French mounted officer conversion

Not much to report today, but I managed to finish milliputing my French officer. A little filing tomorrow and I should have him painted by the weekend.

He looks a little too young and enthusiastic to have the title of general. Originally he was going to be a cavalry officer, but I have decided to paint him as a young ADC, riding up and down the front of the French first line.
I will uniform him as the Osprey figure below.

Grenadiers of Hanoverian Reg. IR1a Von Scheither

Slow progress this week, but I have managed to complete this rather fierce looking stand of grenadiers which will go to make up a converged btn of 4 bases, officer and NCO.
Stephen Summerfields excellent book on the army of Hanover only gives a description of the mitre cap, so fingers crossed I have painted it reasonably correctly.
I do know that the Hanoverians created grenadier Btns, but I am not sure if the regiments grouped were fixed as in the Prussian style or if they tended to be grouped randomly per battle which was more the Austrian style. More research is required.
Meanwhile I will order the new book by Charles G tonight on small actions of the western campaign which should hopefully inspire these fellows to take to the table soon.

I am now in the nice position of deciding what unit to start next.
Another Hanoverian regiment, a French cavalry regiment or maybe the Dauphin regiment with that wonderful flag and attractive blue facings ?...... decisions decisions

Heard in passing from my wife !

The kids have all left home now apart from my husband !

Orbats

I love ORBATs or Orders of Battle. I can spend hours browsing over army lists.
Stuart I. asked yesterday if I had a plan or Orbat for my French army.
The answer is no, I am just working towards creating a balanced army which could be used for most actions. As for choice of regiments, I tend to use the following criteria.
1. Variety of uniform detail to ensure a colourful mixed collection.
2. Attractiveness  of colours/standards.
3. In the French case, a balanced mix of foreign regiments.
4. I like to chose regiments that saw action in the major engagements.
(I check ORBATs on major actions such as Hastenbeck, Minden, Rossbach, Warburg etc to see if the selected regiment saw action. I do not go for units who were mainly on coastal or garrison duties, preferring Militia units for such roles.)

My ultimate goal is to be able to fight campaigns with each army. I started this process last year with a Prussian invasion of Saxony, but soon realised I would need more Saxons and Reicharmee troops.
Eventually I should have enough units to cover most campaigns.
My plan then, will be to keep a detailed record of each regiment, casualties, actions, colonels and morale etc to give a more realistic campaign.

When choosing a new regiment to paint, my first port of call is Kronoscaf. I also regularly look at blogs such as AMG and the various Seven Years forums to get ideas.
I am pondering on who will be my next French cavalry regiment. Possibly the Irish Fitz James regiment as they have an attractive uniform and featured in a number of actions, or possibly Penthievre who wore a white jacket and had a very colourful red standard. .... One of the best parts of the hobby, finishing a unit, placing on the shelf  ready for action, clearing the work bench and planning the next regiment.

HQ

A recent message on the blog asked me what size of table I use for 40mm figures. It is big, 18ft x 8ft but to be honest, most actions have fitted on half of the table.
The table is rather cluttered as I am making some base boards at the moment, but the shot below gives the viewer an idea of the layout. Upstairs is a balcony where I keep most of my books and gives a great aerial view of the action below. Of late, troops are beginning to take over the upstairs as well.
The two ships in the foreground were purchased last year and scale reasonably well for 40mm

Royal Roussillon join the French stable

I managed to finish another French cavalry regiment today, bringing the total number to six. I hope to have up to 12 regiments to complete my army.

My French cavalry units are normally made up of 12 figures as some of the French cavalry regiments were fairly small.

Below are a few shots of my shelves of the French army.

Each regiment has a labelled space on the shelf. I also put a label on the base of each figure group stating the nation and regiment to ensure that units do not get mixed up on the table.

All quiet on the 18th century front

This is because I have been distracted this week, so very limited painting on 18th century stuff, (working in Hanover grenadiers) but no progress on the French officer conversion.
The distraction has been caused by some 30mm Phoenix Figures I have acquired. ..No not the dodgy Phoenix follies, but the 30mm parade series. First produced in the mid 1970’s and sculpted by Tim Richards I believe, this series was well sculpted and correctly proportioned, representing British army regiments. The 30mm scale is compatible with some of the better sculpted modern ranges and scales with Willy figures.

So much of the weeks painting time has been taken up by producing a full regiment of Scots Guards, circa 1900. They are very quick and easy to paint and make a splendid display. I am planning to create a 64 man regiment with, in addition , 4 piece colour party, 2 officers and mounted colonel, RSM, 2 sergeants and then a 16 piece band. Don’t know where this will go, but if I don’t get bored I may add other regiments. What about wargaming with them ? Well they are mainly for display, unless I acquire some full dress Germans and create a “Riddle of the Sands” scenario, but I don’t think so.