More Russians

I've painted up another couple of units to show some more of the range.

Grenadiers in summer uniform

The march attack figures have a separate arm, but assemble and paint up easily. The new grenadier head/helmet is very nice, and is a really valuable addition to the range.

One other thing I would mention, I always file down the bayonets to a triangular section, they look much better.

(And, it is worth rotating the left hands on the officer and NCO, otherwise they look like a Nazi salute).

The flags are from Maverick Models, these are relatively inexpensive, and can be printed to the size you want (within reason).

The bodies in the moulds are for musketeers, and so do not have the cartridge pouch on the waist belt which was characteristic for the grenadiers (or the correct grenade pouch on the shoulder strap), however the difference was not really enough to justify a complete new set of moulds. 

The original plan was to have a separate 'stick on' waist pouch to convert the figure, unfortunately this could not be fitted in, and was thought too delicate for the mould making process, so when the figure is assembled with the grenadier head it is not quite correct. It would still look pretty good, however I chose to make my own pouches out of plasticard (Renedra bases). I made the pouches a bit too big, but they don't look too bad. However when/if PA produce their 'accessories' mould it might be possible to include a strip of pouches?



(Update 29/05/15, the waist pouch will now be included in the moulds, and looks much better than my effort.)

Musketeers in winter uniform

I have no plans to paint up many of this figure, as intend to paint my Russian infantry in summer dress. However as there has been some concern about this new pose I painted up a unit to see what they look like.

I agree there is some scope to improve the pose - but I still think this is a very fine figure,

This pose is more upright than anything in the range, and this presents some problems with the command figures. The officer is the new Russian, he does lean forward to match the rest of the range, but as he is leading from the front rank he looks fine.

There is no new NCO in winter uniform, and the Prussian figure is not right as it has belts over the wrong shoulder, and a bread bag. This is not a big problem as the Russian NCOs were armed with muskets, and dressed identical to the rank and file - other than extra decoration which can be painted on.

The drummer is Prussian, again leaning forward in the front rank, so looks fine.


















I decided not to use the new standard bearer (officer), as I put the standards in the rear rank, and the forward lean did not look right back there. Instead I decided to make an NCO by converting one of the rank and file, a surprisingly simple job by just drilling through the hands, which are both on the body, and cutting the musket off the separate arm - before gluing it on. I know it's not quite right as he has a cartridge box - but he has to carry his vodka somewhere!

As always comments welcome.

Extra photo added to show rear of coat.

Russian Infantry - in summer uniform

Chris has sent me the test moulds for the Russian infantry so I have cast up enough figures for a few 16 man units.

First I decided to paint up a unit of advancing musketeers in summer dress to see how they look. With the red waistcoat and trousers, and no turn backs they are very easy to paint, especially as the red is straight out of a can (Army Painter 'pure red', with any missed bits and tidying up in Vallejo 'vermilion'). They could do with some shading or lining between the waist coat and trousers, but I am trying to resist it!

I have some flags on order from Maverick Models, which should arrive in the next few days - but I could not resist getting the unit finished and on the blog so the flag shown is downloaded from Kronoskaf.

There are 8 figures in the new moulds, and this unit uses 5 of them, so
is a good indication of what is to come. The figures not shown are the two infantry in winter dress and the march attack in summer uniform - and perhaps more importantly the grenadier helmets - I'll have to get something painted.

It's worth noting that the Russians were not the only ones to fight in waistcoats in hot weather, the Saxons and probably French and others did as well, The Saxons would be particularly interesting as there was a lot of variation in waistcoat colours. The figures in summer uniform would probably work well as colonial or miltia units, particularly in 'imagination' armies.

And I've finally got around to doing the second battalion of the Saxon Leibgrenadier Guard, so I took a photo while I had the camera out.

I think this is the end of the new infantry moulds for a while - I am looking forward to seeing how the cavalry work out!

As always keep the comments coming.

Russian Infantry - ready to go

Chris has now finished the changes to the figures, they look really good, I will not reload photos of them all, just some examples.

Winter Uniform - Grenadiers

The helmet has been changed to give a longer rear peak, and the coat improved by adding buttons, and pleats in the back to break up the plain area.

Guard Grenadiers

We thought it worth squeezing in a head (in one of the command moulds) for those of you who fancied some guards units, never used in the field, but they will look good in those imaginations!

Summer Uniform - Musketeers

And with the summer uniform a vent has been added to the back of the waistcoat. And the angle on the tricorn has been steepened a little.


















As always comments welcome.

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?

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.

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.

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.................