Early Seasonal Haul

I'm lucky enough to have had a birthday recently. Doubly so because the Margravina acted on a 'suggestion' from yours truly. 300: Earth & Water from Nuts Publishing. I'd seen it on Prufrock's blog https://prufrockian-gleanings.blogspot.com/2024/12/300-earth-and-water.html#comment-form and thought that looks a great little, 2-player,  game based on the Greek-Persian Wars.

The Boardgame Geek page on it can be seen here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/267058/300-earth-and-water 

It's a neat little sized board (see rule at top)

Example of the cards. Clever use of historical events to add 'chrome' to a fairly basic game mechanism

The rules look pretty straightforward, with not too many examples of 'if this, then that' type exceptions. The blurb says it takes 40-50 minutes to play. As well as playing the game as intended, it looks like a simple way of generating table top battles (battles in the game are highly abstract), or the basic rules could be used as inspiration for games set in other periods and theatres. One of the things I've been pondering for my annual New Year campaign is something based on Frederick's invasion of Bohemia in 1757. I might have a go at adapting this game to that campaign.

Surprisingly, even the girls have offered to play it over Christmas. They've never shown any interest in any of my wargames. The box art reminded them of Zeus on the Loose (also covered here on Boardgame Geek). The eldest will be round on Boxing Day and I'm sure he'd like to give it a go too.

μολὼν λαβέ

Year in Review - 1

As we're getting near the end of the year, and I don't expect to be doing any more painting, I thought I'd tot  up how many figures I've painted.

The total comes to 2445. Admittedly tiny little 6mm chaps, but not a bad effort. This breaks down as follows:

Punic Wars -  552 inf,   85 cav,   5 elephants, 6 staff

Mid-18thC - 1584 inf, 200 cav, 13 staff

Gratuitous shot of 110 infantry figures (2 H&R packs) in their natural state.

All of which makes me think I need to get some lead on the table. But what? Maybe a trial game with the Ancients as these have yet to appear in anger in the Kriegskabinet. And I want to get thinking about the annual NewYear campaign

Reichsarmee and 'French'

I've finished the painting stage and got the Reichsarmee based and just awaiting the 'grass'. And I've finished painting the re-inforcements for the French and am part way through the base texturing process.

The inverted commas around French are because of the 8 bases painted:

• 2 are German (La Marck and Royal Suédois)
• 1 is Swiss (Gardes Suisses)
• 3 are Irish (representing the 6 single regiment battalions of the Irish Brigade)
• 2 are French (Gardes Francaises)

Can anyone tell me why the guard units deserve the plural form but not the Swedes? Genuine question.

The Reichsarmee: Combined grenadiers; various units of line infantry; 1 cuirassier brigade and 1 dragoon brigade

Front row: 2 German regiments; behind them on the left are the Irish red, on the right the Swiss guards (red) and French guards (blue)

With all of these I have to paint the flags. Including the rest of the French army, about 70 in total. Crikey!

In the lead pile I still have enough for 1.5 units of grenadiers and maybe 2 of cavalry. I haven't decided on what yet.

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In other news, along with Alan from The Duchy of Tradgardland blog, I suffered the humiliation of losing the fastest online game that I have so far experienced, at the hands of Doug from A Lead Odyssey. Watch out for the battle report on the Palouse Wargaming Journal. Doug handled his Japanese Samurai army with ruthless efficiency. Such was the scale of the catastrophe that he could afford to keep one of his Samurai units at the rear doing nothing but slice feathers with their swords, or whatever else bored Samurai do.

It was all over so quickly that I had more time for painting the Germans above.

Change of mind

In a rare moment of decisiveness, and an even rarer change of direction, I decided to paint not the Württemberg  Auxilliary Corps but more French! I don't know where the thought came from, but I took a look at what I had already. 21 bases of mounted, 44 bases of unmounted and 6 of artillery. Clearly not enough. Or more specifically, not enough Swiss/Irish, guards and Germans. When I first decided to do the French I was doing a loot of 'proxying'. Redcoats could double-up as Swiss OR Irish and bluecoats as guards or Germans*. Since I went full on megalomaniac, such a woeful state of affairs could no longer be tolerated. The Württembergers would have to wait. For now Prussians will be their proxies.

The first batch of French I painted a couple of years ago.

* Specifically the 'German' regiments on the French establishment (e.g. Royal Bavière and, oddly, Royal Pologne) and not the various auxiliary contingents (Palatinate, Württemberg). Even more specifically, the blue-coated German regiments - Kronoskaf has Deux Ponts down as white-coated.

There followed a consultation of the orders of battle for the big SYW engagements, and I worked out the maximum of each regimental type required. The conclusions, in terms of bases, were as follows:

• Gardes Francaises - 2
• Gardes Suisses - 1
• Irish** - 3
• Swiss - 6
• Germans - 6
• French line - 34

As my current redcoats units are in blue breeches, I'll nominate these as the Swiss. Only 1 Irish regiment were in blue breeches. I have 2 bluecoated bases and 32 white-coated ones. The decision then was to paint up the 3 Gardes and 3 Irish. There's a couple left over which will probably be the 'missing' 2 French line. That makes me short of Germans (4 bases). And the Württembergers of course. And perhaps Palatines. Which means another order for H&R. But I'd better check my cavalry stocks. I have enough 'spares' for 3 bases.

** I think Regiment Lally was in India for much of the SYW, but was around in the WAS. However, the Royal Écossais (blue-coats) were sometimes brigaded with the Irish. The Scots carried a rather natty saltire based flag, so I'm tempted to do them.

I got most of the way through the Gardes and the Irish whilst listening to the footie, which surprisingly wasn't called off with the storm striking western Britain and Ireland. Surprising given it was by the Lancashire coast. Also surprising was the result: Morecambe 0 Grimsby 3. Coming on top of a 5-2 home win on Tuesday. Despite still having a negative goal difference, Town are within a couple of points of the automatic promotion places. Or, trying to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, 15 points from safety with 27 games to go.

Back on track, and babbling on

After a two week hiatus, I got back to painting. On the go at the moment are 4 units of Reichsarmee infantry. (A unit is made of 50ish figures over two bases, and in game terms represents a brigade of approximately 2500). These are a 50:50 split of whitecoats and bluecoats. Choice of units was determined by seeing which ones were at both Rossbach in 1757 and at Freiburg 5 years later, plus a few that were at only one or the other. I have just the white cross belts, and the flags to do. Some of the contingents have rather different flags for the period, so I'm looking forward to that.

Then I'll do the cavalry contingent, which will amount to two brigades (each of 2 bases of 10 figures), and some more combined grenadier units. I have some grenadiers I finished several months ago. The fun with the grenadiers is being able to mix different coloured coats AND different types of cap. Some wore bearskins and some wore Prussian style mitres. A surprise to me was finding that some of the blue-coated regiments had grenadiers in bearskins. As ever, I'm relying on Kronoskaf for the uniforms.

Here are the units I am doing:

Regiment	Rossbach/Freiberg/Both	Arm	Qty	Coat
Hohenzollern_Cuirassiers	B	Cav	4	White
Brandenburg-Bayreuth Cuirassiers	B	Cav	5	White
Kurpfalz Leib-Dragoner	F	Cav	5	Red
Württemberg Dragoons	R	Cav	2	Light Blue
Kurpfalz von Hatzfeld Carabiniers	R	Cav	3	White
Brandenburg-Ansbach Dragoons	R	Cav	5	White
Hessen-Darmstadt	B	Inf	1	Dark blue
Varell	B	Inf	2	Dark blue
Fermtheil/Hohenloe	B	Inf	2	Dark blue
Kurtrier	B	Inf	2	White
Kurbayern	F	Inf	3	Blue
KurMainz	F	Inf	4	White
Cronegk	R	Inf	2	Dark blue
Blau Würzburg	R	Inf	2	White

Quantity refers to the number of battalions or squadrons.

Once I've completed the Reichsarmee, I have lots of undercoated figures left to paint. These will perhaps go to form the Würtemburg or Palatinate auxiliary corps. These were German states who hired out troops to foreign powers, in addition to the contingents they were bound to raise for the Reichsarmee. They were the direct counterparts to the Hessians who were hired by the British. In this case, the French paid for them. The Würtemburgers mostly served with the Austrians, partly due to their Protestant antipathy to the French - at least the Austrians were fellow Imperialists.

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In other news the Margravina and I had a week catching a surprising amount of Sun for November, and very tolerable temperatures. Your correspondent was able to spend the week in shorts and short-sleeved shirts (except indoors!) and was even able to bathe in the sea. Our base for the week was in the town of Oliva in Valencia Province in Spain.  Here are some pics.

The ruined castle on top of the dominating hill above the town. The early artillery fortification style can be clearly seen.

Old town to the left, new to the right.

View from the castle towards the coast. The pointy hill in the distance is by Denia (gateway to the Balearics).

The modern town and in the distance the 'playa' development. Or in the local lingo 'platja' (which is pronounced with more of an 'English' style J or like 'plage' with an 'a' sound tagged on.

Looking south down the coast

Looking north up the coast

Most of the roads in the old town are not this narrow, so it's not representative. 

Same street but looking up. It bends round and down to the right at the top, which is probably why it's called Sickle Street.

Another surprise to me was how prominent the local language (Valencian) was on signs and street name plates. Usually above (and sometimes instead of) Spanish. Valencian is very close to Catalan apparently (according to my Valencian informant). Google translate's Catalan erm.... 'thing' translated whatever I entered, so must be correct. To my untrained eye, it looks more of a distinct language than a dialect of Spanish. Sort of a partway between French and Spanish. A lot of the words seem more like their French equivalents than the Spanish ones (at least that's how I was able to read some stuff. Catalan, I understand, spread into what is now the French side of the border.  Perhaps it's because communications around the Mediterranean littoral were easier than between the coast and inland in early modern days - there's certainly a lot of mountains between the coast and the heartlands of the modern nation states. Here's an old poem from a sign near the beach which I think illustrates the point:

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More recently, I met up with David-in-Suffolk, of the Ragged Soldier blog fame, for another of the free lunchtime talks at the National Army Museum. The subject this time was the Jewish Brigade Group in WWII.  Lots of strands to that one! Great talk and great to catch up with the D-Man again. 

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Post Script

I finished the Reichsarmee cavalry painting (except the flags) and have just stuck them on their bases. The infantry have had their base texturing done and coat of burnt umber. I have just have one base of grenadiers to paint (the black undercoated guys on the right in the pic below.

When that lot is done I have enough leftovers for about another 4 units of line infantry, 1.5 units of grenadiers and 1.5 units of cavalry.  Main thoughts are either the Württemberg Auxiliary Corps, or some of the Würtembergers and 'French'. When I painted the French, I did enough redcoats for either the Irish Brigade or a large brigade of Swiss. Oh, I have enough for 3 brigades of artillery. I had planned do Dutch and a couple of brigades worth of British and their German allies.

One last post. For a while

Gonna be busy with Real Life for a while, hence the rush to get figures painted. Nowt bad, just occupied doing other stuff.  The Dutch are all based and in their magnetised Ferrero Rocher box. Just need to order the flock to finish them (and the Hesso-Brunswickers). But I'm holding fire on ordering while I think about what else I might need. Baccus and Pendraken do very fine flock which is good for 6 or 10mm figures.

As December is fast approaching, thoughts are turning towards a mini-campaign like I did the previous 2 New Year periods. Perhaps a narrower focus than previously. Something like Old Fritz's 1757 invasion of Bohemia?

But I really ought to get the new toys on the table for a battle or two before then. Maybe Minden and, as a more tricky scenario, Freiberg, so I can use the recently painted Germans and the Reichsarmee (more Germans). 

18 bases (representing 9 brigades in TOTSK). There's room for 6 more bases if I shove them up to the edge of the box. I won't need that much room, just enough for a battery (1x60mm base) and a command stand (30mm sq). Just remembered I have 1 more base of infantry that I did in October, sitting in a box on their own.

Cav based on: Rechteren Horse, Gardes Dragonders (blue/red cuffs), Nassau la Leq Dragoons (blue/orange cuffs)

Dutch National infantry regiments.

Swiss regiment: unlike other armies, the Swiss seem to have been blue-coated in the Dutch army of the 1740s.

Dutch nearing completion

Mostly painted, and based now. Five units* of infantry and 4 of cavalry (2 horse and 2 dragoons). I have a bit of white edging (hat lace and saddle cloths) to do on the cavalry and the flags on the cavalry. Then there's the base texturing, painting and 'flocking'. I might ad a few finishing touches on the horses.

* remember in my TOTSK world, units are made up of 2 bases, representing in total 4/5 battalions or about 10 squadrons

I just noticed a couple of bases where I haven't followed my placement standard

This was all fairly quick because there is very little variety in the regimentals (mostly red cuffs, but some orange). There's some units who have blue cuffs and one with white (the latter just 1 battalion, so 1/4 of a game unit).

In boxes ready to paint are enough to do the following:

• 2 units of grenadiers (1 in mitres, 1 mixed bearskins & mitres for the Reichsarmee)
• 8 units of musketeers
• 3.5 units of cavalry
• 3 units of artillery
• a bunch of staff figures

I have a lot of Real Life coming up so they will be left for a while.

There are more than enough units of musketeers - I only need 4 or 5 for the Reichsarmee. So what to do with the others?

About to cross the Rhine

So, after a weekend away from the painting desk I finished off the Hessian dragoons, jägers, and stuck them and the Hessian & Brunswicker hussars to their bases. The bases were coated with chinchilla dust and when this was dried on, the bases were given a wash of burnt umber. I say a wash because that is something the quarter master has failed to re-order, so the paint had to be thinned down. Oh, and the infantry bases got their regulation 3 levels of highlighting (per the Baccus guide and basing kits). But all are waiting for supplies of 'grass'. So the whole lot was boxed and attention has moved to the next contingent.

The Hessian and Brunswicker cavalry and skirmishers. Netherlanders in the foreground in their new coats. Next step is to do the brown on the Dutch (muskets, flag poles, horses*). Then it's on to all the fiddly white bits. When that's done I begin peeling the little chaps off into relevant groups of units for cuffs, facings etc.
* My new convention is to do dragoons on brown horses and horse on black.

By an overwhelming majority (if 4 people voting can ever be considered overwhelming) I started on the Dutch. The infantry is all going to be in blue coats (only 1 battalion of the German Waldeck regiment at Fontenoy was in white). I got the coats on 5 units ('brigades' in TOTSK parlance) of infantry done. I hesitated on doing the grenadiers as (a) I'm not sure if they had separate units of combined grenadiers (none listed on the Fontenoy orbat); (b) I'm not sure who wore bearskins and who wore mitres in the 1740s. More research needed. But I did do the coats on 2 units of dragoons and 2 of horse. The dragoons are in blue and the horse in grey. Some pictures show white, but I wanted a bit of a change from all those Austrians, French, Germans etc. And the grey I used (Vallejo 'wolf grey') is very light if I put it on thick enough.

I might get this lot complete by the weekend. Let's see. In the meantime, I need to get down to a local art shop to get a new tub of burnt umber.

Hessians and Brunswickers almost done

I finished painting the Hessian and Brunswick infantry: 9 units of c.50 figures. The Brunswickers have painted flags but I haven't done the Hessens' yet as the guide isn't quite so straightforward for them. So a bit of time is needed.

The process was quite quick, though I haven't added up the hours I spent doing them. One of the key factors was the 'production line' technique, doing a colour for all units at the same time. At least in theory - there are times when the scheduling isn't quite right. For example, when doing the combined grenadier units, there was a bit of going and froing because I hadn't got EVERYTHING organised whereby I painted all yellow cuffs and turn backs on the line infantry and then had to re-open the yellow for certain elements of the grenadiers. One feature of this approach, apart from being quicker, is that for a long time you don't have a finished unit, and then suddenly when that last cuff is done, you have several units ready. [I do own up however, to having modified the process slightly to get the Brunswickers done ahead of the Hessens].

Apologies for the dark background of the bases. This is the results of the spray undercoat. I stick the figures to the bases with blutack to paint undercoat and paint them. Then I roughly half of these bases as their final 'home'. Half because they'll be in 2 ranks not one.

The cavalry (1 unit of dragoons and 1 combined hussar unit) still need quite a lot of work. And I haven't touched the jägers yet, beyond the undercoat. The figures I'm using for the jägers are actually Austrian musketeers firing (I prefer them to the actual jäger models) and will just clip the bayonets off and the muskets a bit shorter. I'm pretty confident I can finish the cav tomorrow and get them all stuck to bases. Saturday will be a 'rest day' as I'm out all day/early evening. Maybe Sunday will see me get the bases done apart from the final 'flock stage'.

What comes next, Reichsarmee or Dutch?