Fontenoy Update

I've hot-footed it back from the bloody fields of Pennsylvania to Hainault in the Low Countries. Hopefully there'll be news to come in the Palouse Journal of a splendid victory for the CSA. A victory inspired by General Mark "Mad Dog" Broom. Anyway, back to Wallonia.

Since the previous post I was able to check out a couple of things. First I ran through the orders of battle in  Falkner and compared them to the one in Obscure Battles. There are a number of differences, but nothing too significant. I must be tired because I haven't typed out the Falkner orbat into the table I created from Obscure Battles. The main difference is how the Pragmatic Army is laid out. Falkner shows the formal organisation and Obscure Battles goes for the layout on the field - e.g. Ingoldsby's Brigade is drawn from elements of the Army Reserve and other line brigades. For no better reason than I can't be bothered to change anything, I'll stick with the Obscure Battles layout.

The other thing briefly I checked were the Dutch uniforms. Roughly these are as follows:

• Foot Guards incl Orange regiments - blue coats red lined
• National infantry regiments - blue coats lined red or white. White/blue waistcoats/breeches
• Swiss infantry - ditto
• German and Walloon infantry - Waldeck, the German regiment at Fontenoy, wore white coats lined red, others as the National infantry. Only 1 battalion of Waldeck present. Walloon regiment at Fontenoy as National regiments.
• Scots infantry - red coats lined yellow or white with waistcoat/breaches of same colour. Buff cross belts. There don't appear to have been any Scots at Fontenoy.
• Horse Guards and Guard Dragoons - blue coats lined red
• Line horse - mostly white lined red
• Line dragoons - blue lined red except for Saxe-Gotha (not at Fontenoy) white lined red
• Artillery - dark blue lined red, blue waistcoats and breeches.

This all seems pretty straightforward. I'll stick with blue-coated Prussians for the foot, Austrian cuirassier for the horse and blue-coated cavalry for the dragoons.

Hopefully tomorrow evening I'll be able to do a stock check of my painted units and maybe start laying out the table ready for the weekend. A bientôt!

Update to the Update

I took an inventory of my British and French figures. I'm a bit short in a few areas:

• Redcoated infantry for the French Army - 2 bases short, but I have a surplus of 8 bases of white coated French.
• French cavalry - overall 2 bases short, even though I'm using all my French mounted units including horse grenadiers, dragoons in forage hats and have many more redcoats than I need. Austrian cuirassiers will suffice.
• Hanoverian infantry - 2 bases short. I have enough unbased figures painted up as French that I could add red coats to. [Postscript: I was wrong. I only had enough for one base. So a base of Austrians (one I'd painted in the late 80s!) have now got splendid new scarlet coats and yellow cuffs. The colour scheme was roughly based on Sporken's and Oberg's Regiments, present at Fontenoy, Hastenbeck and Minden.]
• British infantry - 1 base short. I'll have to start from scratch unless I dab red on another unit already painted and based. [Postscript: Another base of Austrians painted 35 years ago got scarlet coats. New uniform based on the 20th Foot. At both Fontenoy and Minden.]
• British cavalry - need 5 bases. Have 4 including the light dragoons. I have a spare white-coated base that can easily be painted over. [Postscript: These chaps ended up as, sort of, the 6th Dragoons (the Iniskillings) whose roll of honour naturally includes Fontenoy and Minden, but also the Boyne, all the big WAS battles, Waterloo (in the Union Brigade) and Balaklava (the Heavy Brigade). Basically, if there was a scrap, these were the boys to join in.]
• Dutch - none but I have more than enough Prussians (inf) and Austrian (cav).

The paints have been sorted and 'pulled' ready for use tomorrow.

I also dug out my field defences, including the emplacements made up of gabions (cut from thin dowels) that I did for Kunersdorf. And some castle pieces for Anthoing castle, some of which will need painting, although this is purely for show.

I'm two mdf bases short so that necessitated and order from Mr Pendraken. While I was at it I added some bases for the AWI 'project'. And while I was at that I ordered some Highland Light Infantry, some Loyalists, some pack horses and some sheep! The bases won't arrive in time so it'll be a temporary card job.

Also when I did the audit I found I had enough line infantry for another two brigades (4 bases), a brigade of horse grenadiers (which I don't need any more of), and a base of foot grenadiers. Is that the start of another force? Dutch, Saxons, Hessians or maybe even Piedmontese??