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!