More Austrians

 The bank holiday provided the time to rebase more Warrior Miniatures Austrians.  On this occasion the batch consisted of six battalions.  Two are German line infantry, two, with the blue breeches are Hungarian line infantry, then there are two Reserve units.  One is Austrian Landwehr in campaign dress and the other (I believe) is the Salzburg Landwehr, the guys in green.

I also found two spare gunners, so I painted a commander and made up another battery.

A Hungarian battalion:

Landwehr:

Next will be another batch of Landwehr.  After that it will be a case of forming some more units from the odds and ends left from the reorganisation.  That should provide another 4 or 5 battalions.

Plastics in Action

 Having spent a fair bit of time renovating the plastic battalions, I thought it would be good to test them out on the table.  The idea was that a French Corps would probe forward and attempt to force a river crossing to allow the main army to advance deeper into enemy territory.  In an attempt to prevent this  an Austrian Corps has deployed along the river, covering the various crossing points.

The Austrians are strung out along the river bank, occupying villages and woods, seen here as french cavalry probe forward:

The French plan was to feint on the Austrian left and push across the two fords on the Austrian right.  french cavalry and artillery move forward to occupy high ground that dominates the river valley:

A French division arrives to force the two crossings.  The troops are mostly Airfix French:

The game was being played with Command and Colors rules and like most battles, the French plan did not survive first contact with the enemy.  The French did not have a single card for their left, and so the action switched to the right, which was to be a feint. A spirited French attack against the Austrian left saw the defence crumble:

Austrian light infantry were evicted from a wood and an infantry battalion collapsed under pressure.  Suddenly the whole Austrian left was in disaray.

The French supported by cavalry quickly cross the river and the Austrian commander, feeling that he had done his duty in delaying the French decides to withdraw; his forces being too widely dispersed along the river.

The troops looked good and it was quite a spectacle seeing them set up on the table.

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.