The Army of Jotun-Erbsten

My wargame buddy, Brent Burnett-Jones had recently mentioned the possibility of taking photos of the army I had painted up for his daughter, Caitlin, about 10 years back. Of course, this army had to belong to some country or another, and so the political circle of the Wholly Romantic Empire and its environs expanded to accommodate the Landgravate of Jotun-Erbsten. It's name suggests that this country was once indeed the mythical land of the Giants (Jotun), but in fact it is an anagram of 'Burnett-Jones'.

The army comprises Napoleonic French (?) infantry of mostly unknown manufacture (probably Revell), though the Garde Jager are Italeri, and the Feldpionierkompanie Airfix Guard pioneers with an ESCI artillery officer. The cavalry are Airfix, as are the artillery.

1st (Leib) Infantry Brigade
General......................... 1 fig
1st Infantry Battalion..........19 figs
2nd Infantry Battalion..........19 figs
8th Fusilier Battalion..........19 figs
The fusilier battalions are differenced by having green coats instead of blue. In each Brigade, the 'middle battalion' is differenced by having white pompoms on their shakos.
The 1st Brigade is differenced by having red cuffs, red drums.




2nd (Landgrafin) Infantry Brigade
General......................... 1 fig
3rd Infantry Battalion..........19 figs
4th Infantry Battalion..........19 figs
9th Fusilier Battalion..........19 figs
Second Brigade is differenced by having light blue cuffs on their coats, and light blue drums.




3rd (Erbprinz) Infantry Brigade
General......................... 1 fig
5th Infantry Battalion..........19 figs
6th Infantry Battalion..........19figs
10th Fusilier Battalion.........19figs
Third Brigade is differenced by having yellow coat cuffs and yellow drums.



Cavalry Brigade
General plus his ADC ............ 2 figs
1st Cavalry (Leibgarde zu Pferd).15 figs
2nd Cavalry......................15 Figs
1st Hussars......................15 figs





Army Troops
7th (La Garde) Jager...........19 figs
1st Feldartilleriekompanie (3 sections (models) and 14 figs
(To be upgraded to 1st and 2nd Feldartilleriekompanie each with 2 sections and 10figs)
1st Feldpionierkompanie........ 7 figs





General Officer Commanding and staff
Marshal-General Count Bernhardt von Schwerin und Kussin
2 ADCs
Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do him justice...



A final overview...


A nice little army, it seems to me, totalling 249 figures including generals and ADCs, designed not only for pick-up battles but also for campaigning...

Thirty Years War figures...

Having over my 30YW stuff yesterday, taking those photos and posting them has led me to thinking about what Imagi-Nation belligerents might be called into existence for some sort of campaign? Probably King and Emperor or something similar.

How about the Imperium of Austeria and the Kingdom of Severia?

Of course, I won't be restricting the numbers to mere 400AP DBR - I reckon for 30YW, 500AP gives better balanced armies anyway, particularly for the Swedish whilst still using the Brigade system.

The fact was, I bought my 30YW armies with an entirely different view, with the army sized pre-determined. It works out at around 900AP of Imperialists and 750AP of Swedes according the the DBR accounting system.

Why the difference? My own rules rather favoured the Swedes - especially their horse - whose units were smaller, but rode in a single rank, and charged. Unless the 12-figure Imperialist horse shot very well, the 9-figure Swedish units more often than not would send their opponents flying. The Imperialist numbers made up for this and led to some very interesting battles.

I still have the battle maps of a series of actions fought under my rules (wish I still had that rule set), including the Battle of Coutras as a 'disguised scenario', and Nordlingen. Although these were played long ago, I wonder if there would be enough interest in a narrative with maps and pictures...?

Keeping the pot simmering...

It's looking like a month of not a lot happening, so I thought I'd just show some pictures of a 30YW project that died some years back (waiting for me to finish them off!). I had just written a one-brain-cell rule set for 30YW/ECW when DBR came out.
DBR proved to be quite popular, I recall playing a lot of Spanish vs Dutch games in the late/mid 1990's with 15mm figures, and experimenting with Ottoman Turks (using Byzantine DBM stand-ins would you believe...?).

But I couldn't make up my mind to re-base my plastics for DBR. I knew what would happen. Sure enough! It was like magic. Almost the moment I switched to DBR format, interest in DBR in Christchurch fell away to nothing. Not that anyone else at the time had 25mm armies? The problem was that the rules had at the time been insufficiently developed before publication - at least, so it was felt at the time. My argument that they were salvageable fell on ears attuned to a different story.

These days, a degree of interest has been revived, but I am perturbed to find that in the interveing 10-12 years, not a lot has changed (not to mention WRG's usual opacity creates the standard stupid arguments).

Now for some more piccies...


The pictures are posed as Swedish Foot attack an Imperial battalion that is supported by a gun battery. Imperial horse gallop to the rescue...
The figures are all from the Revell 30YW range, except for the light horse, which are HaT Mamelukes. They paint up very nicely as Imperial mounted Croats!




What's happening on the Wholly Romantic Empire front?
The following pics show work in progress: almost the entire infantry of Altmark-Uberheim.


In the following picture, all the marching figures have been consolidated into the Electoral Footguards (bearing an astonishing similarity to the Prussian 'Garde' of the 7YW!). Rather larger than my usual 36-figure unit, this has 44 - though I haven't made up my mind whether to have 5x8-figure companies, or 4x10-figure coys.




Not having a permanent set-up, this is a reasonable substitute (my wife bought me the split table/easel for Christmas - the green felt bit is my chessboard upside down...), the upside of which, I can get to watch 'Big Bang Theory' whilst painting the boys...

Electorate of Altmark-Uberheim

A few pics to show the woeful unreadiness of the Elector's Army well into the 3rd decade of the 18th century. Unfortunately, the two Airfix infantry regiments photographed, the Ewige-Blumenkraft leading, with the Muller-Thurgau in echelon have become 'surplus to requirements' since I obtained several years ago a sufficiency of Revell Prussian infantry. Those I have only just begun properly to organise and paint.



Not sure what to do with these fellows. I don't want to repaint them...
That field officer riding ahead of the Muller-Thurgau Regiment is none other than 'Der Alte Blitz' himself, the Elector Draco Spitzensparken. Not a good picture, I fear...


The cavalry will be retained: 2nd Cuirassiers, and the 5th 'von Ruesch' Hussars.



Readers might be wondering how Airfix Waterloo French Cuirassiers acquired their Tricorne hats. Well, among the Airfix AWI 'Washington's Army' there were a whole lot not-really-wargamable figures - dudes carrying the rum ration, two men carrying a wounded fellow to the rear, others lying down on the job, that kind of thing. Fine source of hats. I would like to keep some of the 'rum ration' guys, though, as sappers, possibly lugging barrels full of explosives...

As the Electoral army is supposed to have about 10 infantry units (ranging from the 44-figure Garderegiment to the 19-fig Freijagerkorps zu Fuss), and 6 cavalry there is a lot of leeway to make up...