Possible Campaign Idea

Progress on my list of jobs has slowed right down in recent weeks. In odd moments I've clipped off old flags and stuck on new ones. So far I have given all French infantry units with 2 flags a Colonel's Colour (a white cross on a white background, I kid you not*). The Ordonnance Colours are the colours with colours. I'll get round to those, but it's slow and fiddly. I'll still have to paint on the cavalry colours and ones for the Swiss (very tricky as shown in this link: Wittmer regimental Ordonnance ) and the Irish. The Irish ones are a bit simpler than the Swiss. And then I have the Reichsarmee to do.

If I'm to get a New Year campaign in, as per the previous two years, I need to get some plans made. And in the process skip from task 8 to task 14 on the list.

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
4	Paint houses
3	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

Previous years campaigns can be seen here The War of the Austrian Succession in Europe and here The War of the Austrian Succession in Italy

I was stuck for ideas. After the WAS the obvious one is the SYW. Too obvious really. And a bit samey. I could go for another period* or narrow down the scope. I thought briefly of the Low Countries in the War of the Austrian Succession and then I listened to the Prime and Load podcast on the Battle of Kesselsdorf. I've refought the battle a couple of times (here for example) but the brief campaign that it was part of intrigues me.

* I thought of doing an ECW campaign 4+ years ago. But that would be too long a game for the holiday period.

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The campaign in Saxony in late 1745 was relatively short. The campaign didn't really kick off until late November and it was, for once, all over by Christmas. The Austrian and Saxon allies had been plotting to invade Brandenburg and bring the Prussians to their knees. Frederick wanted to pounce first, but held back for fear of triggering the Saxon-Russian defensive alliance. The Russians weren't involved in the War of the Austrian Succession (except right at the end, when they sent an army to Germany) but were bound to take up arms against an aggressor (most likely Prussia?) who invaded Saxony. However, Frederick of Prussia knew that there was a proviso in the Saxon-Russian agreement that would nullify the invasion clause. If Saxon neutrality was infringed before any invasion of the country took place, Russia would not come to Saxony's aid. Frederick also knew that Austria was planning to feed troops through Saxony to join the invasion of Brandenburg. He just had to wait for the Austrians to cross the border then he could launch his pre-emptive strike from two directions confident that the Russians would not get involved. Frederick would strike from Silesia in the east, and Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau from the west.

In rough terms, each of the two Prussian armies were equal in size to the Saxon field army. The Saxons had the help of a small Austrian corps transferred from the war against French, and over the border in Bohemia there was an Austrian army under Prince Charles of Lorraine. Frederick wanted Leopold to attack quickly and keep up the pressure on the Saxons. The Saxons intended to play for time until the Austrians arrived in theatre. The Saxon fortresses were not very well maintained, and were garrisoned by poorly trained and poorly armed troops. In the actual campaign the Saxons did not intend to try to hold onto places like Leipzig or Dresden for long if they came under siege. Leopold was more of a classic 18th century commander than Frederick, and was keen to ensure his force was adequately supplied and its supply lines protected. Frederick was less concerned about such matters.

So this seems to set-up some intriguing possibilities:

• The speed of Leopold's advance: how much time will be spent securing supply lines.
• The speed of Charles' advance and its possible interception by Frederick.
• How adept Saxon field commander Rutowski would be in foiling and delaying the Prussians.

I've dusted off my copy of Querengässer's book on Kesselsdorf to read the account of the campaign and I will make notes on the sizes and composition of forces, as far as it allows. Also. I'll note any key decision points and dice for options to be taken by the respective commanders. Then I'll draft some simple movement and supply guides and a campaign map. Previous New Year campaigns used stands of figures as tokens for large formations and a hexed battle cloth as the basis of the map. Battles were highly abstracted affairs. This time I'm thinking of conducting the campaign on a map, with any battles played out as traditional tabletop figures wargames. That is the state of my thinking at present.

Daytrip to Denia

The Margravina and I had a trip to Spain recently and on her birthday she wanted to go to the town of Denia (in the Province of Alicante, just south of the border of the Province of Valencia). Where specifically do you want to go to says I, it's your day darling*. Let's start with the castle says she. OK, anything for you my love. Well it was more like a treat for me.

* a word I don't think I've ever used except in jest. 

We did have a wander around the town afterwards, but I won't bore you with pics. I'll justify the following photo on the grounds it is military history.

View from the town square. The Council Tower in the middle. It's part of the lower wall of the castle.

Before we climbed the hill to the castle we came across this display about air raid shelters dating to the SCW.

And this tunnel through the hill on which the castle stood was one of them.

Detail from the above poster.

I like this type of poster. Would you call it Naive Art?

Inside the castle we went inside the Council Tower and found this exhibition. The Moriscos were descendants of Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Which just goes to show, you cannot fend off a tiger by giving it a scrap of meat. 

Apologies I can't remember who this chap was.

Still in the Council Tower: a display of arms and armour from the period of the Expulsion (1609-14)

Can't not have Morions. There were a few slightly different styles on display.

The business end of a halberd.

Various breast plates (Guardapits) and a backplate.

18th C book on the history of Algiers (Argel).

Plan for the redevelopment of the castle.

Various views from the wall.

Ah ha! We get to the WSS. Memorial to the defenders of "the Valencian laws and privileges", appropriately written in the Valencian language. This region, along with Catalonia, was a stronghold of support for the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne. The Bourbons were eventually successful in this, 2nd siege, of the town.

View down on the ravelin 

A reminder that Denia is a port. Above is a ferry arriving from Ibiza.

Montgó which dominates the town.

Inside the above gate, another image of the Expulsion of the Moriscos. Apparently the process was carried out most thoroughly in the Kingdom of Valencia and it led to the depopulation of much of the countryside and economic collapse of agriculture. This probably didn't help the tax base of Spain when hostilities with the rebellious Dutch recommenced in 1621.

Another reference to the siege in 1708. A street named after the breach in the walls. Again in the Valencian language. "Bretxa" is pronounced "Bretcha".

I picked up a pack of playing cards in one of the ubiquitous "Chinese Bazaars" which each town seems to have a number of. You can buy almost anything from these places.

Literally the Clubs suit!

Here's a snapshot history of Denia. https://deniavacation.es/denia-history/

Flagging Efforts

I thought by now I would have made good progress on applying the paper flags that I'd bought for the French SYW army. Two problems scuppered my plan.

(1) The heads on most of the standard bearers are moulded to the flags.  Even if I were to cut away the flags here would be no room to fix the whole flag to the pole. I tried cutting away part of a flag, to fit around the head, only to hit issue:

(2) The things are just too flaming fiddly.

Ah, a cynic might add, that's a clever way to knock one of the items off the list! I'm not above clutching at such expedients, however, the French army's flags would still be bare. A clever person (I think it might have been Neil) said some while back that I could leave the flags white and say they are the colonel's colour - a lot of French regiments had colonel's colours with white crosses on white backgrounds*. Maybe all. I kid you not. 

* Here's some evidence.

That's a clever idea, and I might have done that (painting as thin a line as I can manage to hint at the shape of the cross). But that is not very satisfying. Where there's two flags on a unit that is what I shall do, but otherwise I'll look for some relatively easily paintable flag types. I rarely deploy regiments as their 'proper selves' as I can't readily identify what is what.

That plan will be put on hold for a while as Real Life is preventing that this week. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this picture of the Regiment d'Eu during a winter campaign high in the Hunsrück mountains, led by the colonel's colour party.

By poplar demand....

....or not, I present the finished poplars. These stand about 4cm tall, so 6 or 7 times the wee figures they're meant for. So in scale as mature trees. I'd prefer them a bit smaller. I stuck magnets onto the bases for storage tonight. It was a bit late to do a parade shot of the Piedmontese army marching in the shade.

Not totally happy with the colour, but I went with what I had in the paint box. Couple of different shades of green dry-ish brushed on black undercoat. Plus a couple of other odd colours to lighten them up a little. I've gone easy on the flock as they going to be primarily along road edges. Just enough to disguise the round metal bases and bit of 'verge'.

Oh, and I dabbed various dull shades on the 6mm civilians I had undercoated ages ago, and slapped some appropriate colour on the 10mm sheep and pack animals.

So that's tasks 1-7 off the list, and 11, 15, 16 and 17 on the way. Next up on the list (#8) is the French flags. This looks like a long, tedious job. Dozens of flags to cut out and stick in place. Not rocket surgery, but fiddly. Activity on the hobby front is a bit slow as I have some Real Life (non-serious) things taking up time at the moment. I'll be fairly chuffed if I can get the flags done this week.

Greeks & Persians re-basing completed

One of the medium sized jobs on my list has now been ticked off. Granted I have some light infantry left over, but they're in the spares box. Also, there's a broken chariot. I might see if I can mend it or use it as battlefield detritus. But I'm declaring this job done. 👌

Here they all are in their new permanent box. Persians above/left of the blue line. Greeks below/right.

I'm told that the poplar trees I ordered will be delivered by the Royal Mail to my neighbour's house on Monday so I can get cracking on them. That's doable this week if they arrive at the right place. Maybe even get the French flags done, or at least started.

Update: the trees arrived and have been prepped and undercoated. Now to research what shades I need to paint them.

I've failed to get the toys on the table. But that's task 9. 😎

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
4	Paint houses
3	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships