Lots more recruits for my 15mm SYW forces

Apart from when it has been too hot to paint, I have been continuing my Honours of War project. First, two battalions of line musketeers and a brigadier;

Next a battalion of the Grand Duke's Garde zu Fuß and the army commander;

Note that these guys have blue uniforms. It is annoying that the general and his ADC are a bit blurred but I can't be bothered to retake the photo.

Thirdly, here are the rest of my brigadiers, probably more than I'll ever need in most games;

Note that I've done a couple in green coats. This is because I want to have the possibility of grouping all the Freikorps light infantry into a single brigade and also because I have decided that senior officers in the army of the Grand Duchy of Überwald should have considerable freedom in what they can wear on the battlefield.

My last picture shows four bases of artillerymen;

These are awaiting their guns, which I intend to be freestanding so that I can attach them to limbers until they are deployed. I have decided that the Überwald should also wear a similar blue uniform to that of the Ducal Guards because the Großherzog is a great believer in the importance of artillery.

I am currently working on the remaining five foot battalions and then I will start on the guns and limbers for the artillery. That will leave me with the cavalry units and then, perhaps, the army will be complete. Maybe not, though, because I would like to create a separate Freikorps containing line troops, skirmishers, artillery and some cavalry, so that I could field them in certain scenarios. It wouldn't be a massive force, maybe two or three battalions of line, one of skirmishers, one artillery battery and a single unit of dragoons.

A new project - SYW 15mm troops

This project is something I had no idea I was going to do at the beginning of the year, but a few people at the club were getting interested in the Honours Of War rules from Osprey and were using SYW armies that they either already had or were putting together. I played a couple of games and, although I have some reservations about the rules, I decided that they weren't too bad and I ought to put an army together too.

The rules allow for the use of imagi-nations, which is something that I am very much in favour of because it takes me back to Charles Grant and his wars between the Vereinigte Freie Städte and the Grand Duchy of Lorraine in his classic book, The War Game.

My project is to create the army (in our chosen scale of 15mm) of the Grand Duchy of Überwald (a name that will be familiar to Terry Pratchett fans), a long vanished entity from somewhere near Austria. 

The rules in the book uses infantry battalions made up of five elements, but because some players have battalions of four elements, we have agreed on this for our campaign, which is supposed to begin in the autumn. We are also reducing cavalry squadrons by one element too, to keep frontages in proportion. 

Our campaign will be using a blend of real and imaginary states, so long as the imaginary armies have the characteristics of the real ones in the book.

The Grand Duchy of Überwald's army will be using Essex Prussian minis and will be based on the rule book stats for Austria.  As you can see, their flags will look rather French too.

So far, I have completed two battalions of Grenadiers and three of light troops, as pictured above. My plan is to have ten battalions of infantry, three of light troops (most likely a Freikorps) and seven squadrons of cavalry of various types, plus medium artillery and a number of brigadiers and an army commander. I expect that my imagination will run away with me and I end up with a few more units.

To provide a nice colourful appearance I will paint up some infantry in colours other than grey. There will be a battalion of Garde zu Fuß musketeers in blue and two more battalions in green, representing troops from the Margravate of Streslau, a feudal vassal of Überwald. There will also be artillerymen, cuirassiers (including one of Garde zu Pferde), dragoons and hussars in a variety of uniforms.

I am going to have to work quickly. I also have a 28mm Austrian Napoleonic project that I need to finish by November. So far, everything is assembled, based up and undercoated.