British Infantry - Update

Just a quick update to let you know that Chris Tubb is currently sculpting the British infantry, and I have suggested he progress with 4 moulds as discussed back in January 2023 (yes that long ago), text in red are minor changes I have suggested since 2023:

Mould 1: Officer & Drummer

• Officer with  shoulder sash and hand to take partisan, musket or sword.
• 1 x spontoon for officer
• Drummer with hanging sleeves
• 1 x tricorne head
• 1 x grenadier mitre head*

* I wonder if it is worth replacing this with a tricorne with a 'Minden Rose', (officers did not wear mitre caps, which if wanted can come from the grenadier mould)?

Mould 2: Standard Bearer and NCO

• Standard Bearer (Officer with shoulder sash)
• NCO and hand to take pole arm or musket.
• NCO musket
• 1 x tricorne head
• 1 x grenadier mitre head*

* Perhaps another variation of a tricorne with a 'Minden Rose'?

Mould 3 - Hat Men (tricorne) - without sword, belly box, or shoulder wings.

• Marching torso  
• Arm for marching
• Advancing torso
• 2 x tricorne head

Mould 4 - Grenadiers (mitre cap)  - with sword, shoulder wings, belly box and match box.

• Marching torso  
• Arm for marching
• Advancing torso
• 2 x mitre cap head (I have suggested one with 'GR' and one with 3 feathers)

As always feedback would be welcome to help try and get this right.

Commands & Colors - Seven Years War

In the comments to the last post I was asked about how we played C&C with the 40mm semi flats.........

Over the years we have played most of the C&C games, my favourites being:

Napoleonic, We generally play the Epic Battles version with 15mm figures on an 8' x 6' table with 120mm hexes. These give very enjoyable games with reasonably historical outcomes.

Memoir 44 (WW2), with 1/300 figures on the same 120mm hexes, not such a well designed set of rules - but still fun.

Red Alert - yes space ships - a fun game with all the plastic spaceships and cloth in the box, so it is easy to transport and set up,

I also have 'Tricorn', the AWI version, however this is one of my least favourite versions, having more of the feel of a skirmish game - not in my opinion suitable for the large clashes of the SYW.

A gaming friend has made a very nice  12' x 6' gaming cloth marked out in 180mm hexes, which he uses to play C&C Napoleonic Epic with 28mm figures. He also has the hills and woods to match, so an easy option for me to borrow for a participation game. My 160mm frontage units sit nicely into the 180mm hexes (which are just annotated with lightly marked corners - one visible to front right of the artillery).

SYW Rules Changes

There was not really a lot of change needed, the main ones being:

Infantry v Cavalry

In this period the infantry was generally better trained, and able to repel frontal attacks from cavalry without the need to form square, so we modified the rules as follows:

• In the C&C system the facing of units is not relevant, everything fights all around, For SYW we decided that the facing of the infantry does matter, so at the end of the movement phase all infantry, even those which have not been activated, are adjusted to align with one of the sides or corners of hex. The unit then has 2 (facing corner) or 3 (facing side) vulnerable 'rear' hexes.
• When infantry is attacked from the front (not the rear), the infantry ALWAYS fights first, and the cavalry can NEVER ignore flags. Note that if the cavalry has sufficient movement it can ride around the infantry to attack the rear, so the ends of lines need to be supported.

Artillery

Artillery in this period was neither as mobile or capable of combined arms training as later (although the Austrians were getting there), so:

• Artillery may never fire overhead.
• Artillery may not combine in melee unless in support of an adjacent infantry unit.
• Other than Austrians, artillery may not  make additional moves such as those on the 'Bombard', 'Artillery Reposition' or 'Call forward the Reserves' cards.

Prussian Infantry

Prussian infantry was (at the start of the war) better trained than most others, so they have been given bonuses when firing on the move and entering melee with opposing infantry.

Prussian Cavalry

Prussian heavy cavalry (and cuirassiers) could charge for much greater distances than others, so they are allowed an additional hex movement when charging (not additive with the 'Cavalry Charge' card

I've pasted in the playsheets we used for the battle of Kolin - I don't think Blogger has a file upload facility? (For Lobositz we did not apply the advantages for the Prussians, as they were tired and hungry after a long night march.)

 

Battle of Lobositz & New Moulds

As I'm sure is obvious, I have not done much casting or gaming with the 40mm semi-flats so far this year.

Battle of Lobositz

I did however put on a participation game (back in June) using the Commands and Colors (American!) Napoleonics system to play the Battle of Lobositz. 

The table was 12' x 6', a scan of the battle layout is below. The Prussians are stacked up exiting the valley, and the Austrians partly hidden behind the village and in the sunken road, with Grenz on the hill. We played it twice and the Austrians won both times - as they should😀

The scale was roughly one unit on table equates to a cavalry regiment, two battalions or a 10 gun battery.

Below are some photos, many of which are copied from Aly's Toy Soldiers

https://alystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2024/06/wild-geese-2024.html 

New Moulds

Prince August have also been very quiet with regards to the SYW range, Chris Tubb has been working on other projects, such as their 54mm Middle Earth ranges, however I understand that they may be sculpting for some new SYW moulds over the coming months. 

• Reprint/rescale the Austrian cuirassier to as the current moulds are way too big (3 moulds),
• Reprint the dragoon heads as they ware currently too small, just a reprint to scale (1 mould).
• Prussian cuirassier (3 moulds)
• British infantry (4 moulds) - see post January last year for suggested figures.
• British artillery crews in coats (2 moulds).

My personal preference would be to do them in the order above so that I can complete my Prussians & Austrians, however I suspect PA would sell more moulds if they did the British first.

Going Small????

Not much has been happening with respect to the SYW semi-flats either at Prince August - or in my wargames room (I have mostly been playing 28mm 30YW using Liber Militum 'Tercios' rules and 20mm WW2).

Staying within the Lace Wars period, I have however been considering 'going small', and have been 3D printing some 10mm 'Marlburian' figures. 

The intention is to use these for mass battles of some sort, so simple figures and paint jobs to be viewed at a distance😀 

These are from a very small range of figures from 'Incomp', which print and paint very easily - well worth a try if this is something you are considering.

Christopher Duffy Books

 Best wishes for the New Year.

Just in case there are any of you out there looking for some books to spend your Christmas pennies on I just came across these:

I assume all respectable SYW gamers have these - but just in case?

Christmas Greetings

Firstly - I hope Santa and his helpers bring you all the toys on your wish list, and that during the coming year you have the time to paint and play with them.

Secondly - sorry for the lack of posts on the blog over recent months, my wargaming interests have been elsewhere, and also PA seem to have gone quiet with regards to future releases in the SYW range. My intention is to keep this blog dedicated to the 40mm toys, however just to fill a bit of space I will give bit of an update on what I have been doing instead..............

28mm Thirty Years War

I've spent much of the last 6 months painting and playing with my new 28mm Thirty Years War armies. When I retired (a couple of years ago), I received a pile of lead as a leaving gift, which I have  finally got around to painting. 

The figures are mostly from the Old Glory's excellent renaissance ranges, well worth considering if you are planning that building armies in that period, Many of the figures are from their ECW range as dress was pretty similar both in Britain and in Central Europe, the only real issue is that a lot of the ECW cavalry castings have triple bar lobster helmets, these were not common on the continent, so I have replaced them with continental types, using separately purchased  heads from Redoubt Miniatures. Note that the Old Glory figures are towards the smaller end of the 28mm offerings, they probably fit with Foundry and First Corps.

For rules we have been using the Liber Militum 'Tercios' rules, which give a fun game - again worth considering if you want to play that period.

3D Printing

The other distraction is that I now have a resin printer to add to the filament printer I've had for some time. My main reason for originally going for a 3D printers is, that many of my figure collections are of older rangers, which are often smaller than more modern offerings which simply do not fit in with them.

For example, I have a large collection of 20mm WW2 tanks and AFVs, some of which I have had for over 40 years. At the time I started the collection the only vehicles readily available were from Airfix and Matchbox, which are 1/76 scale, these I later supplemented with Fujimi/Nitto again 1/76. There are now lots more vehicles available from the likes of PSC, Armourfast, Zvezda etc, however these are mostly 1/72, and I simply cannot live with the size difference. 1/76 vehicles are available in resin, but often at a very high price.

With the ability print my own vehicles I can now print pretty much any vehicle I like, and scale it to 1/76 to fit in with my old collection. The filament printer produced some nice models, but simply cannot handle shallow sloping surfaces which come out very distinctly stepped. The resin printer does a much better job of it, I initially put off buying a resin printer due to the need to wash prints in alcohol, however there are now some better water washable resins on the market so I have taken the plunge.

Prince August have now gone over to digital sculpting, the first digital figures in the SYW range being with the French. Their business model is selling moulds, however I do wonder if they could release the files to some of the parts which are difficult to cast??????????

Anyway, enough rambling - have a good Christmas and best wishes for the New Year,

Prince August Catalogue & Progress

Prince August have recently released their updated catalogue, with the 40mm SYW range being featured on the front cover.. The pdf can be downloaded from their website, but be warned it is a hefty 318MB.

For those of you collecting the SYW range there are a couple of useful pages showing the full range of figures in the moulds - I think after all these years PA are getting there - still a few gaps but full armies can now be collected - with a little help from the Karoliner and Rossbach ranges.

It can be seen that there is now a pretty extensive range, however in my opinion it contains a few scaling issues, which I deal with as follows:

• I feel the Austrian cuirassiers are way too large, so I don't use them, instead I use converted Karoliner figures.
• The dragoon heads are small, so again I avoid using them - they are easily replaced by 'officer' heads from the infantry, the Russian officer being one of the best (that is what is on catalogue front cover).
• The French figures are just a bit on the large size (particularly the heads) - I think they look better when used with Russian heads which have similar hair and tricorne.
• Similarly the artillery crews are a bit large, so again I use the appropriate infantry heads where possible.

All of the 'offending' figures were sculpted digitally, the French and gunners are probably just me being picky so not an issue and easily solved with a head swap, However the cuirassiers and some of the dragoon heads are unique, so could perhaps PA could be persuaded to reprint if enough people commented?

There are a few gaps in the range, which hopefully PA will address, the most obvious ones being:

• British infantry - the highlander are sculpted (see above), and hopefully the 'hatmen' will follow in the not too distant future?
• Prussian cuirassier (I have used converted Rossbach figures).
• Gunners in coats (it was my idea to have the in shirtsleeves)
• Russian cavalry (belts outside coat) - not sure if there would be market for these, Karoliners with head swaps do the job fine????