ALY MORRISON'S "BUTTERFLY" ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF WARGAMES AND TOY SOLDIERS

Tuesday 28 August 2018

The War of Spanish Succession... French Dismounted Dragoons

Greetings...


This is another of my eBay purchases...






As before I spruced them up a bit... gave them a wash of Aly's Brown Liquid and a highlight...


The Coat ... Citadel... Evil Sunz Scarlet.
Facings... Foundry... Lemon 1B plus some Foundry... Ochre 4B.


According to Charles Grants... The Armies and Uniforms of Marlborough's Wars ,this unit is either...
Fontbeausard or Wentigny... but I am not sure about the caps... I may come back to them when I get round to painting the mounted versions.


  







This was a quick and enjoyable unit to do....


The miniatures are as always Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
The paints are Citadel...
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling
And Wargames Foundry
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
Bases from Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=premier-bases-metric


I have now come to the point where I have to order more miniatures... some command and a couple of French units I think...


All the best  Aly.

Tuesday 21 August 2018

The War of Spanish Succession... Holstein-Ploen Infantry Regiment

Greetings...


One more unit finished...Hurrah!


This is another of the units that I picked up on eBay...
As before all I needed to do was add a second standard bearer and do a bit of sprucing up...




Again I had no problem matching up the colours...


The Coat... Citadel... Administratum Grey.
The Facings... Citadel... Evil Sunz Scarlet.
The Belts... Foundry... Moss Light 29C


I painted out the eyes and re-did them in my own style and re-painted the buttons in a shinier silver
They were then given a coat of Aly's Brown Liquid and highlighted with the original shades.


I was very pleased to find out that Holstein-Ploen had grey coats and red facings... they have such a nice flag...








Yet another pleasing unit for this project...


The miniatures are as always Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
The paints are Citadel...
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling

And Wargames Foundry
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
Bases from Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=premier-bases-metric
And last but not least Flags are from Maverick Models...
http://www.maverick-models.com/flags.htm




All the best  Aly

Monday 6 August 2018

The War of Spanish Succession... Osnabruck/Lorraine Leibregiment

Another new unit finished....


These guys started life as an eBay purchase...
They were painted in very neat flat colours so they saved me the time of blocking them in... the only thing that they needed was a second standard bearer... fortunately I had some at hand.






The colours were surprisingly easy to match...


The Coat was... Foundry... Forest Green Shade 26A... with a touch of Foundry Sky Blue Shade 21A and Sky Blue 21.
The Facings were... Citadel... Khorne Red.
The Belts were... Foundry... Moss Light 29C


I painted out the eyes and re-did them in my own style and re-painted the buttons in a brighter gold.
They were given a coat of Aly's Brown Liquid then highlighted...


I had originally intended to use them as Walloon's ... which is what they were sold as... but alas finding information on their standards has not been easy... well in fact I could find none...


Fortunately I found Osnabruck/Lorraine ... Green Coats and Red Facings... I left the hat tape yellow, even though a later uniform... Grey coats with Green facings has the hat tape white... I think the yellow goes better with the green and I like it that way... so sue me.








The standards came from Arnaud Bunel's Vexillologie militaire europeenne.
   http://drapeaux.org/Accueil.htm


The miniatures are as always Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
The paints are Citadel...
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Painting-Modelling
And Wargames Foundry
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/paint
Bases from Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=premier-bases-metric


I am very pleased with this unit... nice and quick and I really like the flags...
I have another three from the same vendor... so hopefully this should speed things along quite nicely.


All the best  Aly



Sunday 5 August 2018

From my side of the table... Action dans la vallée de Platteville... 1870

Greetings...


My lovely daughter came over on Saturday for a game of toy soldiers...
We decided to get the Franco-Prussian collection out and play Action in the Platteville Valley from Donald Featherstone's War Games... Using Black Powder.




This was one of the first wargames books I ever owned and still one of my favourites... I thought it was about time Mharaid was introduced to this scenario...




The table set up ... with sunbeams dancing across the meadows...




The initial deployment... Mharaid... aka...Von Rust took command of the Prussians... to the left of this picture... and I... Malchanceux... took the French...of course.




Rust's advance guard made a dash for the hill...




I blundered...



Throwing a one...




Sends me back off the table... a classic start!




Rust also blundered... but rolled a six...




Which means that her next brigade charges on to the field of battle... sigh!








The rest of the Prussians move forwards...




My beautiful cavalry make a dash for the bridge...




My infantry head towards the field and hopefully on to Platteville...




Our forces move towards each other... even my advanced guard have got onto the field of battle...




My infantry continue there advance... somewhat slower than I would like...


 
As Rust moves forward at a good pace... My Light Infantry/Advance Guard refuse to deploy into open order...


But still manage to inflict the first casualties... Hurrah!



 In her turn Mharaid proved that she too can roll bad dice.... or is she luring me into a false sense of security....


I sadly forgot to take the pictorial evidence ... but this is the aftermath of me stomping all over Rusts light horse...






This is how things looked when we popped out for a bit of lunch at my local...
It doesn't look to bad for the French...



Rust appears to be out of luck as I charge her infantry in the flank... Hurrah!
 


As Rusts centre spreads out... unlike my Advance Guard... my Infantry seem to have problems getting across the field... maybe its the fresh brambles in the hedges or the carrots in the ground they just wont move forward...


As my infantry make like fish in a barrel waiting to be shot...



My beautiful cavalry give some of Rusts infantry a good kicking... I like my beautiful cavalry.
Alas in the background you can just see my Advance Guard buggering off for good... sigh!



I new it was going to well... my Chasseur d'Afrique Blunder their way back to the bridge...


This is the dice roll for my men in the field firing... the black dice is of course Mharaid's save for the only hit I got...


This is Mharaid's return fire in her move...


Ha!... Saved them all...


And again...


Ha! I say Ha!

Unfortunately this is as good as it gets...


 
My men stubbornly refuse to charge or even advance forward towards the enemy...
I failed all of my activation rolls... I had no intention of retiring voluntarily... where would the fun be in that!
Mharaid continued to roll high and shot all those fish that I had so kindly put in a barrel for her...

Another victory for my daughter and another excellent day in her company... which is really what it is all about...

Till the next time...


I can always dream of my beautiful cavalry doing glorious deeds...

All the best  Aly