The Erich von Knowles Frei Korps

Many thanks to those who so very  kindly welcomed my first post.  Now I feel like the child  who rather enjoyed their first day at school,  before the realisation dawned that they had to go back every day..  Let's see if we can keep it up* .

Having looked at the Austrians last time,  now for their doughty opponents. Also acquired from the collecton of the late Eric Knowles, and thanks to David Crook,  here we have :

The Prussians :  General von Kleist's Brigade

I'm glad to say the Prussians are, as might be expected, a little less of a mongrel force than the Austrians. When David listed the items for sale there were several units of von Kleist's Frei Korps, so it seemed appropriate to keep them together, and add a leavening of other types.  This time modelled on the American Brigade in Bob Cordery's brigade-level example game from 'The Portable Napoleonic Wargame', they are as follows:

- Brigadier General  Erich von Kleist  - commander ( 6 Strength Points ) .  A little-known scion of the illustrious family;  owing to a hiccup in the officers recruiting process, actually a von Kleist Horse Grenadier,  rapidly  promoted.

- von Kleist Uhlans  ( 3 SPs)

- Artillery   ( 2 SPs )

- 1st and 2nd von Kleist Freikorps Foot  ( centre and right, each 4 SPs )

- 1st and 2nd Jager Foot ( rear and left, each 4SPs  ),  perhaps in two minds about having to fight against their former comrades, now flown to the Austrians.

Notable by their absence the famous Prussian Line infantry.   But as with the Austrians, those are waiting to be painted - I'll need some time (they've waited 40 years, so won't  mind a little longer).   As before, I have gone for one 'base' or one figure per SP, to avoid paper-based casualty recording.  All units rated 'Average' in Bob's rules - as were the Austrians except for their Rifle unit , which was nominally 'Elite'  - but did not quite live up to that, as we shall see..

And the scene of their first engagement :

For a first action, I thought I'd simply try the brigade-level game from Bob's book - 'Porter's Ridge', which he sets in the war of 1813 between Britain and the USA. Imagine it transposed to some rugged, romantic and sparsely-populated Germanic region. In the picture we are looking East :  General Dach's Austrians are to hold the ridge and woods, with help coming from the North and West, while von Kleist's Prussians enter along the Eastern road, from the South , aiming to 'take the high ground'.  The Eastern edge is the shore of a large, deep and no doubt chilly lake. All done with Kallistra 'Hexon' 10cm hexes, as many will have spotted - this is more or less my entire collection, but sufficent, as this is the only table space I have available too. Time and space, as always, time and space..

Next time, we march to the sound of the guns..



* my good friend LiverpoolDave said  - to quote Kenneth Williams in Carry on Camping, ‘getting it up is easy, it’s keeping it up that’s the hard part’.