The War of Spanish Succession... French Gardes Françoises.

Gardes Gardes...


One more unit finished...


Yet another 'spruced up' unit...The French Gardes Françoises.


These were a nice easy job... All I did was...


Put a wash over the flesh... mostly to tone down the eyes a bit
Tidy up some chips and scuffs...
Brighten up the 'metals'...
And paint out the highlights on the black... My own personal foible... I prefer black to be.... black.


They were then re-varnished and re-based... Again to suit my own preferences...


The standards were lifted from the web and tweaked on Photoshop... I think they have come out a bit soft... but they are not to offensive and I quite like the shade of blue...


I am slowly building my confidence with Photoshop and as this project continues I will try and make some more standards... failing that I will buy my daughter lunch and persuade her to do it for me...

Like the Gardes Suisses these chaps seemed to have got around a bit.


1701 Flanders and Brussels.
1702 Nijmegen.
1703 Tongres.
1704 Flanders and Rhine.
1705 Huy and Overische.
1706 Ramillies.
1707 Flanders.
1708 Oudenaarde.
1709 Malplaquet.
1710 Flanders.
1712 Douai and Le Quesnoy.
1713 Rhine, Landau and Freiburg.


Although they may have spent some of that time exchanging fashion ideas...


Of course... not on my watch... It will be battle, blood, disaster and defeat... as usual.


Next up... Bavarians.


The miniatures are Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
Bases from Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=premier-bases-metric


All the best   Aly.

The War of Spanish Succsession... French Gardes Suisses.

Greetings...


Yet another unit finished for this project... This time it is The Gardes Suisses.


This is another spruced up eBay purchase...
I spent a while wondering what to do with this unit as the red colour was a bit to orange for my liking... After some consideration I decided to give the figures a glaze of Evil Sunz Scarlet diluted with acrylic matt varnish... it worked a treat.
I only had to put a wash over the flesh and fussed up the white and silver...

A lovely unit and a must for any War of Spanish Succession collection...
They were fairly active during the war, seeing action at...
Louvain 1701
Eckeren 1703
Rhine 1704
Nodoue 1705
Ramillies 1706
Oudenaarde 1708
Malplaquet 1709
Douai, Le Quesnoy and Bouchain 1712
Landau 1713


They are 24 figures strong... so one of the larger units in my French army.




The miniatures are Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
Bases from Warbases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=premier-bases-metric
The colonels flag is from Maverick Models...
http://www.maverick-models.com/flags.htm
The battalion flag is from the web via Photoshop...


All the best   Aly.

Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers...

I picked up this copy of Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers... Volume 5 Number 2 May 1972... on eBay...


I never actually owned any copies from volume 5... so it was nice to have a read and visit the past.


One article really caught my eye...


An American Civil War Wargame Army For Beginners... by A. Mason.


I have scanned it so that you good readers can hopefully enjoy it as well.

The thing that I love about this article is that the information and advice is in my opinion as relevant now as it was back in 1972...


My basic starting point for an army is 8 infantry units, 2 cavalry units and 2 artillery...


I love the costing up at the end... £2.89 for two whole armies... I wish....


Here are some pictures to increase the nostalgia...

And yes... I am tempted...


All the best  Aly

Wargaming the Sugar Islands Campaign.

Greetings...


Today I took delivery of  this lovely little book by Stuart Insch.

It is a guide to the British Expedition to Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1759... an often overlooked and unknown part of the Seven Years War....


I have only skimmed the book so far ... but I can say that it is well written and nicely laid out...
The contents cover the background, the actions in the campaign and scenarios for Wargaming... These are not tied to any specific rules so you can play them out with whatever system you are used to.


There are also some notes for Wargames... which include a list of suitable manufacturers... and a bibliography.


I am looking forwards to reading this....


The book is available from Stuart..
Here...
http://stuartinschwargames.blogspot.com/2018/11/now-available-wargaming-sugar-islands.html




All the best   Aly

1918-2018

I thought by way of remembrance that I would post this picture of some of my family who served in the great war.


They are all from my fathers side.

The young chap at the front is my grandfather.


All the best.  Aly

The War of Spanish Succession... French Ligondes Cavalry Regiment

Greetings...


I have finished one more unit for this project...


The French Ligondez Cavalry Regiment...

This is another unit that I bought on EBay... I have a few more in the sprucing up pile... I only had to add the standard bearer.


These guys didn't need a lot of work... I repainted the faces and cleaned up the white a bit... then gave them a wash of Aly's Brown Liquid.
Everything was given a highlight... once varnished and the leatherwork was glossed.

I must admit that the main reason that I picked this unit was the 'pale crimson' (pink) standard.


I will be posting a few more spruced up units... and then a unit of Bavarian Infantry I think.


The miniatures are Front Rank...
https://www.frontrank.com/product-category/18th-century/spanish-succession/
 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

Talking about Taking Pictures.

Greetings...


I haven't had much time at the painting table over the last couple of weeks...
But as I was putting up my little photo booth/tent after the recent game in the woods I wondered if it might interest people to see what my little setup looks like...


So here goes...

This is the basic kit that I have...
A Photo Studio Box Lighting Cube Tent...
Mine is made by a company called Zyon... but it is very similar (if not the same as ) this one...


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Camera-Studio-Lighting-Backdrop/dp/B008V645ZG/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1541367678&sr=8-14&keywords=portable+photo+studio+light+box


Two A4 boxes and an A3 printed back drop...

The Lights are stored in pockets attached the rear of the light box...

The assembly is simple... unfold and connect with Velcro strips...
I place the two boxes into the light box... positioned as above.
This takes just couple of minutes to do...

The light box comes with some basic backdrops...

I use an A3 printout of a background that I found on the internet...
A search for Grey backdrops for photography brings up a number of options... and it is a simple case of saving to file and printing out at A3...


https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1T4ACPW_en___GB368&biw=1607&bih=689&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=gGrfW8q-IcSlkwWb0rPQBA&q=grey+backdrops+for+photography&oq=grey+photography+backdrops&gs_l=img.1.0.0i8i30k1.33916.35385.0.38777.5.5.0.0.0.0.178.543.3j2.5.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.5.534...0i7i30k1j0i8i7i30k1.0.TgPFw6UAYvs

The lights are placed pointing at the side of the box rather than at the miniatures themselves...

I have also started adding an angle poise lamp to flood light down from above...

Let there be light...
You can see that even with three light sources everything is nicely defused in the centre of the box.


So ... why the boxes?
First of all ... it allows the backdrop to rest nicely in a gentle curve...
And secondly...

I can rest my phone perfectly to take pictures of individual miniatures...
I have an IPhone...others my differ in height... but I cant imagine there will be that much difference...

This is the original image from the shot above...

This is the shot cropped... using the in phone app...

For unit shots I use my proper grown up camera...

Again the shot as taken above...

And now cropped...using Photoshop


I try not to do anything other than simply crop my pictures.
With practice I have discovered where to place my phone for the close up and the same applies for the unit shot.
Both the phone and the camera have a 10 second timer so it has become a case of click and wait...
In most cases one shot is enough.


I think that the most important thing is to get the setup sorted ...
If you know where the camera/phone should be and you know how the lighting should be the rest is composition ... I keep mine simple... the toy soldiers are the important thing.


I hope that this has been of some use... I don't say that this is the only or the right way to take pictures of your toys... its just my way.


All the best   Aly