Saturday, 25 November 2023

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.




22 comments:

  1. Well, you are making very quick work of raising more armies.

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    1. The models were nearly all prepped so just needed a touch of paint/repaint and glueing in place. So it was pretty easy.
      Chris

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  2. Great work there Chris and one of the joys of the smaller scales is that you can get away with quite a bit of stuff not being quite right, as it looks fine once on the table. I know this from my recent 18thC India forces which stretch from 16thC Ottomans through to late 19thC Afghans!

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    1. Thanks Steve. There are quite a few ‘crimes’ in there. But you’re right. At games distance they won’t get noticed.
      Chris

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  3. Amazing how much useful stuff can be found in the odds and sods box. Very nice.

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    1. At this scale the figures are much more flexible. At least at gaming distance. A lot of the ‘grenadiers’ in bearskins and mitres are actually pioneers which you get 1 or 2 of in every pack of 50+ infantry.
      Chris

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  4. Lovely work on those figures. You certainly don't waste any time.

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    1. Thanks Richard. I really don’t spend a lot of time relatively speaking in them. The biggest task was prising 40 mounted figures off bases (2 hours). Probably a maximum 4 hours for the rest of the work. Though the horses and over half the riders were nearly painted already. And all prepped before.
      Chris

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  5. Excellent work, moving forward so well with this.
    Alan Tradgardland

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    1. I dithered over the initial decision of what to do, but then I do tend to crack on.
      Chris

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks Matt. They’re all pretty roughly done but what makes the difference is the basing and the hat ‘lace’.
      Chris

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  7. Replies
    1. Thanks Ray. You’re too kind. They’re impressionistic/effective.
      Chris

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  8. Very efficient army raising, the artillery looks excellent considering it's origins, waste not want not!
    Best Iain

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    1. Indeed! Got to do my bit!
      Chris

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  9. These look excellent!
    Regards, James

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  10. Oh, it's so nice to see you starting Spanish and Piedmont armies. I love the red and blue cocades of these armies. I'm so much excited to see you refighting the battles of the WAS.

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    1. I don’t do cockades at this scale (1/300th. Hat lace is about my limit. 😊
      I’ll be taking part in an on-line game in the near future (Madonna dell Olmo) run by Jonathon Freitag. We did Bassignana several months ago.
      Chris

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