The Troops are Mustard...

The Generals are confident the troops are keen as...  They are all mustered and ready to march.

Below are pictures of all the units which will take part in the Battle of Plattzdorf (assuming there's not a mass rout in the second turn!)  I've prepared enough to allow for reserves which may - or may not - appear.  And, depending on events, there may be a second day's battle.  The pictures are not in any order.

I didn't have time to set up the light tent, and lifting the figures on and off a shelf was much quicker: hence the reflections.

When I said ready, of course the edges of the bases still have to be painted

The Officer on the left is not a giant.  This is a Regiment of teenage Cadets.  We won't worry about the ethics of that, just at the moment.

Limber colours are not indicative of which side they're on

Engineers/Sappers/Pontooneers won't be used until overnight and the second day

Mercenaries don't have a Princes' flag - just their own

While side by side in the photo, they may well be enemies on the battlefield

Couriers

and more Couriers - lots of Generals mean lots of Couriers

These are Regular Cavalry "hired" from another country

As these are.

The opposing Commanders

Cavalry Brigadiers

Infantry Brigadiers

The right hand one is a Brigadier of Artillery

There will be a couple of others.  For example, there should be a second Artillery Brigadier, but I must have missed it in the rush to get all the photos.

I've not yet decided which troops will be on which side, apart from the units with either a red or blue Prince's flag.  (Mercenary units have their own flags, as do Generals).  And I've not yet decided the ratings of the troops and Generals.  

But it's unlikely the opposing forces will be equal in numbers.  Differing morale, abilities, etc., and possibly different objectives should even things up.

If there's time, I may be able to rebase some of my favourite units, to appear if  the battle continues the following day.

Because of all this basing (I might just have overdone the amount of flowers!) hills are still to be finished.

By the way, reviewing all these photos brings home to me this is definitely an "Old School" set up, apart perhaps for the bases.  And the flags could well be from the 1970s.  But I still like my Minifigs...

The end - or should I say the start - is in sight...  I hope!

Rudolph "The Red Nose" Reigned …

over Kleinstaadten for 32 years, until the fateful day he fell from his horse while leading a hunting party.

He was well nicknamed "The Red Nose", although not in his hearing as more than a few long term occupants of his dungeons could testify  His enjoyment of strong drink had resulted in more than a few tumbles from his spirited horses, but the final fatal fall was the spark setting off the Civil War which would split his Kingdom.

A siege gun 

His twin Sons, Prince Zsolt and Prince Vladislaus, had been growing apart since their late teens, as they each considered their likely futures.  Two rival Aristocratic factions within the Kingdom took advantage of this to curry favour with the Princes, attempting to further their influence.

Light Infantry are formed in 2 or 3 Companies, depending on their complement

Zsolt was the elder by just 10 minutes, and that should have ensured his Succession.  However, over the years, Rudolph had made it obvious Vladislaus was his favourite Son.  While never publically announcing the Declaration of his Successor, it was widely assumed this would be done on the grand State Occasion of the Princes' 21st Birthday.  Rudolph died when they were 20.

Couriers set off for all parts of the Kingdom to pass on initial orders

The rival factions moved swiftly to stir discord between the Princes and, within a week, the Kingdom was divided into two camps hastily preparing for War.

Some with more difficult terrain to traverse than others

This background to the War Of The Two Princes explains why my Minifigs on both sides have similar Army Organisation; uniforms; weapons; flags, etc.  

An Ottoman Artillery Regiment

Because of the large number of Aristocrats prominent in the upper echelons of the Officer Corps (Military Service was an honourable career path for Second Sons of the many Landowners); and the equally large number of Relatives of the many influential Politicians, the Army organised itself in Twos to allow a large number of Commands.  So …

2 Wings formed an Infantry Regiment
2 Squadrons formed a Cavalry Regiment
2 Batteries formed an Artillery Regiment
2 Regiments formed a Brigade
2 Brigades formed a Division
2 Divisions formed a Corps
2 Corps formed an Army

The concept of Brigades and Divisions was new, but soon copied by the rest of the Military Powers of Europe.

A combined Reserve and Militia Artillery Regiment.  The Militia Battery has 100 year old guns which are still effective - most of the time!

To man this comparatively large number of Units, they tended to be fairly small - an average Infantry Regiment numbering about 500.

Included were a significant number of Reserve, Garrison and Militia Regiments, varying in quality - which itself fluctuated depending on the Commander at the time.  Having served in many Wars and Border Clashes in this volatile region over the years, many of these older men had some military experience.

The Kingdom was rich enough to hire Mercenary Regiments from near and far; and had bought a larger number of cannon than other countries considered sufficient.

Thus the numerous Aristocrats and Political Appointees all could hold a Command at one level or another.  

The obvious drawback to this system was that, inevitably, a fair number of Officers were well thought of; a fair number were incompetent; and the majority were somewhere inbetween.

Foreign Officers served to gain experience or make their fortune, and most of them were known to be good before being accepted.  However, some (often wayward sons) were given Commissions as political favours to other Countries, and the Army had little choice but to have them serve.

Couriers have been dispatched to all corners of the Kingdom, with initial Campaign orders.

Plattzdorf Village

       Open At Last...

The buildings don't look too obviously flat card when you're distracted by the vegetation and odds and ends lying around (or am I just kidding myself!).

   I hope I've got a reasonable balance between number of buildings required to   depict a village and available footprint space on the table.

I'm starting to compile rules.  I've done the cover - that's the easy part...

When thinking about the rules, it dawned on me I may not be really wanting early 18th C battles at all!  I don't want just long lines of soldiers advancing towards each other.  I want individual Regiments and Brigades being given objectives, perhaps then being followed up by longer lines of troops.  

This is more like Napoleonic and ACW ("Impulse" I think you call it) actions.  I was never too worried about "historical simulations", but it seems I'm moving even more to just a game which happens to use nice (I hope) figures and terrain.

But I'm not losing all contact with history.  Having been given a WH Smith gift card, I saw they had this book and bought it.  I'm not concentrating on the Russian Army, but it'll give me some useful background information.

The uniform illustrations are very good, although I'd hoped for more.  And, although they're very "artistic", for my purposes and level of detail required (not to mention painting ability) more basic graphic illustrations would have sufficed.

But, really, no complaints about spending £20 on the book at all - I'm looking forward to learning much more than I do at present.  Some people much more knowledgeable than I rate it highly.

So - not a huge amount of practical progress in my wargame project (I'm retired - you'd think I'd have all the time in the world) - and I'm away for another week.  When I was away last week, I did stick lots of flags to their staffs, and will do some more over the next few evenings as I don't need much in the way of space and  tools to do that.  

Odds & Ends...

Little practical progress this week, so just a few odds and ends...

I've mentioned my enthusiasm for artillery - the quirkier the better.  Here's an example.

It'll need some sort of platform built around it to look as though it could be loaded.  It's a little too cumbersome for a small battlefield, and will have to be in a fixed defensive position, or possibly a siege. 

This one's still a heavy piece of ordnance, but slightly more practical.  I don't know which country it historically actually came from, but it'll fit in fine with one of my dreamt-up forces.

Speaking of dreamt-up forces, here's another example.

There wouldn't have been many Japanese fighting in even the most far-flung borders of early 18th Century Europe (!), but this small Squadron will be mercenaries accompanying the Ottomans.

Another move away from historical forces is I'll have lots of skirmishers/light infantry.  In those days, there weren't many, and most of them were undisciplined or untrustworthy.  Mine will vary in quality, but many will be good.  

The reason for my ignoring historical reality is simply I often have a small number of particular Minifigs which wouldn't be enough to form a regiment.  I think it would be a shame to waste them!

Sort of half way between regulars and the less effective light infantry are the militias.  

Like militias through the ages, they'll vary in quality, perhaps even during the same battle.  But again, they'll enable me to use odd lots of figures.

But the mainstay of the armies will, of course, be disciplined uniformed regulars.

At the moment, most of my Regiments are divided into three bases.  I'm seriously considering putting them on just one long base.  I realise this will not allow them to go into column; cross fords and bridges; pass through defiles; etc., but with the small battlefields my 6 x 4 table will allow, they would be close to the enemy from the start and in line 90+% of the time anyway.  As I'll be playing solo, fudging crossing bridges, etc., wouldn't lead to any problem.

In my wargaming of years ago, bases got separated as casualties occurred and the figures were handled more often leading to bent bayonets, pikes and swords.  I don't know at the moment whether I will have a Regiment all on one base - perhaps it's just a passing idea and I'll stick to tradition.

I must get back to producing and finishing off (still very few flags, for example) what I need to wargame.  I've been partly distracted by trying to install extra fixed lighting above where I model and paint.  When (if!) I get it all wired in, it'll let me see things better and get things done more quickly.

One last thing...  Not long after I started tonight's blog, it just disappeared.  I've no idea why.  I'd been saving it after every few lines or a picture.  Perhaps I accidently clicked on something I shouldn't.  I just did the blog again.  But - more worryingly - the previous week's blog disappeared as well!  That had been saved as well, but it's completely disappeared, and I can't find it anywhere.  I assumed once a blog was on the internet, it would stay there, saved in some Blogger computer wherever they're based.  But obviously not.  I'm new to blogging, so will see if there's a "Help" page I can get onto.

UPDATE - the previous blog has reappeared.  I don't know what's going on!  Nothing new there, then...

Normally, I wouldn't...

 

I'll be showing photos of buildings that will form the small village of Plattzdorf, but would point out they're all unfinished.  It would be better if I waited till they were finished and landscaped, but won't manage to do that till next weekend.  And I want to keep in the habit of blogging regularly (though not as frequently as I'd intended!).

You can see from the figure that the houses are slightly smaller in scale than they should be.  This is because I want to keep their footprint as small as practical, to save space on the table.  Actually, when on their bases, the buildings will be slightly higher - but then so will the figures on their bases.

All the houses are from the Dave Graffam card range, and can be printed out any size that suits you.  I saw a tip somewhere that said if you thought the houses were too colourful, you can print out on your printer's lower quality output and they look more subdued and natural.  I'll try that.

There'll be 5 or 6 houses on a large base, with grass, fences, hedges, etc. That'll hide the uneven bottom edges.  The white fold lines will be coloured in, and the white underneath of roofs darkened.  The tops of the chimneys will be blackened.

Eventually, I'll replace them with 3D buildings I'll make but, in the meantime, I'm happy with the card ones.  I've mentioned before I'm a great admirer of Tony Harwood's model building techniques.  He self-published three books illustrating his methods.  Within the next couple of months, his new book on making Napoleonic period buildings is being published, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

As usual, I managed to get sidetracked and made something not needed in the immediate future...

This is a lookout tower to be placed near a border crossing.  There's the signal fire to be lit when the enemy approaches.

And I also started on this...

You may think it looks more suited to the ACW than Europe of 300 years ago.  And you'd be right.  The card barn is new, but I made the rest for my Airfix armies which had just been produced - about 1967 if I remember correctly.  I've removed the original house and will tidy everything up.  Having been stored in an attic alternately freezing and hot, the fences have weathered nicely!  I'll leave it looking rundown, and will have to tone down the barn quite a lot.

I've been working on another field which - again - I stress is still to have a good few finishing touches...

Grass will fill in the gaps below the wall.  The lichen looks like - well - lichen.  I'll add flock to make it look as though leaves cover at least the top of the lichen.

Despite having more artillery than I can ever field, I've been recruiting...

These are from the AWI range,  As you can see, the Sergeant Major doesn't look too impressed and can't wait to get them painted up and ready for action.


As I said at the start, normally I wouldn't mention so much unfinished work but I'll not get anything finished before next weekend.  Showing it now will ensure I get things finished as soon as possible.