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Saturday 31 January 2015

French Infantry

Some thoughts on future plans - probably a looooooooong way off yet.

All quiet on the western front.


The Russians are due out in the the next couple of months, and that should complete the 'close order' infantry for the eastern theater. PA have always planned to get the troops done for the eastern conflict before moving on to the west, however recent discussions, and looking at what troops are already in the moulds has made me wonder what is actually needed for the west?

Certainly the British uniforms were distinctive, particularly the highlanders, so these warrant quite a few new moulds, so quite a major undertaking.

But what about the French, who operated without the British as opponents alongside the Imperial Army as at Rossbach, is much needed to release these?

Is there actually any need for French infantry moulds?


As far as I can see the French uniforms were very similar to the Russians (and to some extent Austrians and Prussians), the main difference being that many, but by no means all, illustrations show the waist belt still worn on the outside; so the Russians would probably be fine provided you are happy with the belts on the inside. (Also, I already have 100's of Karoliners painted up as French, and I suspect so do many others), so is there really a place for French moulds??


The answer is no..........and yes, I don't think they are really needed, however PA want this SYW range to be a stand alone, so yes it is worth doing something.

What to put in?


The answer is probably to treat the French in a similar way to the Austrians, and release a single mould (two bodies and three heads), which has the parts needed to allow the French to be built up using Russian, Austrian and Prussian figures - so what is needed?

For the bodies


I think stick with the old formula:

  • Infantry advancing - waist belt outside
  • Infantry march attack - waist belt outside
  • (Or possibly a drummer without turnbacks?)


Heads

  • Two French tricorns
  • A grenadier bearskin

I could do with a bit of help here as I find the information confusing:

  • Would the French tricorns be different from the Russians?
  • Did the French wear mustaches (just grenadiers)?
  • Was the French bearskin different to the Austrian - any pictures welcome (particularly the back)?


As I have said these are only initial thoughts, however it does look as if the French infantry can be covered quite well with a single mould - any thoughts?

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Russian Infantry ........... almost there.

A belated Happy New Year to you all.

The Russian greens are now almost ready, a few changes changes are still needed, however I thought it worth sharing the photos (as I've not posted for over a month) :

  • The most obvious change needed is that the grenadier helmet needs the rear peak lengthening.
  • Cuff buttons to be added.
  • A vent needs adding in the back of the summer uniform waistcoat.

I should get the test moulds in the next couple of weeks and cast up some units (weather permitting), so production moulds not too far away?

As usual all figures have separate heads, so can be Russian musketeers or grenadiers, and can be mixed with the Prussians, Austrians and Hungarians.


3109 – Russian  officers in winter/parade uniform


These should also (with a bit of work) be useful for other nations, for example the officer will make a good grenadier officer for the Austrians,

Russian officer


The musket is replaceable so could carry pole arm or sword (there should be a sword in the mould).




Standard bearer (officer)


We made this an officer for some variation in the Austrians and Prussians. If an NCO is preferred use the Prussian with Russian head.



 3110 – Russian drummer and NCO in summer uniform


The Russians fought most of their battles in the summer without their coats on (officers still wore their coats), so two moulds have been dedicated to the summer uniform.


NCO


The musket is detachable, so can carry pole arm etc.


Drummer


A drummer in summer uniform has been provided, for parade/winter uniform, use one of the Prussian drummers.



 3111 – Russian  musketeers/grenadiers in summer uniform

Advancing





March attack




3112 – Russian  musketeers/grenadiers in winter/parade uniform


Advancing - with grenadier head


(The helmet needs the rear peak extending to shoulder. and also a pleat will be added to break up the plain area between the coat tails).


















March Attack


This the march attack pose has been changed in this figure to be a more upright, slower pace (as with the advancing figure pleats will be added between the tails).

I think it is really good and possibly the best figure so far!



I think that Chris has done a good job on these, and they look as if they may be some of the best so far - but it depends how they cast! 

Next up Austrian cuirassiers - if we can figure out how to fit them together!

As usual comments welcome.

Monday 22 December 2014

Battle of Mollwitz


I have had a couple of requests to show one of our games - so here goes - we played this yesterday..............

The game was fought using the Maurice rules; I took the Austrians and one of my regular opponents, Quinton Dalton, the Prussians.


The Map




I chose Mollwitz as it is a very simple battle, so I could set it up with minimal effort.



This is an extract from 'The Army of Frederick The Great' by Christopher Duffy.
(It is upside down to tie in with the photos below - honest!)

I decided that we should start with the two armies in their historical layouts.






The Forces


I organised this game in a rush, so just did a very quick conversion of the figures in Duffy's books, and scaled it to give an infantry line  which covered the right amount of the map/table. This ended up with  simple one unit for each 1000 men.

Prussians

16,800 infantry - 16 units (I was generous with the hussars), two being elite grenadiers
4,000 cavalry - 4 units
500 hussars - 1 unit
50 guns - 5 unit

Austrians

10,000 infantry - 10 units, one of grenadiers
8,000 cavalry - 8 units
1,000 hussars - 1 unit
10 guns - 1 unit

Troop types


I classed almost everything as 'trained' (I was in a rush), with just two exceptions:

  • The grenadiers were made 'elite'
  • The hussars were classed as 'conscript' fighting in the battle line.

The next time I play this I will put a bit more thought into it.

I did make an effort to reflect the characteristics of the two forces using the following 'National Advantages':
  • To reflect their better cavalry, the  Austrians were given the 'Cavaliers' card, which allows them to re-roll poor combat dice when they are charging
  • The Prussian infantry had much better fire discipline, so were given the 'Lethal Volleys' card which allows re rolls of missed shooting dice.

The armies were set up in near historical positions, with a unit of grenadiers interleaved with the right wing cavalry, which historically caused problems. 


















The Figures


The Prussian infantry were mostly Prussian figures, with six units from the new range and the rest Karoliners. There are also six new units of Austrians, with the rest Karoliner French.

All of the cavalry are old HE, Karoliner or Rossbach figures, many of them French.

The Cavalry Battle


The battle started with Austrian cavalry making an attack down their left flank. I loaded the game in this area by giving the force a couple of notables to allow them to move and charge easier.


The Austrian cavalry charged into the fray, and with with a a useful hand of cards (two 'stirrups in' cards, which give advantage to charging cavalry), and the 'Cavaliers' advantage (plus some luck dice) soon add the upper hand.



The Prussian cavalry were totally destroyed, however the Austrian cavalry were shot. The dice behind the units are casualties, five hits kills the unit, so you can see they are in no position to exploit their success. 
The Prussian right wing cavalry had gained time for their right wing infantry to redeploy and link up with the isolated grenadier unit. In Maurice cavalry is only effective against infantry when the cavalry is fresh, and the infantry carrying some hits - so time to beat a hasty retreat.

Unfortunately they then became victim of the table edge syndrome, the Prussian infantry could pin them against the edge, so only option was to head back to their own lines. Rather than move away from the infantry - or better still go around the back!


The Infantry Battle


Prussian infantry then filled the full width of the table and attacked the Austrian centre. The attack came on in two divisions, this made it far less effective. The split was due to two reasons, the cavalry attack had made the infantry drift to the right, and to avoid masking the artillery battery in the centre. 
Eventually the Austrian infantry were able to hold off the Prussians, and caused enough casualties on the attacking Prussians to win the battle.

Afterthoughts


A thoroughly enjoyable game.

The Maurice card system was very effective at breaking the battle down into a series of actions, first the Austrian cavalry attack on the flank, and then the advance of the Prussian infantry once the cavalry had been neutralised. This is a far more realistic sequence than the usual everyone attack at once - or having to write special rules to prevent everyone jumping off at the same time.

We intend to play this again, and I will put a bit more thought into the armies to better differentiate the troop types - perhaps make the cuirassiers elite?

Also, I think I will refight it with less units, and leave the Prussian right a little more open.

As always, comments welcome.

And everyone have a good Christmas.


Sunday 21 December 2014

Using 40mm semi flats for wargaming


Which rules do we use?

'Old school' wargaming.


The new PA range are a development of original HE semi-flats, which were the work of Holger Eriksson, who also sculpted the Spencer Smith range of figure. These figures feature prominently in classic wargames books such as ‘The War Game’ by Charles Grant, or ‘Charge’ by Brig. P Young & Lt. Col J.P Lawford. Both of these books are still available in paperback reprint - but if you can afford it treat yourself to a second hand hardbacks - they look so much better on the bookshelf!

Both of these use large units, which certainly look very impressive, however they are a lot of work - and you will need a big table!

A display game using large units of 40mm ‘Karoliner’ (mostly) figures.

We dallied with 'old school' rules for a couple of years, but found them 'hard work', needing a lot of time, and we rarely finished a game - so we don't use them much now. The thing is though that I really do want them to work - perhaps I just need opponents with lots of time on their hands?

More recent rules-sets

Having given the 'old school' a fighting chance we decided to go for more recent rule sets.

Field of Battle


Initially we used  ‘Field of Battle’ (FoB) by Brent Oman; we already used them (along with 'Shako') for 15mm Napoleonics, and they work fine with the semi flats. These are an interesting set of rules based on the Piquet rules system and use a variable move sequence which is card driven.

Maurice


More recently we have been using  'Maurice’ by Sam Mustafa; these are a fun set, and again the action is card driven. They also contain a simple campaign system. A ‘lite’ version of Maurice is available for free download from:
  http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/downloads/

Both sets have their places, Maurice is best for just two players, whereas FoB can be used with multiple players on each side.



Both of these rule-sets work well with small units of 16 infantry and 8 cavalry, and can still look very impressive. This could be either Maurice or FoB - the troop scale and basing is the same.




There are many other sets available - we have settled on these two.........for now.

Basing and organising figures into units


You might think that 40mm figures need a big table to play on, but that isn't really the case. As the figures are semi-flats,  the width is no more than full-round 28mm figures, so a 20mm  wide base works well for both infantry and cavalry. The bases do need to be a bit deeper than for 28mm, and we have found 30mm for infantry and 60mm for the cavalry to be about right. This is a period of linear warfare with relatively shallow battle lines, so the deeper bases aren't really a problem. The figures have been designed to fit neatly into units on these base sizes.

After a lot of heart searching, I decided to base up the figures so that they could be used either as a single 32 man unit......


.... or two 16 man units, which is all they have been used as so far.



I must do a battle report.................

Saturday 13 December 2014

Russian Infantry Update

Progress and Plans


Sorry the blog has been quiet for a while, a combination of a busy time at work, a quiet spell on figure production..........and us having a new puppy!

I had a long chat with Chris Tubb (the sculptor) a few days ago to discuss the plans for the Russians, and also the range as a whole. He confirmed that Prince August are committed to the range, however production of new moulds will probably continue to be relatively slow, as this is just one of many projects he is working on. The intention is to get the Prussians, Austrians and Russians finished (infantry, cavalry, lights and  artillery), and then move on to the British and French, provided the demand is still there.


Russian Infantry


Next up will be the Russian infantry, these were discussed back in April (no point rushing - these are 'Old School' after all), and the proposed four moulds below hopefully cover many of the things we discussed back then. 

The plan is for all of the bodies to be musketeers (the grenadiers should have a belt pouch, however this is barely visible on the figures so not worth additional moulds - it can be stuck on or painted if necessary). Similarly it is not currently planned to produce any Observation Corps figures, By concentrating on the musketeers we can provide bodies for advancing and march attack in both summer and winter/parade uniforms. There will also be some new command figures in poses similar to those in the Hungarians, these can (with a bit of work) be used to add variety in the Prussians and Austrians.The provisional listing (it depends what will fit in the moulds) is:

3109 – Russian  officers in winter/parade uniform

  • Officer in winter uniform, pose similar to Hungarian NCO
  • Standard bearer in winter uniform, as an officer similar to Hungarian (as with the Hungarian, standards were probably carried by an NCO, but the officer is added for variety - the Prussian can be used if an NCO is wanted)
  • Officer’s head - tricorn, curls, clean shaven.
  • Guards’ grenadier/leib company head - grenadier with feathers
  • Musket for officer
  • Sword for officer (if space) 

3110 – Russian drummer and NCO

  • Drummer in summer uniform (can use Prussian for winter)
  • NCO, pose similar to Hungarian to carry a pole arm or musket
  •  Musketeer’s head - tricorn with bow , straight hair,  clean shaven
  •  Grenadier’s head – helmet, straight hair & moustache
  •  Partisan for NCO (I know they generally carried muskets, but it seems a waste to add another musket, as there is already one with the officer, so use this for parade/guards).        

3111 – Russian  musketeers/grenadiers in summer uniform
  • Rank & file body (summer uniform) - advancing
  • Rank & file body (summer uniform ) – marching
  • Arm for march attack with and musket
  • 2 x Musketeer’s head - tricorn with bow , straight hair (campaign),  clean shaven
  • Grenadier’s head – helmet, straight hair & moustache 


3112 – Russian  musketeers/grenadiers in winter/parade uniform

  • Rank & file body in winter uniform advancing
  • Rank & file body in winter uniform marching, this could be in a more upright 'parade' pose..... but will it look OK with the more active command?)
  • Arm for march attack with and musket
  • 2x Musketeer’s head - tricorn with bow , curls,  clean shaven
  • Grenadier’s head – helmet, curls & moustache


Progress so far


Below are the greens for the first 3 figures. The officer looks fine, but the waistcoat on the drummer and infantryman is a bit too long, so will be shortened.







Once the Russians infantry are done - Austrian cuirassiers!

As always comments welcome.

One point I really would like feedback on is the plan to have the march attack figure in winter uniform in a more upright pose - would it look OK with the more active command figures?

Friday 14 November 2014

Hungarians Released

For any of you who are not on the PA mailing list I thought I would let you know that the three Hungarian molds are now available - so something for your Christmas list?

http://shop.princeaugust.ie/

Below are some photos of Richard Hattersley's figures which he has done for the packaging - he could have gone for a brighter blue!




Tuesday 11 November 2014

Prussian Garrison Infantry

I must confess that I don't like painting Prussians, there is something about painting Red and Dark Prussian Blue that I really can't get on with. The way I see it is that painting Prussians is one of those tasks that you have to do to be a SYW gamer.

So with some resignation, after having had fun painting the colourful and elite Saxon Leibgrenadier battalion, I decided to paint a battalion of Prussian garrison troops,









I decided to pick one of the units which saw some active service, so went for the XI regiment which was at Gross-Jagersdorf.

And also had pink cuffs to add a little colour.










Garrison troops were dressed similar to the musketeers, but probably did not carry a sword, and were generally not as well equiped as the line troops. I contemplated using the Austrian bodies which did not carry a sword, and only had one bag; however in the end I played safe and used the Prussian marching figure. I did cut/file off the sword, which wasn't too difficult, but I suspect if I had just painted the scabbard black it would not have been noticed

Below are some photos of the finished unit - unfortunately my gaming table is full of junk from decorating the kitchen, so no green table or houses - just my desk and a book cover.





Progress Update


The Hungarian infantry the way and should be out very soon, I think they are just finishing the packaging.

The Russian sculpting is also underway, I have seen some of the part finished greens, the first troops are infantry in summer dress - just in waistcoats. There is also an officer in a new pose with a separate musket - not quite finished but looks very nice. (With a change of head and a little work I think he would make a nice Austrian grenadier officer?)



As always comments welcome.