Dilettante

War of the Spanish Succession, work in progress:
 Two  Imperialist36-figure infantry regiments 

Yep: once more my sadly neglected blog-spot has been left idle while I do other things.  As ever, I have also allowed myself to drift from one topic to another.  About three weeks ago I bethought myself to do something about all those War of the Spanish Succession figures I started buying about 5 years back.  All the figures are hard plastic, Wargames Factory.

Five of my infantry units, all undercoated, and 3 of my
four cannon. Some further progress on the Alt Heisier (white)
 and de Wendt (grey) Infantry.

 Nearly all of them had been assembled by this time; just one infantry regiment remained.  What I have now are
4 General Officer/Staff figures;
4 Cannon each with 4 crew figures;
6 x 36-figure line infantry regiments;
1 x 36-figure grenadier 'regiment';
2 x 24-figure cavalry regiments;
1 x 24-figure dragoon regiment.

Same box: different view.

 The infantry regiments I designed such that they can be split easily into 18-figure battalions.
I Battalion: Officer with sword, flag, drummer, 15 soldiers
II Battalion:  Officer with spontoon or half-pike, other flag, other drummer, 15 more soldiers.

The Grenadier 'Regiment' is a decision I somewhat regret, but it is too late now.  Better might have been to make 4 figures in each of the 7 regiments grenadiers, which could have been 'syphoned' off to form a 28-figure over-strength battalion; leaving 32-figure regiments each of 16-figure battalions.

I had originally intended to base the infantry on 15mm frontage per figure, in pairs, with some individuals.  However, I was persuaded to place them on 20mm frontages instead.  That did mean redoing one unit.  Fortunately it was just the one unit!

Close up of de Wendt Infantry.  Quite a bit of work
yet to be done, but they are starting to look like something.

The Army is based, more or less, on the Imperialists of Prince Eugene of Savoy.  I have had to make some uniform guesses, and the grenadier unit will have to be 'generic' - they'll probably receive grey or maybe white uniform coats.  The Military Commission is as yet undecided about that.  The units depicted are those for which I could provide a flag from downloadable sources.  Rather regrettably, the units with which I could associate  three pairs of flags all had grey coats, and two had pink differencing: Regiment de Wendt and Regiment Holstein-Ploen. The other was the Kreichbaum Infantry.

A page of the uniform information I
managed to pick up on line.

Downloaded flags after I have played around with them using
Microsoft 'Paint' feature - a very useful tool.  The quartered flag at
bottom left I created for the Brandenburg-Bayreuth Infantry
based on other information.

Alt Heisier Infantry.  Almost finished...

The fourth pair of flags - the top left and middle in the above picture - I could not associate with a line infantry unit, but rather than waste them, the Grenadiers will receive them.  I call it historic licence. Another source seemed to indicate that one of the flags carried by the blue-coated Brandenburg-Bayreuth Infantry was quartered azure and gules.  It seemed to me a fairly simple task to copy one of the plain flags, quarter it and fill colours.  The fill is by no means homogeneous except for a band along the upper edge, but I don't reckon on doing anything about that.  More annoying is that the pale lemon colour of the 'plain' flags printed out white.  I'll probably leave them that way...

Holstein Ploen Infantry.  Last night I did some outlining of |
details.  Some of these fellows are wanting their swords, too.

In a recent visit, Jacko (Paul Jackson of the Painting Little Soldiers blog) had something to say about the bright green coats of the Osnabruck Infantry.  I admit that this outfit has a certain ... erm ... chromatic 'presence'.  But on a war games table, a green-coated unit needs to stand out!  Jacko was generous enough to provide me with the spray paint with which to undercoat the units that missed out when my own ran out.

Osnabruck Infantry.  The 'reversed' uniforms of the drummers is
entirely conjectural.  

The red coats of the drummers was entirely conjectural, and a convention I have generally ignored in my other 'Horse and Musket' armies.  I've not been consistent, neither.  In contemplating the musicians of Holstein in pink coats, I could scarce repress a shudder.  The grey guys stay grey.

Next time, I'll talk about the Cavalry.