Schaumburg Lippe Artillery battery

Schaumburg Lippe is a Ruritanian delight and one of the reasons why wargaming the 18th century is such fun.

The County of Schaumburg Lippe (Grafschaft Schaumburg-Lippe in German) was a tiny pin-prick of a place but it's ruler was an artillery fanatic. He had his guns constructed to his specification and established an artillery school on an island in his Grafschaft. The map shows the territory (in 1905) to be 131 square miles in size!

Count Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm of Schaumburg-Lippe was born in London in 1724 and served at the Battle of Dettingen. During the SYW he commanded the Allied artillery at the Battle of Minden. By the end of the war he was in Portugal reforming that state's military establishment.

The army of his tiny Grafschaft consisted on one battalion of infantry (that was often to be be found guarding the artillery), a small cavalry unit, a jaeger unit, and an enormous, proportionately, artillery park of 29 3-pounders, four 8-, two 12-, three 18-pounder cannon, three howitzers and four heavy mortars!!

The colour scheme of the guns is speculative but as the infantry unit was considered to be part of the Hanoverian establishment I have gone with the traditional Hanoverian red.

This is my last post for 2011 so I'd like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and hopes for us all that 2012 is a somewhat better year than the one that went before.

French 4th Hussars

Twenty four figures (4 squadrons of 6) of the 4th Hussars are done - Perry plastics which are excellent figures and I love the variety one can get with the horses. These chaps need to be brigaded with another light cavalry regiment and I've decided to use Perry metal Chasseurs a cheval but with a twist. The late chasseur uniform is, in my view, a tad dull so I will give them all full dress plumes using the dozens of plastic plumes I have left over from the Hussar boxes.

This will, I hope, make them look rather spectacular.

SYW: Hessian 6pdr battery

This is a 12 gun battery of 6pdrs painted as a Hessian battery (6 gun models, 12 crew). The guns are by Front Rank and the crews are Foundry's Prussians.

Talking about Foundry, you probably know I used a number of their triad paints - that is paint grouped into 3s by tone. Recently I've noticed that a large number of the plastic tops have started to split, particularly on those that, oddly enough, I don't use very often. This is a disaster as the paint will rapidly start to dry out and these are not cheap paints. I've written to them to ask if I can buy some new caps and I'm awaiting an answer. I'll let you know the results (or lack thereof).

Napoleonic French 6pdr battery

Phase one of my Napoleonics French project is almost complete - 10 battalions of 36 figs each, cavalry (more on that later this month) and the single foot battery, consisting of 6 x 6pdrs (3 guns) and 2 howitzers (one gun). The figures are a mixture of Foundry, designed by the Perry brothers a long time ago (maybe 15 years ago but I'm not sure) as well as Perry figures from their own more modern range. They kindly provided extra guns and less crew as I had picked up a couple of packs of the Foundry crew at a North Star sale a few months back.

As for the colour of French guns, I have used an old and much valued pot of Humbrol (code is 179 French Artillery Green) which, if you ever see it in a shop, you should grab as it is increasingly hard to find and may not be being made anymore. The other alternative is to buy the Foundry triad called, unappetisingly, "Phlegm Green" 28A,B and C. Personally I have never had phlegm that colour but perhaps creapy-crawlies of some sort do!

Very soon now I'll post pictures of the Hussar regiment as well some SYW Hessian and Schaumburg batteries.

The results of the poll were rather interesting and, after the Russian booklet is printed, I think we will look at doing a Hanoverian booklet. The re-printing of the Ortenburg book is ditched as a reprint as images have appeared on the web, much to my annoyance, and, sadly, I don't think the copyright holders challenged them when they started to leak out. The Web brings benefits to everyone but there are people out there who think nothing about scanning images from books still within copyright and posting them for all to see. This makes reprinting of image-intensive books of limited economic benefit to publishers.

15% Sale

Just to let you know that http://www.18thcenturypress.com/ has started it's Christmas Sale and all books, including Greenwood & Ball, are 15% off. The sale will last until the end of January 2012.

The new Russian booklet will be available in the new year too.

Preview of new Russian SYW guide

I just wanted to wet your appetites, you Greenwood & Ball fans, with an illustration from the new booklet 18thCenturyPress is preparing at the moment on the Russian Army of the SYW.

This will be the third in the series following on from No1. Prussia and No.2 Austria.

Release date will be early next year - well that is the plan anyway. My compliments to Pete the illustrator who, I think you will agree, has a fine eye and an even finer drawing hand!

I'd like to hope that we could embark on the forth booklet towards the end of 2012 and to that end I'd like to invite ideas from you as to which nation we should cover next. All except, I think, the French whose army was so large that two booklets would be needed. So, leaving them aside, whose army should be next? I'll do a poll.

SYW: French Orleans Dragoons

Dragoon Regiment Orleans was owned by Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans, but was commanded in the field by mestre de camp lieutenant comte de Pons Saint-Maurice. Whilst dragoons in other nation's service seem, by this time, to have fought mostly mounted, in France they retained a significant dismounted role. For example at the Battle of Hastembeck, this regiment served on the right wing in a dismounted role while at the Battle of Krefeld they were mounted.

This regiment wears almost exactly the reverse colour scheme of the other Dragoon regiment I have painted - Lanquedoc.

Capitaine Oudinot and the Gardes d'Honneur

A few months ago I purchased two boxes of Perry Hussars - a total of 28 figures. Allocating 24 to the 4th Hussars (one squadron done, the rest en-route) that left me 4 figures left over. I decided to paint them up as Gardes d'Honneur, a single company or half a squadron of the 4th Gardes d'Honneur. Plus I had an officer left over. Having also decided that I wanted my French army to be commanded by a more obscure Marshal, I hit upon Oudinot who, it appears from wiki, had a son Charles (born in 1791) who was a cavalryman to boot!

Thus we have the Marshal's personal escort, a half squadron of the Gardes d'Honneur commanded by his son Charles. Surely these guys will never actually fight, except perhaps in extremis, but they will look dashing sitting at the back of the battlefield surveying the carnage about them.

But perhaps I could turn these three figures into a six-figure squadron so if anybody has some (3 to be exact) Perry cavalrymen lying around without purpose, you could sell them to me? I can buy an extra command sprue from the Perrys but it is the rankers I am after.

Russian Napoleonics: Arkangel Infantry

Anybody who regularly reads this blog will probably remember that the Napoleonic project involved Prussians. Well, it will, in due course, but I have been side-tracked into buying some new plastic Russians from Warlordgames. Four boxes to be precise and here is the first box done - the 1st battalion of Arkangel'gorod' regiment. Gorod, in Russian, just means 'town' so this is the Arkangel regiment from the 8th division.

Firstly, the figures are not bad at all. The box comes with seven sprues of plastics (each with 4 figures) plus four metal command - a drummer, officer and two standard bearers. While the plastic figures have the normal problem of loss of definition on their sides they are nice and animated and each sprue has musketeer heads as well as grenadier heads. Actually I think the plastic figures are rather nicer than the metals which are crude. There is also a decent little sheet of flags for five regiments and it was seeing Arkangel's flags that made me do this regiment although I will not be doing all the other regiments from the 8th Division. I have decided to allow myself artistic licence and just to do four regiments whose flags I like! I plan a fictional division of 12 battalions to face off against my 10 battalions of French, more pictures of which will be on here soon. Don't forget that next year will be the 200th anniversary of the 1812 campaign!

Bercheny Hussars

My apologies for being quiet of late but I have been rounding off a number of projects and there
will be quite a bit to post over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, here is a French SYW regiment of Hussars. The use of hussars was in its infancy in Western European nations and the French only had four regiments, mostly raised by Hungarian emigres. This regiment, Bercheny, was probably the best of them and one regiment, Polleresky's, was disbanded in 1758, (its squadrons hived off to other regiments) for doing what hussars do rather well - looting and pillaging. They sure look pretty but their quality leaves much to be desired.

The figures are from Front Rank. The flag is conjectural.

40mm: Prussian IR 22 Prinz Moritz von Anhalt

Here are the first four Prussian battalions finished. The turquoise and white flagged regiment is IR 12
and the blue-red flagged regiment is IR 22 Prinz Moritz von Anhalt. The figures are by Trident from their AWI range of Hessians and they are lovely figures to paint. I would like to do the entire Prussian infantry using Trident's figures.

The reason why I'm showing them on verdant but bare terrain is because I don't have any 40mm specific terrain yet. If I keep going with this project, which I'd like to do but which time and budget constraints might delay, then I'll look at some scale features. As more people get into 40mm, more ephemera might become available.

40mm Prussian Generals

I would normally use mounted figures to represent Generals of Brigade, but as nobody has made them yet I am having to make do with officers on foot. For 40mm there are three companies making figures for the SYW or useable for that period:

Sash and Saber - a specific SYW range.
Trident - an AWI range with a good Hessian contingent that serves for Prussians.
Front Rank - an AWI range with Hessians/Prussians as well.

The gentleman on the left is a Front Rank figure painted as Generalmajor Karl Ferdinand von Hagen, who was killed at Hochkirch. Although he looks a bit young, this is a well sculpted figure that comes with a separate right arm and a choice of 3 separate heads.

The figure on the right (whom you have seen before) is from Trident and represents Generalmajor Emanuel von Schoning, who was killed at the battle of Prague. Both figures are wearing regimental uniform, in the case of the former IR8 and in the case of the latter, IR46.

Size-wise they sit well side by side. The Front Rank figure has led an epicurean existance, as have all figures from this manufacturer, which would account for his ample stomach whereas the chap from Trident has a somewhat lean and hungry look.

40mm Austrian Dragoons (2)

I know it is Tuesday, but Blogger is acting like it is Monday after a busy weekend out clubbing! In other words, Blooger is acting up, so here is the text that should have gone with the pictures in the preceeding post: As promised, I’m showing you the 40mm Austrian SYW Dragoon Regiment Sachsen-Gotha, resplendent in its red coats and light blue facings. The cavalry figures come from Chris Hughes at Sash & Saber (Saber spelt the American way – when I fenced as a youth a long time ago a Saber was a “Sabre” but that is the richness of the English language!) and they come with three different horse poses and three different cavalrymen poses and separate hands with swords in them. This allows great variety in pose and I think he has done a great job showing the movement of a cavalry charge. So far then, in his 40mm range, you can buy Prussian musketeers, fusiliers, grenadiers, some artillery and dragoons. In the Austrian range you can buy Austrian and Hungarian fusiliers and grenadiers, artillery and dragoons. I’m hoping, as he fills out this range, to see wildly charging hussars and more static Cuirassiers in reserve not to mention generals, grenzers and other light infantry.The Prussians being charged (the unfortunate IR 12 Erbprinz von Hessen-Darmstadt) are from Tridents AWI range of Hessians, which work perfectly for the Prussians. In the Kronoskaf article on the Sachsen-Gotha dragoons, they show a different lace on the horse furniture but I believe this lace might be a later-war detail. I have given them the plain red schabraque with yellow lace as I think this is more appropriate for WAS or early SYW. They also mention a completely different colour for the schabraques of officers (in this case green) and I think that too is a late war change but this time I kept that as it made a nice change and it might make it easier for these chaps to rally in the event of disaster. Still the way they are charging forward, one feels, perhaps, that ones simpathies lie more with the Prussian infantry about to be carved up. Lastly please look at the buildings in the background. They are 25mm scale and work well with the 40mm figures. Doors are the key – stick a 40mm figure next to a 25mm door and it looks foolish, but if there is no door visable then a large 25mm building will work with 40mm.

40mm Austrian Dragoons

SYW Prussian Infantry Regiment 34

This is one of my favourite Prussian Infantry Regiments, No. 34, whose chef was Prince August Ferdinand, one of Frederick's younger brothers, because of the jazzy flags. It was raised in 1740 from the Garde Regiment No.15 and from Garrison regiments one and two.

Again, the figures are a mix of Foundry, Front Rank and Crusader - mostly the latter.

Talleyrand SYW French Cavalry

Another French cavalry regiment - this time Talleyrand. There is very little information, no, let me re-phrase that, there is NO information that I have been able to find on the musician's uniform so I have painted it in dark red with red/green lace. Figures are by Front Rank.

Also done and ready to show you is a 20 figure Austrian Dragoon regiment in 40mm. I have ordered some 25mm flags, which I will need to re-scale, and then I'll post pictures here. These are from Sash & Saber.

IR 25 von Kalckstein

Another fine Prussian SYW regiment - in this case No.25 von Kalckstein. Figures are Foundry, Crusader and Front Rank.

The pictures are a little dark and I must apologise for that. When I put them through my normal process of lightening and sharpening (a rather dodgy and old piece of software that I continue to use because I know how it works!) it really hated the apple green and yellow colours in the flags and it threw a 'wobbly' which I was able to 'undo' fortunately. Oh, what would we do without an 'undo' button on our computers! Pitty there isn't one for mistakes made in our lives.

Beauvilliers SYW French Cavalry

This is Beauvilliers regiment of cavalry from the SYW. The figures are all by Front Rank.
Provincial and noble regiments present a problem when it comes to knowing the colour scheme for musicians. If they had been Royal regiments then one would use the blue and red commonly- seen dress. These regimental musicians were dressed entirely at the whim of their colonel-proprietors and, in this case, I have used the regimental lace (Isabella - a coffee brown - and red chains) to cover a coat coloured as for the rest of the regiment. It might be right but it probably is wrong - but, hey, nobody really knows.

28mm SYW Prussians

Brigaded together are my two favourite Prussian infantry regiments - numbers 11 and 12 (11 has the red flags). A total of four battalions, each battalion has twenty figures in it. This post shows a mixture of figures from 3 manufacturers - Foundry, Front Rank and Crusader.
In my view, they reflect the fact that people come in different sizes too. The most noticeable difference, in the top picture for example, is with the standard bearers - on the left is a shorter, stockier Front Rank figure and on the right, the somewhat taller Crusader colleague.

Still, I think they work well together and being able to mix figures from all three sources gives you greater variety.