Limbering Up

Firstly, let me apologise if my photography is not up to scratch but I’m experimenting with assorted photo-enhancement software at the moment and my techno-phobic brain is on strike.

(Top picture) A unit of Poles for my Renaissance Deluge armies. This is a unit of Haiduks (figures by TAG) with flags of my own creation. The striped one (red-white-blue) appears to be a common Polish one for the period and the other is a combination (using Microsoft Paint) of the Virgin Mary with the white Eagle. These are great fun to paint as the colour scheme is largely up to you, although blue appears to have been designated for Polish infantry.

(Picture two). Last week has been ‘limber’ week and although I have posted pictures of the British 6pdr battery for my Pragmatic/SYW army, I’ve only just finished off their limbers.

(Picture three). Hanoverian 12pdr battery plus their limbers. Some war gamers leave out limbers from their batteries and I quite understand the view as they are
expensive, time-consuming to paint and often irrelevant to the actual battle. I like them because they take up such a large space behind their batteries which gets in the way of deploying troops. The guns and limbers are by Front Rank. The artillery crew are by Foundry from their Prussian range and are particularly superb figures.

(Picture four). In the Minden OOB a certain Major Haase (or Hase in some accounts) commands the Hanoverian artillery. This is my idea of what he looked like and I used a Foundry civilian for the purpose and just gave him a sash with green-stuff. He has that self-satisfied look of someone used to getting his own way although I daresay he might need help re-mounting his horse. I'll try to do a better picture soon.

(Bottom picture) Its quite in-vogue to show pictures of your dog so not to be outdone here is one of Louis (or Lewis sometimes) my Dalmatian in full camouflage mode on the kitchen floor.

I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of which armies to finish off so that we can actually have a game soon. Given that I have to paint both armies and that my friends in the area need co-opting in as none are war gamers, I’ve decided to try to finish these SYW armies to a point where they are useable. On the Allied side, which I have been concentrating on, two full infantry columns or divisions are finished and I just need to increase the cavalry from one brigade to three. On the French side, I will aim to finish a line division as soon as possible and add some cavalry too – all before August or September if I can. It’s a tall order but I’m nothing if not ambitious!