More pictures and would someone get me another Bloody Mary

I said I'd grab a few minutes to post these pictures and, as I write, the turkey is in the oven (great smells are wafting in my direction) and my Bloody Mary needs refilling but here goes:

Top picture: Red or 1st Division on a hill. Two British brigades in the foreground with a 6pdr battery in between. In the rear, two battalions of the Hanoverian guards.

2nd picture: 2nd Division. Hanoverian brigade in the left foreground and Brunswick brigade on the right. Held in the rear is the Hessian Brigade.

3rd picture. British cavalry brigade looking very lonely. The project for February and March is to add two more cavalry brigades.

4th and 5th pictures: the town inhabited only by vagrants as all 'sensible' people have left fearing the effects of war on their neighbourhoods!

6th picture: the line of infantry stretching into the distance.

7th picture: The Hessian brigade in the foreground, the Brunswickers in the background, and the C-in-C all in place close to the Fat Chicken Inn.

8th picture: The Red (or 1st) Division from the rear.

Have a great holiday and pass the port!

Terrain etc

The top picture shows a special I made from three hexes glued together - a farm complex with outbuildings and fruit orchard. All buildings from Hovels.

The 2nd, 4th and 5th pictures show another one of my specials - three hexes glued together with card buildings, streets, back gardens etc. This 'town' covers a small footprint and is strictly speaking about 20mm scale but I think it looks great although the hexes have warped a bit and I will need to correct this. All the buildings come from a terrific German company (http://www.schreiber-bogen.de/) and I'd like to do my bit to encourage German exports by recommending them highly.

The third picture is taken from near the town and looks down the length of the table.
Its quite difficult to see contours of hills but they are all there. I pin all hills in place to stop them moving and all my trees (mostly from Heki) have pins in their bases as well. Thats why it takes about 5 hours to set up all the terrain.

I've taken some more pictures will soldiers 'en-place' and I'll post them over the next couple of days.

The new table.........

The top picture is a taster of the finished result. There will be more pictures soon.

I've been without a wargames table for 5 years now and you can perhaps
imagine my pleasure at building a new one. All my hex terrain, trees, buildings and other bits have sat in cardboard boxes all that time and, so far, having opening over twenty boxes, nothing is irretrievably damaged.

The next three pictures show the table under construction using 18 Ikea legs (cheap and just the job). Thanks guys for your help. The bottom two pictures show the edging being put on the table top - a not uncomplicated procedure! Although this table is large (24' x 7') its about two thirds of the size of the two tables I had in Normandie so I have lots of spare hexes. By the way, all the terrain is 25mm. The attic of my house is 140 square metres in size so this table sort of 'sits in a corner'.

Over the next few days (Christmas festivities allowing) I'll post some pictures of the first layout and put some of the Pragmatic/SYW Allied forces in place.

Happy Holidays.

Happy Christmas to you all

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I've been busy with building the wargames table and I'll post some pictures of the finished result over the next few days. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great holiday.

Raw metal (or painted?) for sale

I'm going through bags and bags of figures I have for sale as its time to dispose of things I'll never get round to painting for my own collection. So, if there is anything here you would like to buy, please drop me an email at nigbil@free.fr and we will sort out payment and postage. Just make me an offer!

1) 25mm Venture Miniatures Havoverian SYW cavalry; 10 horses and 11 mounted including officer, standard bearer and a choice of trumpeter or kettle drummer.
Unpainted and new.
2) 25mm Sash and Saber SYW Prussian hussars in mirliton. 8 horses and 8 cavalrymen.
Unpainted and new.
3) 25mm Sash and Saber SYW Prussian hussars in bearskin. 12 horses and 12 cavalrymen.
4) 25mm Sash and Saber SYW Prussian hussars in mirliton. 20 horses and 20 cavalrymen.
Unpainted and new.
5) 25mm Renegade Republican Romans. 4 principes (plus pila and shields), 4 triarii kneeling (plus shieds), 4 hastati (plus pila and shields), 4 command (plus 2 shields and 4 standards), 2 mounted officers (horses and shields) and a single Carthaginian foot standard bearer (why, I don't know) by unknown manufacturer.
Unpainted and new.
6) A 'ton' in weight of A&A 25mm Samnites I bought to make up allied Roman legions
for my 'late' Republican army: 36 foot command, 48 of code SAM2, 134 of code SAM1 and enough shields and pila for the lot. I also have anough LBM shield transfers for the entire lot as well.Unpainted and new.
7) PAINTED and for Sale: 12 25/28mm French Infantry of the WAS (by a French company called Capitulation).
8) 40mm Sash & Saber Napoleonics: 10 British infantry (plus heads), 2 British infantry with broken bayonets, 7 French infantry (plus heads), 3 French infantry with broken bayonets. $10 plus postage.
9) Front Rank 25mm SYW French Guards; 4 painted infantry, 14 unpainted figures.

I'm happy to sell the raw metal or, if you want me to, to paint them up on special commision for you. Drop me an email and we'll discuss it further. If these do not sell, I'll probably be putting them on eBay sometime soon.

Over the next few weeks/months I'll be painting up the following for sale:

1) 15mm AB Napoleonic Austrians in helmets - 5 battalions of 18.
2) '25mm' Minden Miniatures - 40 figures of Prussians in 2 battalions.
3) 25mm A&A Hypaspists - 24 figures.

'Lucky' Luckner

This is what Niemeyer and Ortenburg say about Luckner in their excellent “The Hanoverian Army during the Seven Years War”:
In 1757 Rittmeister (Captain) Nicolaus von Luckner, formerly in Dutch service, raised a unit of Hussars which consisted originally of a single troop, but by the end of the year already numbered 90 men. Eventually, in 1760, there were 4 squadrons, each of two troops……with a strength of 671 men. The success of the regiment is reflected in the career of its commanding officer. Entering the Hanoverian service in 1757 with the rank of captain, he was a lieutenant-colonel in 1758, and was gazetted major-general on 25th January 1760; finally becoming a lieutenant-general in 1761 at the age of only 39.
The greatest possible praise can also be seen in a letter from Prince Ferdinand to Lt.General von Wangenheim: Your Excellency may also convey to Colonel von Luckner the particular congratulations of His Serene Highness, and assure him that our confidence in him is so firm that we are never in any doubt that, whenever he and his splendid regiment undertake a task, it cannot fail to have a fortunate and successful outcome.”

Luckner’s hussars was one of the few units that completely changed its uniform during the course of the SYW. It started off wearing a combination of green and red and, at some point, the date being unknown to me, the uniform changed over to the more famous (and unusual in light cavalry) red and white. I wonder if Luckner himself made so much money from pillaging French baggage camps that he was able to fund this expensive change of uniform.

The mounted figure (Luckner himself) is by Front Rank and is actually Franz Leopold Nadasdy (SYAP3), with the moustache trimmed off. I don’t know why I took this off but in my mind’s eye Luckner did not wear a moustache but I’m pleased to be corrected. He is placed on a Foundry horse and the saddle cloth was done with green-stuff. I have painted him in the second uniform. Next to him, on foot, is one of the new Eureka SYW Saxon hussars and what a great figure he is. The detailing is superb with no mould lines at all. A joy to paint. As he is wearing a mirliton I decided to paint him up in the early uniform on the assumption that there must have been a period, however short, when both uniforms were in service. The only small detail I’m not convinced of is the tiny skull and crossbones on the front of the mirliton – I don’t think the Saxons wore such a symbol. But I left it on anyway.

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Hessian Brigade

The Hessian Brigade of my second column (Division) under the command of Lt.General Freiherr von Sporcken is finished.
The top two pictures show Regiment Gilsa, consisting of two small battalions, after the 1760 changes, which joins Regiment Mansbach in the Brigade. The third picture shows the converged grenadier battalion (name unknown?) consisting of the grenadier companies of Mansbach and Gilsa. The final picture shows the brigade arrayed with its battalion guns. Those sharp-eyed amongst you will note that I have slightly changed the brigade structure from that described in the OOB a few posts ago.

A word on Gilsa. Prior to 1760 this was regiment Fürstenberg, a regular musketeer regiment. Besides changing its facing colour from red to black, the regiment became a Fusilier regiment, adopting the small fusilier mitre in a direct copy of the Prussian model. During the American War of Independence the regiment was known as von Knyphausen after its Inhaber at the time. Sent to North America in 1776, most of the regiment was captured at Trenton in December 1776.

This is the only fusilier regiment I intend to have in this Pragmatic/SYW army and they make a nice change. By the way, and I almost forgot to mention it, the officer commanding this Brigade is Maj-General Bischhausen - there's a name to conjure with!

My next post, at the weekend, will be about Colonel Luckner, whose figure I have painted but which needs basing. Nic at Eureka kindly sent me a dismounted Saxon hussar which I have painted and added to the base. More on that later as the dismounted Saxon is one of the finest 25mm figures I have ever painted. My next project is to finish off this Division's first Brigade (consisting of Hanoverians) as well as a box of Perry plastic Napoleonics.