Fighting On All (probably too many?) Fronts..

I've had a little more time for hobby stuff this week, and nibbled away at a few different tasks - though I suspect I am trying to progress, or think about, at least one too many projects! 

Unsurprisingly the vintage Minifigs Seven Years' War/AWI  'great rebasing' continues; Regiment of the Week this week is the French Infantrie Bourbonnais.  They started on slightly scruffy plain cardboard bases, and with no standard: 

  (the regiment was ID'd simply enough - 'Bourbonnais' written underneath the command base).

Looking at the figures, another slight wrinkle is that in common with some other 'French' figures in this collection,  they are actually from the Minifigs Austrian Seven Years War range :

Musketeer figure: code ASW 5  

We'll call that 'wargamer's license'..  They had the usual soaking in water to remove the old base, then new MDF bases - and a flag, simply done with plain paper and acrylic paints, on a plastic broom-bristle flagpole - it's all good...  

..or so I thought.  On proudly showing them off, I've been told 'that flag is upside down!'. Hmmm.. I had found the colours on Kronoskaf Seven Years War, of course, and here they are : 

Copyright: Kronoskaf 

 

Now I was assuming that the pole would be to  the left of the picture, was I wrong? hmm.. Of course, you can search the World Wide Web for 'Regiment Bourbonnais', and get this  (from  a website called Expedition Particuliere ) 

 which looks to agree with me... and then again, also this (from the regiment itself - or at least, a re-enactment group recreating it!) which begs to differ.. 

 

Now I will admit, the latter pattern seems to be more common on t'internet, so maybe I need to re-do that flag.. Comments welcome - is Kronoskaf wrong, or did I interpret it wrongly?   After the mystery of the Volontaires Etrangers last week, I had thought this next unit was straightforward - yet again it  goes to show the interest and challenges involved in recruiting our miniature armies!

*** UPDATE : I looked around in the boxes containing the vintage Minifigs collection - and I found this : 

 This looks to be the original flag that my Bourbonnais chaps carried, which must have snapped off the  ensign figure at some point, and sadly also broke into two pieces. As you can see, it does not agree with the Kronoskaf version which I used for my source. And so, I think I need to honour the original intention of the person who painted the unit, and I will change my flag to match this.  Many thanks to all who have left comments about this ( Neil invoked the great god Funcken, and Jon found he had  sources on his bookshelf  which disagreed with each other - interesting!), I'm glad it stirred up some interest, all part of the fun! 

I had found that recently the Minifigs rebasing project had elbowed everything else aside, so I am determined to get back to other projects which may be feeling neglected.  I have picked up the 1859 Risorgimento in 6mm project, and have  some works in progress  - first off, four bases (two units) of Jagers and one battery of artillery for the Austrians, to join their 2nd Division. They just need some flags, and colour applied to the bases:

 

and then the little matter of an entire Brigade, of 6 battalions of Line Infantry, to complete a Piedmontese division. Here are the six battalions, one (24 figures) per coffee-stirrer stick, awaiting priming :

 

Actually there are seven battalions to do, as the previous brigade is missing one. Even in 6mm scale, I admit that the prospect of painting 168 figures is fairly daunting!  Let 'little and often' be my motto, I think. 

Now for a recent purchase, which I am pleased with: 

  A nice big 6ft x 4ft Battle Mat from Geek Villain, their 'Sicily' mat, which I hope will be useful for my 'D-Day Dodgers' WW2 Italian Campaign project.  Here's the mat (still folded in half, so 3x2 ), please excuse the fold lines, it's been quite tightly wrapped in a parcel!  I thnk it looks pretty decent, and it is good-quality cloth.  Service was good and delivery prompt. too. 

 

I thought this would  be ideal for Ancients in the Mediterranean region too. I've been reading my copy of Art De Le Guerre rules, and had a look to see if my DBA Macedonian and Achaemenid Persian armies could be used for ADLG.   I looked at the ADLG chapter on army lists to pick out the ('MVP'?) minimum-sized armies suggested for the rules, and found that I do pretty much have sufficient troops. First here is  Alexander's 'pocket army', parading on the new mat: 

The force consists of a couple of units of the famous Macedonian pike phalanx, two units of Companion cavalry  ( actually one of them was painted at Thessalians, but never mind that ), one unit of 'Hypaspists' in the style  of Peltasts, and a couple of units of psiloi (treated as all javelin men). The bases are not quite a match for the suggested ADLG sizes, but are at least all the correct width at 60mm.  The pikes could do with another base (4 figures ) each unit, but that should be simple enough to add. I'm thinking I should also be adding a bit of variety to the bases too, to match the cloth. 

 ..and then, their Persian enemies: 

 

These have (to the right) three units of Medium Cavalry and one of Heavy Cavalry, a couple of units of Light Cavalry skirmishers (left), and an interesting 'mixed' unit of Heavy 'Guard' Infantry - For these I used Kardakes spearmen as the front rank, and mail-clad archers as the rear rank. From the army list, there really should be another unit of Heavy Cavalry of the Guard, but for now this looks a fairly formidable force.

Once I've got through the rules, these two little armies will clash in a trial battle, which I will report here, of course! More about those rules later, but I am fairly happy with them, on a first reading..

 

That just about wraps up my recent progress; I will probably have less hobby time in the next week, but hope to resume normal service after that.  Meanwhile I will keep reading and being inspired by all the other excellent blogs  on 'my blog list' here. Until the next time keep well, everyone.

A Minifigs Mini-Mystery: re-basing saga continues

 Now I will quite understand if readers are getting a mite bored with pictures of vintage Minfigs 7YW/AWI figures, please excuse me as I am going to show some more!  The reason being that hobby time this past few days has been occupied with a minor Minifigs mystery, as follows: 

The latest group of figures on the re-basing production line are no less than 48 infantry which I take to be French: initially I guessed that they represent the Vaubecourt Regiment, because this is how they came out of the tin when I bought them: 

 I admit I was too quick to assume, that flag seemed to indicate Vaubecourt Infanterie pretty clearly, I didn't look any closer. . Anyway, this week I got to work on them, soaked them off their (thankfully just cardboard) bases, and took a closer look at the figures.  It's been a nice sunny couple of days, allowing a first venture into the garden with the painting table, so here they are catching some rays before a  paddle in a tray of cool water  : 

The officer is very nice but maybe not strictly related, more of him later..

Two issues arose immediately; (a) the flag wasn't actually attached to a figure, just sort of 'wedged' between the arms and body of one of them, and (b) the facing colours were all wrong! According to the excellent Kronosfkaf Project, they should have  white cuffs, red collars and red waistcoats; 

On closer inspection of the figures we see this: 

 

Quite nicely painted, I like the face, lots of character -  but look at the facings..Those cuffs are GREEN, as are the collars.  Which unit would that be? Well, I am a bit mystified.  I had a look through the invaluable  Osprey volume on Louis XV Infantry, which has a paragraph on pretty much every regiment - no luck. None of the units listed there had green cuffs - the vast majority were white, red, blue or purple. 

 

Having removed most of the flock that had been covering the bases, I can see the Minifigs serial number is AWI 18 : French Line Infantryman Advancing ( from the AWI range, obvs).  So maybe this is an 'AWI' period unit rather than 7YW; next port of call was to search on-line for French Regiments sent to help America, which turned up a Wikipedia page.   That was quite interesting in itself, in that several of the regmiments listed appear in the collection I acquired ( e,g Soissonais, Saintorge, Touraine) and many of the figures have 'AWI' code  - it looks like someone was indeed recruitng for the French forces in America 1778-1783.  But the green facings?   Back on-line, to  Kronsokaf's list of French Regiments in the 7YW :  after a fair amount of cross-referencing it looks like the only likely candidate would be  the Volontaires Étrangers de la Marine. - it seems they served in both the United States and the Caribbean. 

The Kronoskaf page gives this diagram of the uniform: 

 -well, it's green facings, at least!  That's the only one I've seen.. a slight question over the diagram showing the lapels as green, which doesn't appear on the figure, but perhaps that detail had changed between 1760s and 1770s?  (also the pose of the figure makes it quite hard to paint lapels, so maybe a bit of license was taken).  Having got the possible name of Volontaires Etrangers, further on-line meanderings  came up with a rather good  illustration, from a blog called  Flintlocks and Tomahawks: 

  -rather nice, though note the green waistcoat. Accounts clearly vary!   This unit had an 'interesting' start in life, being first raised at the start of the Seven Year's War  : Kronoskaf says The unit was raised on June 1, 1756 by Colonel Fischer to serve at sea and as garrison in the French colonies. Recruitment problems impeded the formation of the unit when its destination became known. Most of the recruits were German. The unit initially counted 3 battalions of about 911 men. In 1756 and 1757, its 3 battalions were sent to Bretagne.   Clearly, few recruits fancied life at sea! It then seems that one  battalion was used for coastal defence in France, one sent to Canada, and one joined the French army in Germany.   So conveniently, this unit served in both the 7YW and AWI, very useful!  

Another interesting feature is the regimental standard, which Kronoskaf shows like this: 

I reckon I could paint this.. 

 

However, we have 48 figures all carrying muskets, and I don't really need multiple battalions;  I will stick to just one battalion, and try to find an officer, drummer and standard-bearer from the 'depot' to join them. The rest could be recruited for other regiments, with a little re-painting of cuffs and collars. Now what were the Vaubecourt regiment's facing colours again?

 Finally a quick look at the officer that arrived with these - I am now asuming he has no connection to them, but he is rather nicely painted :

 He really deserves a command role somewhere, Brigadier-General at least, I should think.  All of which I hope shows that sorting through  a  'pre-loved' collection is proving to be an enjoyable, interesting and sometimes challenging part of the hobby in itself - I'm glad to have got involved with these.  

Meanwhile in the 'real world' it's the Salute show in a couple of days time, but for the first time in a while I won't be attending, owing to other commitments. I will look forward to seeing other blogger's reports on the day, of which there will be many, I'm sure. Maybe next year..  

I'll try to change the subject a bit next time!  Until then, keep well, everyone.

Minifigs 7YW 'First Firing' : Gros-Jagersdorf 1757

While continuing with what will very likely be a long project to re-base my recent acquisitions of vintage Minifigs 7YW and AWI  figures,  I did want to try actually using some of them for a game.  I wanted something quick and easy, and conveniently  I had also acquired a copy of the (very simple indeed)  Dominion of Frederick the Great  rules.  

These come with 24 scenarios depticting Battles of the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War in Europe, so that's very handy. The collection of figures  includes a box full of Russians, and I thought I'd give them a go. Hey presto,  the rules have a scenario for the battle at Gros-Jagersdorf, 1757 - the first major clash between Russian and Prussian forces.  

In the battle, the scenario notes say that a force of 55,000 Russians under Marshal Apraksin invaded East Prussia.  The Prussian Marshal  Lehwaldt made an early morning  suprise attack on them with his much smaller force of about 35,000 troops. In the DoFtG rules, these numbers translated into the following miniature armies: 

Prussians :     2 x Cavalry (Elite),  2 x Line Infantry (Elite) 

Russians:      2 x Cavalry, 1 Cavalry ( Unreliable) - Cossacks,  2 x Line Infantry (1 Fortified),                                      1 x Artillery  

So the Russians have the numbers with 6 units, but all four  Prussian units are 'Elite', which gives an advantage when attacking.  

Initial Deployments: Prussians to the Left

 

I followed the suggested deployment - see above, with Prussians on the left, Russians to the right. The rules don't specify terrain - any advantage or disadvantage is factored in to the unit ratings, for example the 'Fortified' Russian infantry unit.  But I thought I should make it look like some sort of  landscape -  hence the trees, because in reality the Prussian infantry emerged from woodland to attack, I think, and the  river, becuase the Russians had just crossed the River Pregel when attacked.  Prussians simply have Infantry in the centre, cavalry on the flanks; Russians with Cossacks on the left (nearest camera),  the 'Fortified' (i.e dug in, or otherwise prepared for defence) Infantry in the centre and Cavalry on the right.  The second line of units in both armies are the reserves, which may be  brought forward into any sector to replace defeated units.  The opposing armies take alternate turns to attack in one sector (left, centre or rght), and the Prussians being attackers, they go first. 

Turn 1 - Cossacks gone! Guns move up 

 On Turn One, the Prussians duly attacked with their cavalry against the Cossacks - being 'unreliable' these had to take a die roll to see if they would stand, and they promplty  ran away!  The Russian commander moved his guns up from reserve to replace them.  That made an interesting match-up, becuase in the rules when cavalry fight artillery, the guns get to 'fire first', and thus may shoot down the cavalry before they can charge home - but if they miss, the cavalry have an easier die roll to overrun the guns ( and there is a  +1 factor for the 'Elite' cavalry). However,  if the resulting combat is inconclusive, then BOTH units are removed. Therefore if cavalry 'charge for the guns', then they may get wiped out by canister fire, or rapidly sweep the gunners away; but if neither of those then a general melee leaves both gunners and horsemen so disorganised and bloodied as to be ineffective for the rest of the battle. That doesn't seem a bad rationalisation to me, what do you reckon?  So for the Prussians, attacking in that sector would be something of a gamble..   In their turn, the Russians attacked  with cavalry in their Right sector, against Prussian 'Elite' cavalry, and the combat was inconclusive  (both sides rolled a '1'!).   

In Turn Two, the Prussians continued the cavalry fight on the Russian right, and routed the Russian Cavalry there - replaced by the other Cavalry unit.  The Russians attacked in the centre with their Infantry, but could not defeat their opponents - both sides rolled a 'miss'. 

Turn 2 - one less Russian Cavalry..

 For Turn Three, the Prussians pushed their cavalry advantage by attacking the Russian right wing again, and with 'Elite' advantage, routed the second unit of Russian horse.  The last Russian reserve unit (Line Infantry) moved up to hold the flank.  the Russians repeated their Infantry attack in the centre. but rolled low, and saw their Infantry shot down by Elite Prussian musketry.  That left a big hole in the Russain centre, and only two units left.  But each side can try to rally one lost unit per game, and this the Russians did successfully, bringing one of their routed cavalry units back to hold the centre. Would it be enough? 

Turn 3 Russians hanging on, just 

 In Turn Four, those Prussian cavalry just kept pushing forward on the Russian right, and the dice were with them,  routing the Russian infantry there and leaving that flank exposed. The Russians flung their rallied cavalry in the centre into the attack, only to have them shot down by Prussian musketry.  That left them with only their Artillery unit remaining, and an emphatic Prussian victory (re-writing history, as in real life the dogged defence by the Russian troops surprised the Prussians, who were forced to withdraw).  

Turn 4 - all over for the Russians! 

 So, that was all over very quickly, in fact a grand total of 16 die rolls, and I should say that the Russians were quite hard done by, their die rolls didn't produce one 'hit' in the whole game! The Prussian 'Elite' status did give them quite an advantage in combat, especially the Cavalry - an 'Elite' Cavalry charging home against Line Infantry will rout the foot on 'anything but a one', though they might be shot down before being able to contact. I did wonder if the Prussians should be reduced to just three units, or perhaps both the Russian infantry be given the 'Fortified' advantage to reflect their stubborn defensive qualities.   I really should have had a rematch, but it was getting rather late at night, so I left it at that.  I know the Dominion of... series of rules are rather 'Marmite', as they say, but for me they have the advantage of  being able to get a game on the table very quickly and simply, and there are some interesting subtleties in the very simple rules.  I've enjoyed reading Martin Rapier's reports of games in multiple Dominion of..  periods on his The Games We Play blog, and a recent post by 'Prufrock'  on Here's No Great Matter showed how he approached the ancients version (Dominion of the Spear)  sceptically, but was to some extent won over.  As for me, I've got 23 more battles to fight if I want to! 

In other news, the great re-basing continues, with some progress on the next three French infantry units, being Regiments Soissonais, Italian and Touraine. Here they are having been soaked in water to remove the old bases :     

 .. and now some of them attached to their new MDF bases, ready for a couple of coats of nice plain 'old school' green paint  

(hmm, that guy in the front rank has had a few too many vin rouges while waiting for his glue to dry, he'll need straightening up.. ).  Progress a bit slow owing to 'real life' taking us away on family business last week,  but I am hoping to pick up again this week and at least finish these chaps. I will then have at least six French and Swiss regiments ready for action, it will be great to be able to field them en masse with their distinctive 'white cross' royal army standards, just like in the pictures in Charles Grant's The War Game all those years ago (where French units represented the army of the fictional Duchy of Lorraine, and also stood in for the Austrians at Mollwitz, if I recall correctly!).  

I will hope to report more progress next time, plus showing a new acquisition which may give a 'nudge' to both D-Day Dodgers and Ancients projects.  Until then, keep well everyone, and a Happy Easter to you all.