Kurpfalz

Deep in my Reichsarmee trip, I painted some more regiments of the Palatine-Pfalz- contribution to the Reichsarmee. This was an occasion to dig up my Pengel&Hurt booklets an try to sort out a painting guide.

First of all, the newcomers:

Then, a brief introduction to them: the Regiment Effern

rated "mediocre" by Soubise, it was present to all the campaign without distinction, fighting at Korbitz 1759 and Strehla 1760.

The second unit of the lot is the Garde zu Fuss. Only the 2nd battalion was with the Reichsarmee from 1758, the other two garrisoning Mannheim. Moreover, it seems that from 1757 the fur cap was reserved for the grenadier companies, the other wearing tricorne. I choose to represent the unit as a whole regiment with the license of giving fur caps to everybody.

The cavalry unit is the Kurfurstin Leib-Dragoner, in their red attire (it was the Kurfurstin favourite colour, something which appeals to the taste of the Imagi-Nation adepts...). It joined the Reichsarmee in 1758 and was almost fully captured during the Prussian incursion in Franconia of 1759. 

To complete the lot I painted a command base, representing the General-Leutnant Prinz Georg-Wilhelm von Hessen-Darmstadt, commanding the Imperial infantry at Rossbach:

which in the small world of 6mm lead miniatures becomes a 1.5"x1.5" bases with two officers (from Baccus, this time - he is the one on the left):

Thanks Schenk!

A big thank to Schenk, which honored me with this well-accepted award:

The rules:

- Copy and paste the award on your blog, linking it to the blogger who has given it to you. 

- Pass the award to your top five favourite blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their blog posts to notify them that they have won the award and list them on your own blog.

Among the many blogs which I enjoy to read and follow my choice was, in no particular order, the following:

- Prometheus in Aspic, by MSFoy, a blog which is delightful to read and populated of nice pictures of nice miniatures. 

- Oderint dum Probent, by Gromoboy, a goldmine of informations on some of the most obscure military facts of XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries.

- Castle of Tin, by Corporal_Trim, a recently discovered blog dedicated to "flat". I like flats and I think that who paints them is a true artist! I even have some Louis XIV cavalry which I'll try to paint when I'll learn how to paint shades…-

- My Seven Years War, of the Kronoskaf mate Christian Rogge. The most up-to-date informations on the 7yw artillery. Also some nice flats (see above…) 

- Painting Wargames Figures, by Nigel, because his 28mm are a source of inspiration for my 6mm. Further he re-edited the old Greenwood&Ball booklets on the Prussian and Austrian armies in the SYW which were the very start of my interest in the period.

So bad that I had to choice only five. Indeed all the blogs in my list should deserve a prize, mainly because reading them gives me a relaxed and pleasant pause each time.

French Cavalry

The French cavalry regiments in the Seven Years War had an establishment of 2 squadrons for a total strenght of nearly 200 troopers, brigaded in three or even fours at time. In the Volley & Bayonet basing, cavalry is based either on a 3"x 3" "Brigade base" of 10 squadrons or in a 3"x 1.5" "Regimental base" of 5 squadrons.

With Austrian and Prussian regiments of 5 squadrons, I based each single regiment on a 3"x 1.5" base, collecting the two-regiment brigade on a sabot base. The only exception was the super-large 10 squadrons DR 5 Bayreuth which had the honour of a single "Brigade base" for himself. 

To represent the French Brigades I choose to base each regiment on a small 1"x 0.8" base with four figures each and then put three regiments on sabot base with the brigade name (normally the oldest regiment in the brigade). In this way I can represent historical brigades by simply putting the appropriate regiment on the sabot.

The original lot allowed me to get five regiments (two blue coated - Royal Etranger and Royal Piemont- , two red coated - Fitzjames and La Reine- and one white coated - Bourbon Busset-): I added a blu-coated regiment with bearskin, namely the Rougrave regiment (ex Royal Liegiois).

The six "small" bases:

and the "sabot" with the slot for the regiments and the brigade name:

The two Brigades: first, the brigade La Reine, at Rossbach in the first line of the  left wing and formed by the "La Reine", est. 1635, 14th in the 1759 list, "Bourbon-Busset", est. 1666, 23th in 1759 list and "Fitzjames", est. 1733, 56th in 1759 list, disbanded 1763. Fitzjames, an Irish regiment, is those with the yellow-coated trumpeter whereas Bourbon-Busset is typical grey-white coated french cavalry regiment.

The Brigade was routed by the Prussian cavalry, Fitzjames losing two standards and the kettle-drums. 

The second brigade was formed by one regiment present at Rossbach, the "Volontaire Liegeois, 1756" (later Rougrave, 1758) ranking 61th in 1759, disbanded 1763. Is a typical "german" regiment (indeed belgian) with bearskin cap. The other two regiments weren't at Rossbach (indeed no blue-coated regiments apart Rougrave were at Rossbach!): Royal Piemont, est. 1670, ranking 10th and Royal Etranger, est.1635, 6th. The base accordingly represent a "Royal Etrangere Brigade" which was present nowhere. 

Finally, a tribute to one of the most-maligned SYW commanders: He, the loser of Rossbach. 

Charles de Rohan (July 16, 1715, Versailles-July 4, 1787, Paris), prince de Soubise, duke of Rohan-Rohan, seigneur of Roberval, and marshal of France from 1758, a military man, a minister to the kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, and a notorious libertine. The last male of his branch of the House of Rohan, he was also the great grandfather to the duc d'Enghien, executed by Napoleon in 1804. 

He was neither a military genius nor a jerk: the coordination of the French and Imperial armies at Rossbach was simply beyond his (and Hildburghausen) capabilities; indeed he later successfully defeated the Allied at Lutterberg and Joannisberg, becoming Marshal of France in 1758.

This is the only portrait I found of him, a well-known one:

   

and this is his depiction in my miniature army:

More Frenchmen...

After a long break (one day I'll tell you of my new house and how I moved all the furniture alone to the 5th floor..) more french units from the e-bay lot; first of all two artillery bases, one representing a field artillery "battalion" (in V&B terms), the other an heavy (i.e. 12 pdr) "battalion". The number of horses tells the difference.

The original lot comprised also two hussards regiments, Nassau and Bercheny. I added standard bearers and trumpeters in tricorne to get this:

Royal-Nassau Hussards, est. 1758 from a former free-corps; it was not at Rossbach but was present at Sanderhausen, Lutterberg and Minden. Disbanded 1776.

Bercheny Hussards: raised 1719, the oldest hussar regiment in Louis XV army. Not at Rossbach but present at Hastenbeck, Krefeld and Lutterberg. In 1791 it became the 1st Hussar Regiment and was present to all the main Napoleonic campaigns till 1815 when it was disbanded after Waterloo.

Looking at the Rossbach OoB, there are 6 swiss infantry regiments: thus I decided to paint them. I had many stripes of Heroics&Ros Prussian infantry primed in red to represent Russian infantry in summer uniforms (the still-to-come Zorndorf project): it tooks few seconds to convert them into red-primed swiss. The first two swiss regiments (both at Rossbach) are the Diesbach and Planta regiments:

Swiss Regiment Diesbach, raised on January 1, 1690 across the 13 Swiss cantons. It was ranked 90th and was under the command of Diesbach de Steinbruck. It was at Rossbach, then Sanderhausen, Lutterberg Bergen and Corbach.

Diesbach with Planta in foreground. The regiment Planta was raised according to the ordinance of January 28, 1677 across the 13 Swiss cantons. It ranked 63rd and was under the command of baron de Planta and d'Arbonnier from August 10 1760. At Rossbach, Lutterberg, Minden and Warburg. This time I tried to handpaint the flags, just for fun...

 

French Infantry

The "bulk" of my e-bay deal was formed by French; so I started to rebase them for Volley&Bayonet: as usual, I prefer to stick my work around an historical OoB. In this case, since I already have Prussian , Austrian and a sizeable Reichsarmee, I choosed Rossbach. Indeed also the previuos owner should have had Rossbach in mind, with some oddities.

Therefore, two regiments of infantry of the original lot were easily rebased into the Saint-Chamond and Deux-Point regiments by simply adding the mounted officers. Notice that the Deux-Point uniform is the grey-white one used before 1758, when a light-blue one was introduced: also the flag is probably that used in a later period (for sure in the AWI): however I didn't dare to over paint such a nice paintwork done by Kronos.

The Saint-Chamond (nr. 21) was badly mauled at Rossbach and spent the rest of the war on garrison duties on the coast. It is a typical regiment with red cuffs and yellow hat-lace.

The regiment Deux-Point (nr. 119) was a "German" regiment of two battalions increased to three and finally to four in 1758. It had a distinguished career in the SYW, fighting at Sanderhausen, Bergen and Minden. According to Mouillard the flag is the 1770 pattern: however, some contemporary manuscripts give such a flag in 1757. Since the earlier type flag is the following (from Kronoskaf): 

I had no doubt in deciding that my regiment had the later, fancier type.

The third unit of the original lot was the regiment of the "Grenadiers de France, nr. 40" which was not present at Rossbach. However, it was a very thought unit, present at Hastenbeck, Krefeld, Minden and Vellinghausen. 

A fourth unit in the lot was the "Royal Artillerie" Regiment. In the V&B scale such a regiment didn't make any sense and accordingly I converted it into an infantry battalion. Since the coat was dark blue, the obvious choice was a German regiment present at Rossbach, namely the nr. 66 La Marck with yellow facings.

The flags are in paper, drawn with a simple graphic program from the Kronoskaf originals.

I remained with enough leftovers to muster two further regiments, this time adding more drummers, nco, officers and standard-bearers. My choice was for the regiments of Cosse-Brissac and Piemont.

The Cosse-Brissac (nr.57) had a nice flag, a yellow and black drummer and an undistingushed career after Rossbach, were it was badly-mauled, the Colonel Chevalier de Lemps being taken prisonier;

the Piemont (nr. 4) was instead one of the oldest units in the French army with a four-battalion strenght and the unique black cuffs. It was at Lutterberg and Bergen.

Reinforcements for the Reich

I have finished rebasing the first three regiments from the ebay lot. By the way, they were original painted by Kronos, whose blog deserves a visit for its very nice 6mm Heroics&Ros napoleonics.  

First of them, the regiment Kurmainz from the Kurrhenische Kreis (1757 Wildenstein, 1758 Gudenus). The commander were Oberst Gudenus since 1758 and the Oberst Leutnant von Brencken. Rated Good at Rossbach by Soubise, the quality rapidly deteriorated with the replacement of the original "Hausstruppen" with raw recruits.

The other  two are from the Bayerische Kreis: the regiment Salzburg. It was associated with the Reichsarmee since the War of Spanish Succession and then disappeared into obscurity. Its commander was the Oberst Graf Orbea and the unit performed badly at Rossbach.

and the regiment Kurbayern, a composite one. Indeed it was formed by two battalions from the regiment Pechmann (minus the 2nd grenadier company) and the battalion Holstein. I painted roughly one-third of the miniatures in the red facings of the latter, the others in the straw facings of Pechmann.

Finally I took the white-coated general from the Soubise base, together with two blue-coated officers and "straight-from-the-package" based them as the command base for the Reichs-FML Christian Karl Prinz zu Stolberg-Gedern (1725-1764), which was in command at Freiberg, 1762.

Here his only portrait I was able to find (which is indeed my avatar in Benno's forum). In 1763 he married Eleonore Gräfin Reuss zu Lobenstein, daughter of Heinrich II Graf Reuss zu Lobenstein, an act which ultimately proved to be fatal for him, since he died in 1764 at only 39…

New kids on the block.

Last May, browsing e-bay, I found the following offer for these Heroics&Ros 6mm well-painted and based miniatures:

5 Stands of French Regiment # 21 St. Charmond

5 Stands of French Regiment #119 Royal Deux Points (Awesome Flags on this one)

3 Stands of French Regiment #47 Corp Royal Artillerie

3 Stands of Grenadiers de France

5 Stands of French Artillery

5 Stands of French Horse (2 Red Coats, 2 Blue 1 White)

3 Stands of French Royal Nassau Hussars

2 Stands of French Bercheny (These are OLDER paint jobs...nice but not as impressive as the others)

1 French Army/Corp Commander (Based on Prince de Soubise with actual family crest standard bearer)

9 Stands of Hanoverian Infantry

6 Stands of Heavy Hanoverian Cavalry (Garde du Corp, Grenadiers a Cheval and Zepelin)

5 Stands of Austrian Szechenyi Hussars

2 Stands of Luckner Hussars 

3 Stands of "Experimental" Bases, when I was toying with one base one battalion rule set, 1 base each of 

Austrian Infantry - IR 13 Mercy, Imperial Infantry - Kurmainz Waldstein/Gudenus Regt. - Minucci Bavarian Infantry.

I won the auction and after a couple of week I received the package. Here the content waiting to be mustered in my collection: 

There are enough "rank and file" to muster various regiments. As ever, I need only to add some battalion guns and mounted officers, plus some "odds and sods" to complete my standard of 20 soldiers per regiment plus officers, nco, flags etc…

So, after a long pause, I took again brushes and paints and started to rebasing my purchase.

First of all I looked at the three stand who the previous owner called "experimental". Indeed the whole lot seems to be based for something like "Age of Eagles". These three bases are "battalion-like" and their dimension was close to that of V&B stands.

The Imperial regiment was the Reichsarmee Kurmainz (Waldstein/Gudenus) regiment. It needed only the addition of a battalion gun with three gunners, a mounted officer and a private, since there were only 19 of them. I opted to add a lonely grenadier with its brown austrian type fur hat; I took the flags from here. 

Since I have enough Austrian regiments, I drafted the Austrian Regiment Mercy into another Imperial regiment: I choose the Salzburg Regiment with red facings. This time I had to repaint facings and gaiters (off-white gaiters in place of black) and to fulfill the ranks with three more privates. The usual complement of battalion guns and mounted officer was finally added to bring also this regiment to my "schematis" for V&B full bases regiments.

Since I didn't found the flag anywhere, I drawn them with Apple Works and printed on an ink-jet using the informations given in Pengel& Hurt and a little bit of imagination: indeed those given therein are the only informations available for a regiments which disappeared into the obscurity at the end of XVIIIth century.

Finally, since I have no plans to start with a Bavarian Army, the Regiment Minucci was modified to obtain the Reichsarmee Kurbayern Regiment, formed with 2 battalions from Pechmann (straw facings) and 1 from Holstein (red facings). Here a delightful depiction of a grenadier from the Holstein battalion (source: Gallica)

Again some repainting and filling the voids with a couple of privates and grenadiers. The flags and all the relevant informations were taken straight from Kronoskaf. 

Next post I'll show the result.

Hellana 2012

Back after some very busy times: in the meantime I didn't remained idle anyway: for instance, on April, 1st I went to HELLANA 2012, one of the most important wargaming convention in Italy. The convention is held yearly in the small city of Agliana, close to Pistoia in Tuscany and I have many friends between the members of the local club, the "Gruppo Ludico Aglianese" which organizes the convention.

I spent some time browsing in the "bring and buy" stand and chatting with the fellow wargamers at the demonstration tables. In the end I bought only a book, albeit a rare one:

this book is a very complete and careful account of the whole Lonato-Castiglione campaign based on previously unpublished austrian sources: so bad that of the many planned titles in the Helmet Feldzug Series it remained the only one published. A must for each wargamer interested in the first napoleonic campaign and for everyone who likes the battles at the twilight of the Age of Reason.

Since I was accompained by my 13 y.o. son, I spent the bulk of my tiny budget to buy LOTR miniatures, painted and unpainted, as well as Games Workshop Rules and paints, brushes foliage, static grass and so on…

Here a closer look at some of the games played: the one I liked most was Ramilles 1706 in 6mm by the Club "I Tre Moschettieri" from Florence using the "A la Guerre" rules by the "Luridoteca" from Latina:

two of the French generals, without their whigs:

The battle of Mehr 1758 in 28 mm (Age of Reason rules) by the Wargame Club "Giuseppe Garibaldi" from Genova:

The battle of Punta Stilo (1940) by the BigFire Wargame Club from La Spezia with their rules "Admiral". The models are the Wizard collectable "Axis and Allies-War at Sea" in 1:1850:

Back to the Lace wars with the battle of Aschaffenburg (1743) in 6mm by the"Luridoteca"with their own rules "A la Guerre": 

at the table I met my old friend Luigi, with its very XVIIIth century "silhouette":

and the rule designer Gualtiero in the process of taking a picture of me when I was taking a picture of him: I nailed him!

Among the other games there was a nice 10mm medieval game by the CAWE (Club Amici del Wargame Esagonato=Friends of the hexed war-game) from Bologna (they indeed produce hexes, both raw and textured):

This is an ancient battle staged by the AFBIS of Florence (note the ever-present bald-headed French generals):

Two WW2 games for Rapid Fire (Narwa and Bastogne) and the defense of the Seelowe Heights, 1945 by the "Gruppo Ludico Aglianese":

Finally, an overview  of the convention-hall (a gym indeed) with some stands:

At dinner I had a very nice time with Giuseppe Rava (the one leaning on the table in the top picture), the author of the french Vae Victis magazine cover images and owner of Testudo, in front of a florentine steak and many glasses of Chianti: in the end it was a very nice day spent with some good friends and a lot of nicely-painted minis. Already waiting for the next year convention, were I hope to bring a table for the battle of Torgau with my 6mm!