Early Christmas...

This year Christmas has come early in the shape of my War of the Spanish Succession army: specifically. 6 boxes pf cavalry.  Nearly 3 years ago I began this project, when the Wargames Factory came out with its War of the Spanish Succession range - Infantry.  Of course I took the 7-box deal.

Thirty-six figures the box, that gave me 7 regiments, totalling 252 foot.   Then I piggy-backed an order for 2 artilley boxes which I have made up into a 2-gun battery of 8-pr and another of 12-pr guns.  Each has a crew of 4, and there were 4 mounted officers (Generals) as well - 2 per box.   And yesterday arrived  6 boxes of Horse, 12 figures the box.  I had planned on the 7-box deal again, but these I got from Australia (War and Peace Games) which had 3-box deals going. That's fine: 3 cavalry regiments at 24 figures apiece.  I'd rather the units were a bit larger than half the infantry size.

The army is to be based very closely upon the Austro-Hungarian Imperialist Army of 1704-21. At present thinking, the three Horsed regiments will comprise two Cuirassier regiments uniformed with the 'lobster' helmet as pictured to the left, and one Dragoon regiment selected from the uniforms below.  I may go for the lemon yellow and black guys, who should look sufficiently striking!

 Given the limited range, I guess it should not be surprising that the Cavalry boxes don't include hussars like those below, though there is available headgear other than the tricorne and lobster helmets.  Had I included hussars, there would have been 4 regiments of 18 rather than 3 of 24...

 One of the attractions of the Imperialist Army is that it had yet to settle firmly upon the light grey or white uniform coats that were later such a distinguishing feature of its line Infantry.  Of the six line infantry units, I'm thinking of two blue coats (Brandenberg-Bayreauth and Buel-Reed), one green coat (Osnabruck), two grey coats (Koenigsegg and De Wendt) and one white coat (von Diesbach). That leaves the Grenadier unit.  I'll probably take historical licence here and do the whole 36-figure unit as the Neipperg Regiment (grey coats) but in bear skins.

What I like about this army is its formality and simplicity.  No messing about with light troops!

Meanwhile, I'm still working on finishing off my plastic Napoleonic Prussian Army.  I've finally glued together the Italieri Hussars (rather peculiar looking figures, really, but I'm hoping the mass effect with mitigate this a bit...), ...

... and a dozen HaT dragoons.  The total army will comprise something like 9 battalions of foot, 4 horsed regiments (1 each of cuirassiers, dragoons, hussars and Uhlans), and 4 or 6 cannon.









Meantime, the recent purchase of WSS cavalry will come at a price.  I promised to paint the kitchen...