British Standard Bearer and NCO

Just in case you are not on the mailing list - PA have finally released the mould for the British standard bearer and NCO.

Also the is currently a 40% discount on the other moulds in the whole SYW range - so if you want some more moulds now is your time (no I'm not on commission)😊

Partizan, Oct 12th & North America

Partizan - Newark - October 12th 2025

Along with Simon Miller (the author of the To the Strongest rules), I am putting on a display/participation game using my 40mm SYW collection. The game will be on a 12' x 6' table and will be based on the Battle of Kolin, using a draft version of Simon's new 18th century rules.

If any of you are planning to go to Partizan, please pop in and have a chat, and if any of you want to join in the game let me know in the comments below and I will let you have more details.

SYW - North America

Chris has sent me some pictures of the figures for the initial release of figures for the SYW in North America. These figures are near complete so should be released in the (PA) near future.

(I recently bought a copy of the Muskets and Tomahawks skirmish rules and am hoping steer PA towards producing enough figures to allow a French and Indian Wars 'skirmish' game to be played?)

British Rangers

There will be four figures in two moulds comprising:

• Officer with musket pointing
• Ranger firing
• Ranger loading
• Ranger advancing

There is a large variety of heads, which as usual will be interchangeable, also the officer will have a separate hand so he can have either a musket or a tomahawk (probably not the separate arm shown). These four figures, with head swaps, should be enough to make a nice skirmishing unit.

Native Americans

Initially there will just be a single mould with:

• Native American firing
• Native American advancing

The heads will be interchangeable, and hopefully for the advancing figure both hands will be separate to allow the musket and tomahawk to be switched. It is appreciated that two figures are not enough for gaming purposes (but PA wanted to release them now). It is intended to produce (hopefully many) more figures in a variety of poses and clothing to allow interesting gaming units of different nations to be collected.

Future plans for the North American range

As discussed above, it is planned to add further Native American figures.

PA already produce moulds to cast French and British regular 'close order' units, and the 'advancing' figures look OK in a skirmish game. At a later stage it might be worth adding a single mould to each of those ranges with firing figures - this is a very long term idea.

Militia units played a significant role in the war, so it is planned to produce moulds to cover those figures.

As usual comments welcome.

Progress & Standing Infantry Command

Progress

British Standard Bearer and NCO

I am told that "The British standard bearer and NCO  moulds will be out this week" - we shall see😌

North American Theatre

After a long vacation in Middle Earth (Mithril Miniatures), Chris is back on the SYW range and is currently working on troops for the North American conflict - I will write more when I have some pictures he is happy to release (I have seen the work in progress and they look nice).

Standing Infantry Command

Back in June there was discussion about what SYW moulds to do next, and one of the things on the list is a set of standing command figures to go with mould PA3129 'Jager', which were deliberately designed to also be used as generic (Prussian) infantry standing and kneeling firing. 

The initial idea was for two moulds with four figures:

1. Drummer
2. Standard Bearer
3. NCO
4. Officer ???????????????

I personally don't use figures standing firing, so the choice of figures and poses is to some degree 'up for grabs' - so comments please?

Drummer

I would suggest a drummer in 'Prussian' SYW uniform with a similar pose to the old HE27 mould. 

The issue is do you want it with lace on the arms as PA3102, or without as PA3104. My preference would be without. (I only have PA3102 and get tired of cutting and filing off the lace to use as Austrians!)

This was back in the early days when they had the figures painted for the packaging.

Standard Bearer

There is a standard bearer in the HE range, however I'm not that keen on the pose as it just looks too casual. I think it would look better either held in two hands, or with the pole resting on the ground.

A quick search of the web came up with this, he could either have it raised or on the ground . An NCO in this pose would do the job?

NCO

As discussed above, the standard was carried by an NCO, one option would be to have a single NCO figure to act as both the NCO and standard bearer. I suspect the pose which is a combination of both figures, with a standing pose, the man's left arm holding the sword (as right hand figure), but right arm closer to the body (as right figure), with the body part rotated to be suitable for semi-flats  - again what do you think?

Officer

There is standing 'General Officer' in mould PA3127, however the lapels on the coat are a bit heavy and he has no gorget - is he acceptable or is something else needed?

Discussion

Please note that these are not even on the to do list yet, however PA have told me they have received requests for these moulds, so I will pull together some ideas and collate it for them.

As I don't have a lot or personal interest in these moulds, this is one to open up for discussion in the comments.

As a starting point - IF PA were to produce 2 moulds, and the officer is considered OK, then how about:

1. Drummer as HE27 with no arm lace.
2. Dual purpose NCO/standard bearer as right hand figure,
3. Musketeer at ready (someone send a link to preferred pose)
4. Musketeer loading, as PA51

The two musketeers would not only be additions to the firing line, they would also add to the light infantry poses (that is something I would use).

Over to you!

Musketeer at the ready

Stefan has suggested the following pose. He would probably look OK mixed in with the firing line, however I 'm not sure he would look right as an addition to the light infantry skirmishers?

Austrian SYW Wagons etc

 Following on from Stefan's comments on wagons.

The there are some drawings in Duffy's books, however I find the plates in the following book (it is very cheap on Amazon) most interesting:

Unfortunately the relevant plates are too large for my A4 scanner, so here are some photos from my mobile. There is a mix of two and four horse teams, presumably it depends on the weight of the load being pulled.

Wild Geese 2025 - Battle of Domstadtl

I was asked for some pictures of recent games, to be quite honest I've not been using the semi-flats much recently, however back in June I put on a game for the meeting of the 'Wild Geese' wargamers at our annual event in Kenilworth.

For something a little different I put on the Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758, which was a raid on a HUGE wagon train - a bit of background from my briefing notes for the players.

Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758

From May 20 1758, Frederick conducted the Siege of Olmütz, by late June resistance was nearing its end, just one last convoy of ammunition should have been enough to finish the siege.

On June 21, a large Prussian supply convoy set off from Troppau under heavy escort. The convoy consisted of some 4,000 wagons of which 818 transporting the vital ammunition. The convoy extended for about 32 km, with an escort in three brigades: vanguard, middle, rear-guard, with sparse pickets in between.

On June 28, Loudon attacked the convoy, however the escort managed to repulse him. To further support the convoy Zieten came from Olmütz with extra troops and Loudon was strengthened by Siskovics with an additional Austrian corps. The forces all converged on 30th June near Domstadtl. At a point where the road went through a pass and over a stream (I represented this as a bridge over a river), at this point Austrians sprang their ambush.

The best description of the battle I could find is on the Kronoskaf website - it's worth a read!

The game was played on a 12' x 6' table, so I placed the 'bridge' at Domstadtl at one end and the village of Altliebe at the other, connected by a road near the middle of the table.

I like to get the troop density about right, based on unit frontages (obviously all the other dimensions are way out). I scaled the battle based on the 3.5 Prussian battalions of infantry and a few hussars attacking Siskovics; which I represented by 3 battalions.

The units in the game are (very) approximately 75% of those present, for example there were 12 Austrian battalions in the battle, 2 grenadier, 6 infantry and 4 grenzer, which I represented with 9 battalions; 2 grenadier, 4 infantry and 3 grenzer.

The game was played with 4 players, who were sat in alternating corners, with Prussians controlling the two halves of the road, and the Austrians attacking from the south east and north west. In addition to defeating the enemy, the Austrians had to destroy as many wagons as possible, and the Prussians protect them and get as many as possible over the bridge as possible - simple.

Preparation

I had all the Austrian and Prussian troops needed (not the actual regiments, but the right types), however I was just a little short of 40mm wagons. Originally I was just going to use a few token wagons, but in the end megalomania took over and I decided to fill the whole road; so I have over 20!

The wagons themselves are 3D printed with the bodies on a filament printer and the wheels in resin. They are  Napoleonic types, but I decided they would do the job, even though they are obviously wrong, particularly the caissons - I did modify some of the later prints to look a little more in period, overall I was pleased with the result - and the players liked them..

The horses and mounted drivers are cast from the Karoliner range, some with SYW heads, although the wagons should have 4-horse teams I went for 2-horse, as I got fed up of casting horses that I would probably never use again.

The wagon driver on foot is a resin printed 'special', which Chris kindly sculpted for me, unfortunately being semi-flat his arm is a long way from the horse - and resin does not bend!

 How did it play?

We played using a modified version of 'A Gentleman's War', with the card based unit activation system replaced with a simpler one with whole army alternate moves. We played the game 3 times with games taking about 3 hours each. 

As planned the game was absolute mayhem, with units attacking each other and the wagons from all directions. I did not quite get the play balance right as the Prussians won all 3 games, but close enough to be fun.

As usual I forgot to take many photos, so the ones below are mostly pinched from Aly Morrison's blog.

Starting positions

I must paint more grenz!

Safety at last!

SYW range - Progress & Future plans

Back in February 2023 we discussed a list of suggestions for new moulds for inclusion in the SYW range. At that time we noted that PA had produced 34 moulds in 10 years. In the time since then PA have (or are about to) released the British highlanders (3), British infantry (4) and Prussian cuirassiers (4) another 11 moulds, so actually releasing moulds at a slightly faster (or less slow😊) rate. 

Seven Years War in Europe

Central & Eastern  Europe

When I started working with Chris Tubb and Prince August (in 2012!) the initial aim was to produce a range of figures to (allow me to) fight wargames battles in the central European theatre, so primarily the Prussian, Austrian and Russian armies. With figures for these armies, any minor German states etc could be produced from the closest moulds in the major armies.

With the inclusion of my conversions for Austrian (Karoliner) and Prussian (Rossbach) cuirassiers, I produced my Prussian and Austrian armies a few years ago. The Russians are still a future project.

Austrian (& Russian) cuirassiers

The 'missing' Prussian cuirassiers have now been released, so that just leaves the Austrians. There are already some Austrian moulds in the range, however although nice figures, they are way too big to mix with the rest of the castings in the armies, so I don't use them (even though I have some cast & painted).

For my own gaming purposes I have converted Karoliner figures (just a head swap), which do the job nicely.

However this is an important hole in the range. Assuming the new Prussian cuirassier castings come out OK, I think the best way of filling the gap would be to modify the new Prussian figures. I will keep asking for these as it is an important omission.

Artillery in Coats

I've manned all my guns with crews in shirt sleeves, and am quite happy with them - however it would be nice to add a couple of moulds for crew in coats, so I will keep suggesting.

Cossacks

A few Cossack moulds would be nice.

Western Europe

Although my personal interest is in the central theatre, comments on the blog indicated a clear desire for the French and British armies. As a result of this, the project got side tracked and PA produced the French infantry before completing the cavalry and artillery for the central theatre.

With the recent addition of the British highlanders and infantry it is now possible to produce armies for this theatre as well.

Potential future moulds for the European Theatre

So in summary, apart from the figures discussed above, I think that the range for the European theatres is almost complete. Below are listed the remaining moulds which I will continue to suggest PA produce to fill the gaps:

• Austrian cuirassiers - possibly based on the Prussians (3/4 moulds)
• Artillery in coats (2 moulds)
• Standing 'Prussian' infantry command (2 moulds)
• Cosacks (3/4 moulds?)
• Pioneers/Civilians (2 moulds?)

Seven Years War in North America

The North American theatre was as important to the British and French as what was happening in Europe. The currently available moulds for the British and French soldiers can be used for their armies regular troops,, however there was also a lot more 'irregular' fighting in that conflict. Plans are therefore underway to produce figures for some of these irregulars, current thinking is:

• British (Rogers) rangers
• French militia
• Native Americans 

As always comments are welcome.

British Standard Bearer and NCO

Just a quick update to show what is next on PA's release schedule. Chris is currently working on a mould to the British standard bearer and NCO, which will finish the British infantry in the European theatre.

Standard Bearer

In the British army the standards were carried by junior officers (ensigns), so has the sash over his shoulder. He is  in the usual pose, requiring the hands to be drilled out for the standard pole. 

NCO

I suggested that an NCO is included to fill the mould, and for the pose I suggested go with something similar to the original Prussian one, which I think is a really nice figure, he will have a separate hand/pole arm, which will allow other options  such as sword or musket.

I have suggested sculpting a sergeant.

Franklin's book on the British uniforms states that after 1752 there should be a fringed epaulet on each shoulder (not yet finalised on figure), however I have been unable to find any prints showing an NCO wearing one, and am coming to the conclusion that they were not introduced until later - can anyone help?

Wagons, Drivers & Civilians

Wagons & Drivers

I'm in the process of putting together a participation game which involves the Austrian ambush of a Prussian wagon train (which one - answers on a post card), and decided I needed some wagons.

The starting point for the horse teams and drivers was the limber horses from the Karoliner range, these are fine, however, for most of them I replaced the heads with ones from the SYW range, as I think they fit in better with the rest of my collection.

The wagons and caissons are all 3D prints of Napoleonic types based on files purchased from Najewitz Modellbau. The files for the wagons are hidden within their Napoleonic terrain packages (which is where the building files for my buildings were obtained). I appreciate that the types may not be historically correct for the Seven Years War, but I decided they would be close enough for what I wanted.

I also decided that I wanted to have some of the wagons to have their drivers on foot. My initial plan was to use the artilleryman with rammer, cut off the rammer and then bend down the arm a little so he looked as if he was leading the horse. However, knowing that the artillery were sculpted digitally I pushed my luck and asked Chris if he could do that for me digitally and send me the STL file so I could print them myself; he exceeded my expectations and sent me an STL file for a new civilian figure in the pose I had suggested.

Here he is with a Napoleonic field wagon; the hand is a bit higher than ideal, and being semi flat, even with part of the base cut off,  the arm is also quite a way from the horse. Unfortunately resin prints do not easily bend (they bend a bit if heated in hot water first), so I decided to live with it - they look good from a distance.

There is also a Napoleonic ambulance, again probably not accurate but looks good.

One thing I did change as printing progressed was the wheels. The ones with the Najewitz files are those on the ambulance above, the joints in the wheel rim are just nonsense, with some of the joints over the spokes - they would just fall apart. I replaced them on later models with wheels rescaled from a French Napoleonic cannon, as the ones on the caisson at the top.

For the later wagons I wanted to remove the driver's seat, which looks a bit later than SYW, so had a go at mixing, matching and rescaling parts from several models. The body is from a different wagon, the cover and axles from the earlier field wagon and the wheels from the cannon - I think it looks more SYW.

And it can be filled with barrels....

The caisson is probably the least accurate as it should probably be more like the one below.

So I rescaled the cover to the wagon and arrived at this - which is much closer (I suppose it could be closer if the body was shortened and the cover made to overhang a little).

The reason I have shown so many photos is to show what can be done using 3D printers. I have no sculpting ability (too late to learn now), and have not used a sculpting program. This has all been done within the actual printer slicing package by just rescaling parts in varying ratios to better match what I was trying to produce.

Civilians

Chris produced the wagon driver in digital form and let me have the file to print for this participation game - there are no plans to put these into production.

Does anyone think there would be a market for a few civilian types (or perhaps soldiers in waistcoats), in poses such as that leading the wagon, or perhaps carrying out engineering tasks such as digging with shovels, swinging pick axes or carrying logs?????? 

As always comments appreciated.