Dragoons and Hussars for my 15mm SYW project

Here are the last of my cavalry for my Honours of War 15mm imagi-nation, The Grand Duchy of Überwald.

First, a brigade of Dragoons, with their brigadier;

I decided that the Dragoons, because of their roots as mounted infantry would wear the standard grey coats of Überwald infantry regiments but with orange facings. The Dragoon regiments would be distinguished by different coloured breeches and the trim on their horse blankets. Here, I have given one unit yellow breeches and the other has light blue ones.

Obviously, by the time of the SYW these dragoons would be classed as medium cavalry, rather than having a dismounted role.

My last set of cavalry are the Hussars;

I've given both regiments green dolmans and pelisses, but different coloured breeches, boots, fur trim and busby bags (which match their breeches). I decided that all Hussars in the Überwald army would have red shabraques edged in white, but I'm not really planning to paint any more regiments of Hussars, mainly because they aren't really dealt with properly in the Honours of War rules. The rules make it clear that if you want useful cavalry they have to be heavy ones, which is a shame. Hussar uniforms are always so striking.

I had a couple of spare figures left over, so I decided to rebase two of my brigadier figures to add an extra figure on each base;

I think that this looks a lot better than just having one figure and I might have to look around for a few spares to improve my remaining brigadier bases.

Anyway, I've now finished off everything I bought up front for this army. If I want to add anything different, I'll have to spend more money with Essex Miniatures.  I do quite like the idea of a Freikorps brigade, maybe a couple of battalions of line infantry and one of skirmishers, perhaps with a squadron of cavalry of some kind. I'd also like to do some allied heavy cavalry, based upon the Essex SYW British Horse Grenadiers. There is no rush, though.

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 Most Despicable Place - Sharp Practice in the North American colonies

Over the weekend, I took part in a massive series of linked games of Sharp Practice set in the French and Indian Wars (part of the Seven Years' War), fought out between the French and their Huron allies and the British on the border between the French possessions and those of the British.

The basic premise was that the British had been repelled in an attack of Fort Frontenac and were seeking to find ways of striking back against the French. One story thread involved British forces trying to make their way back to safety following their failure in front of Fort Frontenac. Another was all about British forces trying to land troops from boats after crossing a lake and advance through French territory to carry out reprisal raids. The other main story line was all about French raiding forces trying to push out British settlers and destroy their farms and villages.

The weekend was played out at Bristol Independent Gaming and the whole jamboree was orchestrated by David Hunter, whose efforts have to be applauded, not only for the huge amount of work he put into the event, but also for his energy and good humour deployed in keeping the whole event moving along as a plausible narrative. 

Although the whole thing went down to the wire, the small advantage gained by the French on the first day was maintained until the end, in part by the victories gained by the Huron forces, which denied the British victories even though these wins didn't count towards the French tally.

On the British side, we saw a lot of line troops, including Grenadiers, supported by a few units of Light Bobs and colonial Rangers, while the French fielded a lot of Compagnies Franches de la Marine Light Infantry, Milice canadienne, some Huron allies and regular French line Fusiliers and a few Grenadiers. The French also had the use of a light cannon.

All the tables, which covered a wide range of terrain, looked absolutely fantastic and gave everyone a lot of challenges in how to best deploy and control their troops. I think that the most difficult table for the British was the beach landing one, which led to them struggling to get moving, which they eventually achieved after the third game of the four sessions played over the two days. The best thing about that particular scenario was that it allows both sides to actually fight an 18th century linear battle, although even here the skirmishers and light infantry had a big role to play.

It was good to catch up with some old faces and new ones too, especially those I knew from the Sharp Practice Facebook page, as well as Rickard Clarke and Nick Skinner (the actual TooFatLardies) who dropped in on Sunday morning on their way home from Crusade in Penarth on Saturday. I will surely treasure the photo of Sidney Roundwood that Rich gave me before he left.

Anyway, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

The final items for my FIW French

Here are the final pieces in my French and Indian War jigsaw puzzle. The wagon has been sitting around, half-finished for ages, mainly because I hadn't got round to undercoating the horses.

The wagon and horses are from Warbases, and the wagon is really a Gribeauval wagon limber, at least, that is what it said on the MDF sheet. However, I think it will be fine as a support option in lots of different guises, because I am not going to get all nitpicky about whether it is the right sort of wagon or not. Life is too short ..............

The figure with the barrel is a from a pack of Perry AWI metal civilians, so he fits in pretty well. I've painted him so that he looks like he might be a member of the French infantry without his uniform coat. The wagon and horses are from Warbases, who have some rather nice carts specifically for Sharp Practice that I will probably buy at some point. I've got another one of these wagons still not made up. I will probably modify it in some way and not use the cover.

Finally, here is the last part of my Régiment de Guyenne, a Colour Party. These are from the Warlord box set, including the flags, which are on the leaflet in the box. I've got a few figures left over, so I'll hang on to them in case I suddenly have a need for some more 18th century French characters.

So, I am now all ready for the monumental clash of French and British in the great North American wilderness at the end of january. 

Now, on to my next project, which I shall get started on next week, probably.

More from my French and Indian War project for Sharp Practice

I began this project towards the end of 2018, and I wrote about it here. Since then, with a few distractions onto other things, I've finally finished off the rest of my forces for the Sharp Practice day at Bristol Independent Gaming at the end of January.

Here are three groups of fusiliers from the Régiment de Guyenne, accompanied by a Senior Leader, Capitaine Philippe Au Brion (drawing his sword), a Junior Leader , Lieutenant Pierre Lardon (armed with a musket and a sword) and a Musician (drummer).

First, here they are in line, ready to fire;

And here they are in a marching column;

These are all Warlord 28mm metal figures, based on 25mm circular bases and mounted on Warbases movement trays. I chose to paint them in pale grey rather than pure white, because there was considerable variation in the actual colour of the cloth used for French uniforms in this period, and a pale grey-white seems entirely appropriate to me. Indeed, in many paintings you will see that the uniform coats were not actually pure white, and the terms "off-white" and "white-grey" are often used to describe the actual colour. I think that the cloth used was actually made from undyed wool, and you never see pure white sheep.

I am reasonably happy with how they have turned out, eventually, and I will explain why. Now, I don't like to say bad things about manufacturers generally, and this is really a rare gripe from me. However, I bought two boxes of these French infantry at Colours last year and while I have no issues at all with the sculpts, which are great, one box was considerably worse than the other one from a castings perspective. It wasn't just flash, the issue was quite large blobs of superfluous metal on a number of the figures, requiring a lot of work with a knife and a file to get the figures in a fit state to paint. In a couple of cases, the cleaning up was pretty extensive, requiring the use of metal snips to cut off the worst of the extra "growths".

Anyway, moan over. I still have a couple of odds and ends to finish off, including a Colour Party, which I hope to get finished next week.

A new Sharp Practice mini-project; French forces for the French and Indian War

The French and Indian War,  which was fought in North America between the British and French colonies began in 1754 and ran on until 1763. From 1756 onwards, it can be viewed as part of the much larger Seven Years' War. It started out as a conflict between the colonists and their local forces, but gradually regular troops from France and Britain began to be deployed as the conflict grew.

I am painting up a smallish 28mm French force for a Sharp Practice weekend in January next year at Bristol Independent Gaming. Each player has 65 points available for their troops and mine is going to consist of the following;

Leaders (total 22pts);

Status III - Capitaine Philippe Au Brion, the impoverished son of an Irish emigré military family. He is accompanied by a Musician (drummer) 10 pts

Status II - Capitaine Henri Thierry, 6pts

Status I -  Lieutenant Pierre Lardon, 3pts

                Lieutenant Jean Merluche 3pts

Troops (total 42pts);

3 groups of 8 Fusiliers of the Régiment de Guyenne (18pts)

3 groups of 6 Compagnie Franche de la Marine Skirmishers (24pts)

Support (total 1pt);

Burning torches 1pt (not sure how useful these will be)

This gives me a grand total of exactly 65pts.

Capt. Au Brion is the force commander and leads the fusiliers. He is assisted by Lt. Lardon. 

Capt. Thierry commands the skirmishers, with Lt. Merluche as his deputy.

Before starting on this little project, I looked around for the what I thought would provide the best fit for the kind of force I wanted to paint. I decided on the Warlord boxed sets of Compagnie Franche and Line Infantry, and I bought two of the latter, so that I'd have enough figures for my plans.

So far, I have completed the skirmishing force made up of troops from the Compagnies Franches de la Marine, autonomous companies of infantry who were attached to the  French Marine Royale and who served both on ships and as garrison troops in the various French overseas colonies. Until the FIW, these were the only regular French troops stationed in Nouvelle France, the French possessions in North America.

Anyway, here is where I am with this project so far.

First, here are Capitaine Thierry, on the left with the drawn sword and Lieutenant Merluche.

Next are their troops, in three groups of six skirmishers. Note that there is a lot of variation in the dress of these soldiers. in the first group I have added in one figure from the box of line infantry. This is because I didn't want any figures with an officer's gorget amongst the rank and file. I see this figure as being a low-ranking NCO, and therefore not a leader in SP terms. While on active service, the troops of the Compagnies Franches wore a relaxed service dress that included some items adopted from the Native tribes of the region. The hooded capot tunic was also popular. Troops were issued with swords, as were line infantry of the period, but these were often replaced with tomahawks.

Finally, I have painted up two Deployment Points. Both of these are resin items from Coritani Miniatures, whose products can be found here. Both of these DPs are using surplus figures. The one on the left is from the Compagnies Franches box and the other one, painted up to represent an office of the Régiment de Guyenne, is from the box of line infantry.

My next task is to get my line troops prepped and undercoated.