Austrian Duke Charles and command Napoleonic 32

 Here are four Foundry command figures and one Eagle or maybe Trent command figure? I got them at the first post covid Salute, which was half empty and something of a disappointment, plus Dave Thomas who stocks Perry metal figures were squashed into a tiny space and was unable to  put out any Napoleonic Austrians, which obviously was all I wanted! I went elsewhere  so we have Foundry's duke Charles and additional staff  mounted on Foundry 's diminutive horses, I've mounted them on some plastic to give them a bit of height, the Eagle commander is a little stiff and his horse seems to have overlong legs but I figure he's good enough. 

I went to Salute on Saturday and enjoyed it, lots of games and lots of retail opportunity which I took advantage of, some more Napoleonic cavalry but also some dark ages, WW2, Italian wars  and some more metal Perry figures from Dave Thomas so all good

Still more Napoleonics on the horizon but more rank and file to make up for all the cavalry and command! I'm  also making good progress on my war of three Kingdoms artillery park, well it is for a game in May which is just around the corner!

All the best 

Iain 

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Pike and shot battle Great Italian wars 51

 Had another Warlord Pike and Shot game using a scenario from One hour Wargaming. The setup was two objectives for Blue             ( John)  a wooded hill and a town with Red   ( me) defending.  John , as the French had six units , I  had four units as the Imperial force. John had a crap French pike block two elite Swiss  pike blocks , a unit of Gendarmes, a unit of crossbow men and an artillery piece even though artillery was almost useless in the previous game. I was more defensive, which was historically accurate! Two colunna of Spanish a block of landsknecht pike and an artillery piece to match John even though I had low expectations of it. John got the first go as the attacker, got a triple move with one of his Swiss units and moved it halfway across the table.

Unfortunately for John that Swiss unit stayed there getting shot by the cannon although being elite yhey were able to shrug off disorder the other Swiss pike block headed in the direction of the landsknechts in the town while the French pike block refused to move. The first Swiss pike block stayed where it was while the second Swiss pike block tried to assault the landsknechts but came up short , the landsknechts in turn charged the Swiss and after a heavy hitting round of combat managed to destroy the Swiss even though they ended up shaken, the landsknechts hung on for a couple of turns before the artillery forced them off the board which as they were shacken meant they were lost. In the meantime the units  of gendarmes and crossbow moved down the flank and the crossbow peppered the corunna although it responded in kind with it's shot. In an effort to get a closer shot at the Swiss with the artillery I managed to roll a blunder which resulted in me facing the opposition artillery the Swiss advanced to attack the Colunna, meanwhile the French pikemen advanced but only into shot range on the right flank, there wasn't many turns left as the Swiss broke the Spanish in the town the French cannon targeted the Spanish on the hill and finally the French pike block broke from being shot and no French could make it across to assault in time so an Imperial victory. 

Great fun , super close and could have gone either way, the gulf between the Swiss and the standard French pike was really shown up, nice to use my Italian wars collection again, hopefully it won't be quite so long before they're out again!

All the best

 Iain 

Royalist cuirassiers War of three Kingdoms 20

 Not a Napoleonic post? A first for a while, we have here a unit of Royalist cuirassiers, I know  that there is no historical record , however I'll use this as a royal lifeguard unit and if I'm being honest, I have an ulterior motive with this unit and that is to use them in the Thirty years war, where I will need lot's more, mmm Polish winged hussars, Ottomans, all far removed from the anglocentric War of three Kingdoms, but for now they can stand in as a Royalist guard unit! 

They're half of a warlord games box of cuirassiers, plastic horses and metal figures with a choice of arms. You get twelve in a box, my units in pike and shot tend to be eight  strong, so rather than discard four ( heaven forfend!) I scrapped together some other figures, enter the unit commander a Foundry general in half armour demoted to leading the unit, lovely characterful figure, the unarmoured trumpeter was easy enough to do with standard warlord plastic parts and the others were made up of adding spare armoured arms to the most armoured of the warlord plastic set. The right arm was easy enough but I had to carve out the left and cut and shunt a spare metal right arm to fit but I  think it worked!

I've got a  game of Pike and Shot , the battle of Brentford coming up soon, so these will be useful for that but what I'm really short of is artillery so I'm working on that.

A variety of ebay purchases ,key rings , novelty items and some battle masters being converted plus a couple of scratch built battle carts for Ravenna in the background, the key ring guns will be battalion type guns with smaller  barrels in case/when I  go Swedish I've also got to prep and paint 42 gunners, mostly old glory, maybe not all at the same time?!

All the best 

Iain 

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Shwarzburg Sonderhausen Napoleonic 31

 Here is the last batch of Confederation of the Rhine troops regiment no 6 the Shwarzburg Sonderhausen battalion . The rank and file  are made up of  plastic Wargames Atlantic Prussian reserve figures with Perry plastic French hussar heads. The command are a Perry plastic Confederate officer with a plastic Victrix  bicorne from the plastic French artillery set, the NCO and flag bearer are plastic Victrix Austrian with Perry hussar heads the drummer is from a batch of metal early Napoleonic or seven years war command figures I got off ebay a while ago to supplement my Austrian and Confederation of the Rhine troops. 

Having looked at these photos I decided to change the flag, I wanted a bigger eagle, who wouldn't?!

There isn't a recorded flag so I've used the states colours and the heraldic emblem to cobble something together, hence the mid post change! I took an over size flag I ended up with , that looked a bit more Elizabethan rather than Stuart in amongst all those English civil war figures I got and rebased and then reduced an Austrian flag down and cut and pasted it. Strictly speaking they should be in double breasted tunics but I  think we're close enough for jazz.

Next up? A non Napoleonic post?!

All the best 

Iain