First Spanish and Piedmontese units

So in typical despotic fashion, I combed the odds and sods for recruits and found enough for 4 bases of Spanish cavalry, 1 base of Spanish grenadiers, 2 command stands, 2 Piedmontese artillery pieces and.....1 unit of Imperial (Reichsarmee) combined grenadiers. Yes, I threw that last one in because I had enough chaps in mitres and bearskins to make half a base each. The Reichsarmee infantry tended to either follow the Prussian style or the Austrian style - so half a base of bluecoats in mitres and half a base of whitecoats in bearskins. These were mostly already painted so just a bit of touching up needed.

The Piedmontese artillery came from scouring an odds box where I found an unpainted Baccus Napoleonic field gun and a Baccus howitzer, plus assorted Irregular miniatures jägers, one gunner, plus chaps in Prussian fusilier mitres (good for bombardiers). Normally I wouldn't mix Baccus figures with H&R/Irregular, but the artillery pieces look OK.

Spanish cavalry are painted up as 2 bases of dragoons in yellow coats, and 2 bases of blue-coated horse of indeterminate regiments. The guidons were added by cutting up a paper clip and fixing square or swallow-tail shaped pieces of paper. The colours used on the guidons are completely made up in traditional Spanish colours of red and yellow.

¡A Italia!

And so the decision has been taken. 

His Most Catholic Majesty, King Felipe V, by the grace of God King of Castile, of León, of Aragon, of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Mallorca, of Seville, of Sardinia, of Cordóba, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algeciras, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the East and West Indies, of the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Anjou, of Burgundy, of Brabant and of Milan, Count of Habsburg, of Flanders, of Tyrol and of Barcelona, Lord of Biscay and of Molina, etc. has decreed that an army shall be formed for the protection of our lands in Italy.

I’m taking the plunge and ordering troops from H&R for a Spanish army for the Austrian War of Succession. Now I mentioned before that I have sizeable Austrian and French armies for the period, and was reluctant to start another white-coated force. Especially as they’re 6mm figures.

Neil came up with the good idea of just making substitute command stands with different colours for the respective Bourbon armies. Two things stopped me implementing this plan. (1) I’m reluctant to start prising individual figures off bases; (2) having separate command stands is fiddly and takes up room. But it did spark off a compromise approach. I could build up half the number of Spanish units needed, each base with their colours or guidons to be paired up with bases of ‘French’ without colours. You see all my units are 2 bases strong.

The sizes of the Bourbon armies in Italy (or ‘Gallispans’/Franco-Spanish) were generally smaller than 50,000. So let’s say I need 25,000 Spanish split between 20,000 foot and 5,000 horse. With the unit sizes I employ this would be 8 units (brigades) of infantry and 4 of cavalry. But with my cunning plan I only need 1/2 that. As I get a brigade’s worth of horse or foot from each H&R pack, I only need to order 4 packs of infantry, 2 of cavalry, 1 of artillery, plus a pack of grenadiers for good measure. Except under Cunning Plan Dos, I don’t need any cav because I have re-purposed enough spare mounted officers to make up 2 units!

These were previously painted up as Austrian and Prussian officers for use as sort ‘command points’ in an idea derived from Polemos rules. Spanish cavalry mainly wore dark blue or white coats, with some in red and dragoons in yellow. Apart from some touching up I hardly need paint them! However, I do rather like the idea of mixing it up a bit by having a splash of yellow! I will have to make some little guidons from wire and baking foil. Fiddly, but doable.

An order will wing its way to H&R in the morning, together with an order for more bases from Pendraken.

As ever with these projects, no sooner had a scaled back the volume of new toy soldiers required than I realised I need some buildings more appropriate for northern Italy. I should have a go at making some poplars too, to line the roads.

I missed Benidorm for this!

Yep. I've been to see Napoleon. I had reservations having seen the trailer (with the 'Battle of Austerlitz' scene). I seriously tried to leave those reservations at home. I read a positive review on a wargaming blog earlier, and I spoke to a movie maker at the weekend who had been to the premiere and liked it. With the possible exception of the storming of the fort at Toulon, the fight between Kenneth Du Beke and Joyce Temple-Savage in Benidorm* was as convincing a portrayal of Napoleonic warfare as the battle scenes in Napoleon. It was as if Donald Trump had scripted the battle scenes.

* naturally the redcoated Joyce won.

Battle of Waterloo

In the interests of balance, there were some good bits. I thought the theme of Boney's relationship with Josephine worked well as a unifying thread, artistically if not historically. Phoenix is a good actor and adds a certain Latin quality to the 'Frenchman' Buonaparte. And his accent worked well in contrast to the British actors in most of the French roles. I liked Miles Jupp as Emperor Francis (with an understated Mitteleuropa accent) and Paul Rhys as Talleyrand. Raspberry for Rupert Everett as Wellington though.

Sergei Bondarchuk's position is safe.

The War of Austrian Succession in Italy

This is a theatre that I have been thinking about for a while. Partly prompted by a virtual game some months ago hosted by Jonathon of the Palouse Wargaming Journal . The battle in question was Bassignano between the Piedmontese and Franco-Spanish army. This was an enjoyable, hard-fought game which I lost and it piqued my interest further in the Italian campaigns.  A further game is in the offing - this time Madonna Dell Olmo. 

Reading material in English is thin on the ground for this theatre. There's a few chapters in the Wild Goose and the Eagle and a couple of books published by Helion. Including this one, which is on sale for 50% off. Naturally I ordered it. [there are other book in the same sale]

Assietta is an asymetrical battle, so, depending on your point of view, it either provides scope for a different type of challenge from the usual set-piece battle, or makes an unbalanced game. It should also provide something of a modelling challenge as it involves lots of defence works in a narrow mountain pass. Hopefully I'll have a better idea after reading the book.

Which leads me on to an internal discussion I've been having with myself. Should I go ahead and build Spanish and Piedmontese armies? Both will be mostly white-coated (though as with the French, foreign regiments add a splash more colour). French and Austrian armies could easily stand in, especially at 6mm scale, and half the Bourbon armies were French anyway. I 'want to' but am struggling to justify it to myself. Especially as I'm dithering over a couple of 10mm Ancients armies. Hmm.

Autumn mooches

The last couple of weeks down this way has finally felt Autumnal. The weather finally caught up with the long, dark evenings. Work activity has picked up and that is eating into the evenings more, and is likely to continue for some time. The shorter days also mean that the opportunity to get out and about is relatively restricted. Nevertheless the Margravina and I have had a few medium length walks lately, mostly in our favourite haunt. 

Splendid avenue of trees near the southern boundary wall of Richmond Park

View of Dorich House from Richmond Park

Dorich House is one of those places that we have somehow not been to (it's now a museum owned by Kingston University). https://www.dorichhousemuseum.org.uk We did go once on one of those Open House Days several years ago (I think before it was a public museum) but we go the timing wrong and it was closed.

The day after the above walk, we walked across the Park to Pembroke Lodge (former home of Lord John Russell). It now houses a cafeteria and wedding venue (there are spectacular views over the Thames valley from the gardens ate the rear), has some very pleasant landscaped gardens which includes King Henry's Mound, and Poets' Corner. On this particular visit, I spotted a new display in the lobby. Self-explanatory pictures below.

Apologies for the reflection in the glass.

I thought this one was a precursor to the type of article that used to appear in the News of the World, about nocturnal activity in Surrey woods and lay-byes.

I'm not clear on the perspective here. See text in photo. There is an entrance called Ladderstile Gate, but that's on the Kingston Hill side, so I doubt Richmond Parish officials would be that far over, but who knows.

Of more interest from a Mil Hist angle. I know nothing about the unit referred to here, other than what I read in the Wiki page.

A lunchtime stroll through Battersea Park

Again in Battersea Park. This view appealed to me because the 4 towers of the power station neatly frame the new high rise buildings in the Nine Elms area, where the new US Embassy is located, along with Embassy Gardens which has the 'Sky Pool' between two buildings.

Saturday just gone, involved a walk in the Cotswolds. Actually, "a walk in the Cotswolds" is doing a lot of heavy lifting as the walk was less than a mile - from where I parked the car up to Forest Green Rovers football ground, where I went for my first visit. Like the average university student, the result was a Desmond. Sadly the weather wasn't great for taking photos, but suffice to say, it is probably the most picturesque place I have travelled to see football. The round trip took until nearly 8PM and Sunday was taken up with family commitments, so no time for wargaming.

Next post I will return to wargames-related matters.

Virtual book launch - siege of Pensacola 1781

Helion are holding a virtual book launch on 16th Nov, for a new tome on the siege of Pensacola in Florida.

https://www.helion.co.uk/book-launches.php

It’s probably fair to say this is a lesser known campaign in the American War of Independence. I wonder how many of you have Spanish troops for this period?

Even if you have no intention of buying the book, these launches are interesting in themselves, having listened in on a couple of AWI ones and one in the current war in Ukraine. (Warning, I did end up buying the two AWI books, though not immediately). The danger is with this one, you might end up buying a new army as well as the book.

Progress

In a spurt of activity over the last couple of days I finished off a book I'd been reading and nearly completed painting the buildings I bought recently. Now I'm itching to get started on something else. It seems to come and go like that - inactive for months, then completing things like billy-o.

The book was Serena Jones' biography of Sir George Lisle, the Royalist colonel executed by Fairfax after the siege of Colchester in the Second English Civil War. Without wishing to sound like I'm condemning it with faint praise, I think it was a brave move to write a book over 300 pages long when there appears to be scant information about the man. There's very little record of his life before the ECW, the author posits that it is plausible that Lisle could have been a professional solider on the Continent but there is no solid evidence.  I can't fault the scholarship though. Jones does not make any claims that aren't backed up by the sources. The trouble is the sources are thin on the ground.

A lot of the early part of the book is about his family before his birth - there seems to be more about his father's early life than there is about George's. Lisle was the son of a publisher/printer who had links to court (and was some sort of protégé of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham). So really middle class and not landed gentry. That's one in the eye for the Marxist explanation of the war. 

Much of the book consists of accounts of campaigns where Lisle was present (Edgehill, Newbury I and II, Cheriton, Croperedy, Cornwall, Naseby) but again, there is not much about what Lisle actually did because of a lack of surviving contemporary information. The chapter with the most about Lisle's known exploits is the one on Newbury II where Lisle's tercio held of Manchester's attacks in the eastern part of the battlefield. The story was that during a climactic part of the battle, Lisle threw off his coat (and armour?) so that his men could more easily recognise him in his white shirt.

This would make a good little game. The area of this map is 400 x 500 yards. 1,000-2,000 troops on the Royalist side and a few thousand on the Parliamentarian side.

The final part goes into a lot of fascinating detail about the siege of Colchester, arguably the event most associated with Lisle, but not much mention of him. I can see why someone would want to produce a biography of the man* but it could have fit into a much smaller volume than this.

* The story of his execution was the hook for me. In case you don't know, Lisle told his firing squad to come much closer to make sure they would hit him. One of the executioners said words to the effect of "don't worry, we'll hit you", to which Lisle replied, "you have been much closer to me before and missed". How could you not be impressed by a guy like that.

American on the left; English on the right. I will glue the brick walls on something to make them more stable. Maybe cut down the lolly sticks here.

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On Sunday whilst en route to a football match, I planned to rendezvous with a couple of friends at Tottenham Court Road. Whilst there I spotted a church I've not noticed before: St Patricks Church, Soho Square. 

I like this style of architecture. Italianate?

New buildings etc

It’s been a while since I dabbled any paint on models and I “needed” some more American style buildings for my AWI games. Leven is my go to supplier of buildings. A little small for 10mm, but one scale down is good and they’re perfect for 6mm. Not that I have any 6mm American figures, but I also ‘padded out’ the order with some half-timbered buildings which are suitable for ECW and are passable for Germany. As I was at it, I got some garden walls, also useful for ECW.

Hopefully I’ll get some time in over the next few days so they’re table ready by next weekend. Seeing them undercoated black makes me think they would look good as they are for a night battle.

Undercoating done ready for the first layer. In the foreground are an Irregular Miniatures market scene and a couple of IM bases of 18th C civilians.

The US models are really for the ACW but they’ll look OK for the previous century.