S Range Austrians

 I have been feeling a little guilty over the pile of Minifigs S Range Austrians sitting in a drawer for some time and, wondering what I should paint next, I decided to have a go at a few.

The main effort was two battalions of line infantry and rebasing some jaegers and gunners. They now form a nice little battlegroup:

If my mojo is maintained, I would like to paint a battalion of grenadiers and some militia.  We will see!

Seven Years War Progress

Over the past few months I have been working on the renovation of quite a large collection of Seven Years War figures.  A large number came from from the Eric Knowles collection and others are from various purchases over the years.  Last year my focus was on sorting out the Austrian Army.  Here is a progress report picture:

All of the figures are 25mm Minifigs, as is the entire collection.  One of my aims for 2023 is to continue to finish off the Austrians and do as much of the Prussian collection as I can.  As with all my projects, I will jump from one era to another to maintain variety.

Some Seven Years War stuff

Over the last few days I have been working on renovating some of my 25mm SYW units.  I purchased a load from the Eric Knowles collections and there are some items from other sources.  The first lot are these SYW Austrian Grenzers, consisting of two light infantry battalions and regimental artillery.  They are supported by a couple of squadrons of Hungarian lancers.  These are Minifigs S Range figures from the collection of Eric Knowles:

 The next lot are Gendarmes Anglaise, expat British in French service by Minifigs:

Then some more from the Eric Knowles collection.  The first are 25mm Minifigs Hungarian Hussars:

And finally some Prussian Hussars, mounted and dismounted.  The mounted figures are Minifigs, the 'horse holder' is a Ros Figures napoleonic horse artillery gunner and I am not sure about the three firing hussars:

 

 

Ros Austrians - Warrior Command

The quiet period over Christmas is always a good time to finish off outstanding projects, which is what I have been doing over the last few days, with 'time off' for a game or two.

First off the painting table were three units of Austrian infantry by Ros Figures.  They have Warrior Miniatures figures to make up the command element.  Added to my existing Ros Austrians, this gives me six battalions:

When paraded together with my existing Austrians it gives me a nice little force, ideal for playing Neil Thomas wargames scenarios.  There are two cavalry, three artillery, one jaeger and six infantry units:

Napoleonic Army level operations - an emerging idea.

I have been reading with interest about a growing move towards playing games that involve whole armies fighting, rather than a couple of Brigades or a Division on the table. Inspiration has come from sites such as Bob Cordreys developing Napoleonic game, as well as Hexblitz and other sites, such as the Napoleonic Wargaming Blog; Napoleonic Wargames 

In most cases a grouping of units, which would be about a brigade on my table, represents a corps, with four or five 'corps' making up an army. I have tried this to some extent with Command and Colors by using figures, but even this does not give manoeuvre feel of a number Napoleonic corps widely dispersed.

With this in mind I have dug out my old 'big fat' 25mm Minifigs and based them along similar lines to those described in the blogs.  I am just about able to field an Austrian army:

This army consists of five 'Corps'. Four are infantry consisting of four blocks of 12 troops, a gun, a cavalry unit and a command figure. The fifth corps is a cavalry corps of three units of heavy cavalry and a horse artillery gun.

I have organised the French in a similar way:

My plan is to devise a mechanism, whereby the battle will start with one or two Corps in contact and the remainder marching to the sound of the guns. The table will be divided into entry sectors and the marching Corps will arrive in one of those sectors, with a D10 time delay. This should make for an interesting game.