for the boxes (I'm forever picking the wrong boxes out and desperately need some name tags).
• An incidental with the MDF bases from Pendraken, a couple of buildings which might suit my Ancients.

* Of course I realised afterwards that I had overlooked the Palatines and Würtembergers that fought with the French in Westphalia, though the Reichstruppen would probably do for these.

I finally got round to preparing the Carthaginians. All are now based for painting, undercoated and 'fleshed'. Hence the need for the black spray paint.  The flesh is probably too pale (OK for the Celts but not the North Africans) so I'll claim I'm going for the look of the Italian made sword & sandal epics (Steve Reeves appeared in a ton of these). Incidentally, sticking the crew on the elephants was a right pain in the neck, with superglue all over my finger tips.

With Hannibal's lads on all of my lolly sticks and several MDF bases ready to paint, I realised I needed to crack on with them to make room for the new SYW recruits. I finished a couple of bases of Liby-Phoenecian heavy infantry already, but have 90+% of the army still to do. I'm using the old Osprey book I bought a few months ago as my guide. Having decided not to dig too deeply into this as very much a secondary period for me, I didn't want to invest heavily in books or spend too much time on 'research'. 

The boxes came from an idea from Richard in a comment on my previous post. He suggested some boxes similar to the ones I ordered, only A4 size and slightly deeper. I'll see how I get on with the square ones. If these work out I might undertake a full-scale re-boxing, just to keep everything neat.

If this wasn't enough, on the back burner, I've been toying with the idea of an Ottoman army (the Twilight rules cater for 'Eastern Horse' etc), but seeing the aforesaid pachyderms reminded my of Steve's Indian armies of the SYW period. Hmmm!

First Dutch to muster

A unit made up of odds and sods. A line of H&R Austrian musketeers and an assortment of pike wielding figures from Irregular (mostly 1690-1721 I think). The pikemen have had their weapons cut to size. For uniforms I read the Orange and the States vol I, the SYWA page shared by Neil Patterson the other day, and the Obscure Battles article on Fontenoy. My conclusion was that the vast majority of Dutch infantry were in blue coats by this period. I've opted for a medium blue tone, though I might vary the shade with different units to add a bit of variety.

Flags were a bit harder to find, so I've based these on ones shown in a colour plate for a unit in the WSS period. Don't look too closely! The unit painted doesn't represent anything in particular - given the preponderance of red facings in the units at Fontenoy and the difficulty of showing regimentals on 6mm figures, it would probably be a pointless distinction.

Mystery Dutch unit, with even more mysterious infantry and cavalry undercoated and 'fleshed' in the background.

Given the loss of my former supply of storage boxes (Ferrero Rocher changed the design which makes them smaller and less secure to stack) I need to find an alternative solution. I might decant some of the 10mm figures or maybe even my 6mm Napoleonics, as I'll need another 3 boxes to accommodate the 60 bases worth on order.  One each for the Dutch, Reichsarmee, and Hesso-Brunswick forces. Stocks of bases are sufficient for this lot, but it looks like I'm short for the Carthaginians if I ever get round to painting them. Could do with some more flock and magnetic bases too, so out with the order pad again.

Brief Walking Post

The Margravina and I had our constitutional this morning, walking across Richmond Park to Petersham and the River Thames. We stopped off for hot drinks at the Hollyhocks cafe in Terrace Gardens. Surely one of, if not the, most beautiful spot to drink coffee in London.

We naturally had to pay our respects to the local deity.

The river is just beyond the grass

I love these roots. Looking like something out of Tolkien

This floral display, obviously dating from 5 months ago is still clear. Just beyond the hedge is the statue of Old Father Thames

The cafe

Fascinating explanation of the early industrial period of the site, before it was converted to a park. Maybe the clay quarrying explains the form of the landscape, which has some very steep banks in parts (see the picture of the roots above).

'Grotto' entrance to the park, from the riverside path. This runs under the main road in to Richmond from the Kingston direction.

The river rolling along down to the mighty sea.

Having crossed Petersham Meadows we looked in on the graveyard at St Peter's Church. The war memorial maintained by the CWGC

By my reckoning Captain Stuart was great nephew of Napoleon. It soon becomes clear that this is a graveyard for well-connected/influential people.

On a previous walking post, I mentioned the count, who was remembered on a bench by the riverside path.

More aristocracy, this time, German. 

Lots of members of the Tollemache family here, including many who served their country and in some cases made the ultimate sacrifice (see the third picture of the war memorial).

Hard to read the name, but I do remember this was for a colonel of the Oxon Regiment (Ox & Bucks?)

Clearly many Canadians visit. There were signs pointing towards this grave. I was surprised by the date. I would have assumed he was around in the early 19th century.

The food in the cafe looked tempting, but it was a little early for lunch, so we made our way back to the Schloß. Bar the stop to walk around the graveyard, we strode home at a goodly pace. Round trip of c 8km/5 miles.

The Dutch are coming!

....and Hessians, Brunswickers, Schaumburger-Lippers* and Reichsarmee. And a few more Piedmontese and Hanoverians. As I've more or less completed the Saxons, Piedmontese and Spanish for the WAS and SYW, I started looking around for other gaps. And there were a lot. I hadn't got all of Britain's allies from His Britannic Majesty's Army/The Army of Observation, so that meant the Hessians etc.had to be ordered. And then there was the other big participant in the Pragmatic Army, the Dutch. And I only have one 1/2 unit for the Reichsarmee (made up of odd grenadiers left over from previous recruiting drives.

* Can anyone tell me what the correct demonym is for folk from Schaumburg-Lippe is? They only made up 1 battalion of line infantry, plus a small squadron of light cavalry and small company of jägers. A fraction of game unit at my normal scale.

"More blue-coated 18th century infantry?! Why not use those Prussians over there. He's used them before in the Fontenoy games. Who can tell at this scale that they're not Dutch?" "Well Sire, he mumbled something about the flags looking different."

My first step was to trawl through, Kronoskaf for orders of battle for the various German contingents and work out how many I would need for the biggest battles. However, the Dutch only fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, which is not covered by Kronoskaf. So I looked through the 2 volume For Orange and the States. The numbers of Dutch engaged in open battle (even at the big set-pieces of Roccoux and Lauffeldt, seemed relatively small compared to their whole establishment**, so I double-checked with any orders of battle that I could find on line. These seemed to back up For Orange and the States, so I went with a relatively small contingent of 6 foot and 4 cavalry brigades. The orders of battle, and maps, can be found in this excellent resource owned by HM KCIII https://militarymaps.rct.uk/war-of-the-austrian-succession-1740-8/1747/first-section

** many troops were in the many fortresses of the Low Countries.

My astute reader would have noticed the omission of the Swedes from that list. The Swedish were part of the coalition against Old Fritz in the SYW, and also fought the Russians in the intriguingly named "Hats' War" in the 1740s. But when I looked into the battles they fought, they were mostly divisional or brigade sized actions, and therefore not the level I normally game at. So I decided not to order anything for them. Maybe another day.

After some humming and ahhing about an Ottomon army of the period, I placed an order for about 30 game units of westerners (call it an early birthday/Christmas present).

Postscript

No sooner have I ordered the Hessians etc, I painted the first unit. To be honest these were leftover from my last 'augmentation. Here they are with a base (half game unit/half brigade) of Piedmontese grenadiers. The Italian lads were also left overs. I have enough leftover infantry for 3 or 4 more bases, which might become the first contribution to the Dutch and Reichsarmee. 

The newly painted chaps haven't had their bases painted and flocked yet, just sprinkled with chinchilla dust. [No rodents were harmed in the creation of the dust.

Hessian cavalry - based on the Pruschenk regiment of horse, chosen because of the sky blue cuffs and saddlecloths. Poor attempt to paint the Hessian Lion on the squadron colour. The sqn colour was again chosen because of the sky blue, rather than the Leibstandard, which is mainly white. Slightly out of focus, are the Piedmontese grenadiers (using H&R Austrian grenadiers in fur hats).

AARs on a vlog!

Something or other made me search for Twilight of the Soldier Kings on YouTube. I was intending to look up the rule writer's videos, but found a new vlog that I hadn't come across before. Now this chap has done the Battle of Prague, 1757, and very good it looks too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5aXey2xA3w&t=29s

There are also Napoleonic and WSS games on there. All in glorious 6mm Sound n Vision.

Well that was quick

Finally, I got around to playing Camposanto. I played the game without any special scenario tweaks to Twilight of the Soldier Kings, other than to treat the armies as single 'wings' with army/wing morale being necessary at 50% of units lost. The game took about 45 minutes.

After 2 turns, the Austro-Piedmontese are advancing slowly to contact. The cavalry are keeping pace with the infantry to have the extra support when contact is made. An Austrian foot unit on their right is taking hits from Spanish gunfire. The second line of Spanish infantry are marching to their right flank to prevent them being outflanked.

A couple more turns in, the cavalry has clashed and after resisting manfully, the Spanish are routed, a brigade of Piedmontese infantry having swung into the combat to led more support. The main infantry lines are engaged in firefights. The allies artillery battery on that flank has been beaten by counter-battery fire, suffering a loss in two successive turns it has been removed from play. In the infantry battle on the allied right wing, the Austrian brigade has been destroyed. First blood to the Spanish!

Two brigades of Austrians bear down on the Spanish Guards. Off to the right (just out of shot) the Swiss (in Piedmontese) have routed the Spanish Castilian brigade.

After 9 turns the allied cavalry is in contact with the Spanish 2nd line infantry on the far right of the picture. The Austrian Pandours are engaging the left wing of the Spanish line to stop them from helping the right wing. An allied has turned to their right and is bearing down on the Walloon Guards. The Swiss and main Austrian infantry force are closing in on the Spanish in the centre.

Next turn both the Spanish and the Walloon Guards have been defeated, as have the infantry on the Spanish far right.

Another view of the same turn. It's all over for the Spanish. A comprehensive defeat.

Reflections:

10 turns is a brief game for me with TOTSK, but the size of forces was small. The sides were fairly balanced, with the Spanish having more infantry but fewer cavalry and artillery. I think the mistake I made with the Spanish was to move the second line to the right so there was effectively only one line of infantry in the middle. There was little support for the first line who were therefore more likely to lose morale tests. Of course there were two units on the Spanish left who were pinned by the Austrian light troops, and not able to help much. The allied units in the main area of action were all supported. A benefit of their 'oblique attack' (the Austrian FM Traun's plan).

I've packed the game away now as the Kriegskabine will be used by the offspring for a last gathering before one goes to study Colouring-In. Will I run it again? Hmmmm! Maybe, but I'm not feeling it at the moment.