New Prussian Jager

Readers of some of my earlier posts will know painting is not my favourite part of the hobby. Nevertheless, progress is occasionally made, and I have been able to add these Prussian jager to my Seven Years War collection recently.

The figures are, of course, RSM95s (what else?). I decided to create a composite battalion of four stands, for a bit of variety. The two stands on the left are from the Feldjager-Corps zu Fuss, what you might call the 'normal' Prussian jager. The other two stands are from the jager detachment of Frei-Corps Le Noble. These latter stands use the 'Austrian Jager Advancing' figure from RSM, with the hat plume removed, plus a standard officer figure. All painted mostly in Humbrol enamels with the odd acrilic colour for the detail areas, then finished with a coat of acrylic matt varnish.

I intend to give these chaps their first outing in my next game, which will be a refight of the Grant/Asquith scenario 'Encirclement or Breakout', from their book Scenarios For All Ages. With luck a report of the action should form my next post. Bet you can't wait!

First Battle of Mechilli - The Refight

And so, under the light of a blazing desert sun (or rather under the light of a blazing high wattage bulb), the refight commences. By a strange coincidence, it is 68 years almost to the day since the actual battle. See the previous post on this blog for details of situation and forces. I'll describe the refight by using captioned photos.

A reminder of the set-up. Palm trees added from solo run to give a real
desert flavour! Italian baseline to left, British baseline to right.

Deployment of 42nd Artillery Regt. in and around Mechilli. IIIrd Medium Tank Battalion, deployed on Ras el Mechilli, can be seen on the left. The light tanks were deployed west of Mechilli, just off the bottom left of the photo. The Italians were commanded by myself.

The British were commanded by Paul James. Foolishly, I mentioned in the previous post about this battle that the tracks were really only there for visual effect. Paul rather disagreed with that and decided to attack down the track in column! This is the end of move 1. As there was only one British artillery unit (just 3 attacks in BKC) there was not much chance of inflicting significant damage with the artillery, so Paul decided that using smoke might be more useful. The British FAO is seen on the hill in the foreground.

Paul didn't get as many orders in as he had hoped during the first 3 moves, but he managed to deploy his light tanks off the track on the Mechilli side of the Wadi el Ramla. Unfortunately the Italians then took the initiative and in move 3 managed to knock out 4 MkVI tanks. The light L3s have moved up to support the infantry in Mechilli.

On move 4 the Hussars pulled back, after first knocking out the 47mm ATG guarding the track at Mechilli. The artillery covered their withdrawal by plastering the Italian M13s with smoke.

A reduced 7th Hussars (with their attached portees) consider their next move.

Overview later during move 4. 2nd RTR have arrived, and Paul is determined to continue with the use of the Mechilli track as his main axis. The 11th Hussars have used flank deployment and are approaching Mechilli in the left of the picture. On the Italian baseline, their reinforcements have also arrived, but failed command rolls are preventing their effective advance. Bersaglieri can be seen on the left, medium tanks on the right. The 75mm battery is behind the crest of the Ras el Mechilli.

Move 4 and 11th Hussars arrive on the Italian right flank. Discerning readers will note that 2 of these Rolls Royces have had a quick conversion job to give them an open topped turret with anti-tank rifle. This gives them some fighting power against Italian tankettes and armoured cars.

Closer view of the Italian right flank. The Italian command rolls are only intermittently successful, and the orders to face the new threat are so far not forthcoming.

End of move 4. The smoke has been taken away. The Bersaglieri and the 75mm guns of the 12th Artillery Regt have managed to make a move forward from their deployment area.

Move 5. 2nd RTR have got in a number of orders and have pushed down the track past Mechilli, distributing fire all around as they go. Smoke again covers their right flank. With suporting fire from 7th Hussars they have taken on IIIrd Medium Tank Battalion decisively, knocking out three and pushing back the fourth. 11th Hussars have managed to knock out the Italian 20mm AA gun on their side of Mechilli.
The Italians in Mechilli are reacting with some return fire - one of the MkVIs in the column has been suppressed, and will be knocked out next move. The British tanks are now head to head with the Bersaglieri, who are desperately trying to clear the line of fire of their anti-tank gun and bring it into action. Behind the smoke, the strong V Tank Battalion have finally passed a command roll and are heading over to counter the British tanks. Any thoughts they had of advancing across the Wadi el Ramla have been abandoned.

A9 and portees of 7th Hussars providing supporting fire for 2nd RTR, as the game moves into its final phase.

Move 6. 2nd RTR abandon the track and send the A13s of 'A' Squadron across the rough ground to face the advancing Italian tanks of Vth Battalion. The rest of the regiment is off hunting L3s around Mechilli, and 2 of the Italian light tanks have already been destroyed. A solitary A9 is left to face the Bersaglieri. An attempt to mask the Bersaglieri with smoke is only partly sucessful - you can see the 47mm gun has scored 2 hits on the A9. 7th Hussars are back in the game (with a run of 4 successful command rolls) - the A9 and portees move forward to assist against the Italian mediums, whilst their light tanks have got in amongst the Italian 75mm battery. This latter unit has suffered from failed command rolls and has not even managed to deploy properly. It has been forced to do so by the destruction of its transport, and the command unit has been overrun and forced to join one of the gun sections. The initiative is now very much with the British, with the Italians on the back foot. However, the Italian infantry in Mechilli continue to fight back and claim a MkVI on the main track, as well as 2 of the Rolls Royces from 11th Hussars (foreground).

Another view of move 6, concentrating on the Ras el Mechilli area.

Move 7. Holy double Jerboah! The only double one (command bonus) to occur in the game. 11th Hussars, having lost 2 armoured cars to the anti-tank rifles of the Italians at Mechilli, pull back the surviving car which now tries to infiltrate in behind the Bersaglieri.

Overview of move 7, the last of the game. There is fierce fighting on the Ras el Mechilli, the British losing a MkVI to opportunity fire whilst the Italians lose the leading M13, plus another suppressed. However, the decisive action takes place in Mechilli. In the British phase, the last L3s are destroyed and the 'Defence of Mechilli' rule comes into force before the Italian phase commences. Unfortunately there are 6 British AFVs within 10cm, so 6 dice are rolled and all the surviving Italian units fall back more than 10cm and are destroyed. This takes Italian losses to 17 units, 3 over their breakpoint. They must try to score 5 or less to carry on, but predictably they fail and so the British win. British losses were 8 units (all AFVs). They have achieved one of their minor objectives by capturing Mechilli and so claim a minor victory.
The Italians must abandon the area.

Wash Up.
A good game, which took three hours to play. The scenario fulfils a number of the conditions mentioned by Bob Mackenzie in his blog article - most importantly, although an attack/defence game, the defence is a mobile one and there are many decisions to make on both sides. Both players had plenty of opportunity to move lead and roll dice. I congratulate Paul - his determination to push up that track, and keep pushing until he was right in amongst the Italians paid off in the end.

Myself on left, Paul James on right. I think our next scenario will be Seven Years War, so watch this space.

Action at Mechilli, January 24th 1941

I always find historical scenarios fun and satisfying to play. The problem is finding the information you need for a historical re-fight, and having the right miniatures available. Hence, the 12 ready made scenarios in Benghazi Handicap, by Frank Chadwick, are of great interest if, like me, you wargame the Western Desert campaign. The scenarios are well worked out with detailed forces and generally cover small actions or smallish parts of bigger battles, which means the forces involved are of a reasonable size, and are easy to field if you already wargame the period. They are designed to go with the Command Decision - Test of Battle rules, but these use the same basic level of play (one figure base or vehicle = one platoon) as the set I use, Blitzkrieg Commander. With this in mind, I expected the adaption to BKC to be straightforward, and was keen to try out some of the actions described. For my first re-fight, I chose scenario 3, 'First Batlle of Mechilli'. I had two sources of my own to refer to for this battle, Barrie Pitt's Wavells Offensive and Ian Walker's Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts. Reading them gave me confidence that Frank had the overall feel of the action correct.

Deciding the basic opposing forces was indeed easy enough, and they are shown below. Terrain needed a bit more thought, but not too much more. With 6mm miniatures, I thought the battle could be set successfully on a 4' x 4' table, and this seemed to work out OK. The wadis were an obvious problem; rather than gouge out the appropriate furrows in my TSS tiles, I cut out some shapes from light brown felt which could be placed in the right position. There were gaps between the shapes which allowed the passage of troops, in line with Frank's concept of 'broken banks'. They could have some scenic scatter on top to improve their appearance.

The main problem was understanding scenario concepts like deployment, objectives and victory conditions from a rule set I didn't have, and which consequently I didn't fully appreciate. Thanks to the guys on the CD - TOB forum for sorting out a few basic points. It was, of course, important to get these things right. Setting up the opposing forces on the terrain and having at it wouldn't replicate the historical action. Units need to be deployed correctly in time and space and have the right objectives.

Getting all this sorted took a week or so of part-time thought and tinkering (I don't have the quickest brain in the world for this sort of thing), and culminated in a solo run through to see if the scenario worked. As I thought, it turned out to be an uphill struggle for the Brits, and a bit of further tinkering was needed. Readers will see the forces and set up below, but basically the Italians out-gun the British, and this needs to be balanced by reflecting the greater training and battle skills that the British had. To do this, I raised the Command Values of the British formations above their normal level to give them a really significant advantage in issuing orders for movement and firing.

One or two minor compromises in equipment were needed to cater for models which I didn't have (like the SP 75mm gun and FIAT armoured cars of the Italians). I also 'lost' one of the Italian 47mm anti-tank guns, partly because I only had 2 models and partly to reduce the Italian firepower advantage slightly. I don't want this to be an essay on BKC, but some further points might be of interest to those familiar with these rules. Firstly, of course, it is necessary to use the 'Fixed Formations' optional rule for a historical re-fight. Secondly, the 'Brigade Troops' from the original Benghazi Handicap scenario were mixed down into the formations, so that the battlegroup CO commanded the most important formation on each side and any Brigade level units were attached to formations as I saw fit. Also, the special rule for the defence of Mechilli had to be adapted for BKC, as did the rules for actually capturing a BUA (in the absence of any infantry on the British side). Finally, Ian Walker's book gave me a finish time for the original action of 1330 (a time not provided in Mr Chadwick's book). This would give a game length of 11 turns in BKC (up to 30 minutes a turn). With the modest forces involved, I felt it unlikely the game would ever get to that number of turns. As there was also plenty of daylight left when the original battle ended, there seemed no point in setting a turn limit. In the end, the scenario and forces using Blitzkrieg Commander came out like this:

Mechilli

‘Benghazi Handicap’ scenario adapted for BKC. Table size 4’ x 4’

British

Initial Troops: Advanced Guard, 4th Armoured Brigade:

7th Hussars + D Battery, 3rd RHA: HQ (CV9), 7xMkVI, 1xA9, 2x2pdr portee

F Battery, 4th RHA: FAO (CV8), 1x25pdr unit (off table), 3 assets

Reinforcements: Main Body, 4th Armoured Brigade:

2nd RTR: CO (CV9), 3xMkVI, 3xA13, 2xA9, 1xA10, 1xRR a/c (ATR, recce)

B Squadron, 11th Hussars: HQ (CV9), 1xRR a/c (mg), 2xRR a/c (ATR)

25% - 6 units; 50% & Breakpoint - 12 units; Points - 1050

Initial troops deploy up to 10cm from baseline. Reinforcements deploy in same way on move 4 (command phase). 11th Hussars may use flank deployment in first two thirds of table, but on the left flank only.


Italians

Initial Troops: Elements of 80th Sabratha Division + Advanced Guard, Special Armoured Brigade:

III Battalion, 42nd Artillery Regt: HQ (CV7), 3xinfantry units, 1xmortar unit, 1x47mm ATG + tow, 1x20mm AA + tow

III Medium Tank Battalion: HQ (CV7), 4x M13/40

LX Light Tank Battalion: HQ (CV7), 4 L3/35

Reinforcements: Main Body, Special Armoured Brigade:

V Medium Tank Battalion: CO (CV8), 6xM13/40, 1xAB40 (recce)

Bersaglieri Motorcycle Company (+): HQ (CV7), 2xm/c units, 1xm/c unit (mmg), 1x47mm ATG + tow

II Battalion, 12th Artillery Regt: FAO/HQ (CV7), 2x75mm gun units + tows (on table)

Initial Troops: 42nd Artillery deploy in Mechilli or within 10cm of the BUA. May be dug in. Other formations deploy anywhere up to 25cm from baseline. Reinforcements arrive on move 3 (command phase) and deploy up to 10cm from baseline. No flank deployment allowed.

25% - 7; 50% & Breakpoint - 14; Points - 1030


Other Game Conditions.
Initial troops deployment: Deploy opposing formations one at a time, Italians first. British play first.
Defence of Mechilli special rule: If at the end of any turn there are unsuppressed British AFVs within 10cm of Mechilli, but no unsuppressed Italian AFVs within the same radius, each Italian unit in or within 10cm of Mechilli dices for fallback. Throw 1 dice for each British unsuppressed AFV within the radius.
Capturing Mechilli: the British have no infantry, so to capture Mechilli there must be no Italian units within the BUA, and more unsuppressed British units than unsuppressed Italian units within 10cm of Mechilli
Terrain: Wadis are impassable except at gaps. Rough ground counts as dense terrain to all vehicle units.
Victory conditions: No turn limit. Italian minor objective is to have 25% of their units on the far side of the Wadi el Ramla. Major objective is to have 50% of their units on the far side of the wadi.
British minor objectives are to capture Mechilli and to exit 25% of units off Italian baseline. Major objective is to exit 50% of units off Italian baseline. Achieving both minor objectives counts as achieving a major objective.
Breaking your opponent’s battlegroup will end the game, but you will only win if you have achieved at least one of your objectives.
Combined HQ/FAO: command unit may act as one or the other using normal rules, but may not act as both in the same turn.
Special Rules: Units of Italian III Battalion, 42nd Artillery are counted as 'fragile' and 'reluctant'.


Finally, a picture of the terrain as used for the solo run-through. Owners of the Benghazi Handicap book will see I have simplified the pattern of tracks, but they are really only there for visual effect. Italian baseline to left, British baseline to right. The Wadi el Ramla runs from centre top to bottom right. Mechilli is at the junction of the tracks. The hill near the Italian baseline was called the Ras el Mechilli. The scenic scatter made of tiny stones represents areas of rough ground. TSS tiles and hills, felt tracks and wadis, GHQ buildings.

Watch this space for the full refight of the scenario. Battle takes place Friday 23rd January.

The Joy of Scenarios

I recently returned to some WW2 wargaming, after several months spent pretty much exclusively in building up and using my new SYW collection. The return took the form of a Polish - German battle set in 1939, and for an easy re-introduction to the rules I made it a straightforward attack-defence game with limited forces. As usual with games against my most common opponent, Paul James, it was an enjoyable evening and a pleasant game (I provide the set-up, Paul provides the booze, which seems a fair division of labour).

Nevertheless, there was a certain air of predictability about the game - the Germans came on towards the objective, and the Poles mostly stayed in place and shot back at them. Of course, the attack-defence battle is probably the type of battle most common in real life, at least in this period, and I have played very many of them. But this recent game reminded me how easy it is to get stuck in something of a rut, scenario-wise. With the modern period we have the classic attack-defence scenario, with earlier periods the equally classic encounter scenario, where both sides set up opposite each other in roughly equal numbers then advance to contact.

The classic source for the latter experience was (and is) the world of the Wargames Research Group, particularly the various editions of the old Ancients rules and more recently the DBX group of rules. There were rules for flank marches in these sets but in my (limited) experience they were rarely used. It was a case of setting up opposite your opponent and setting to, almost every time. I think the extensive use of these rules in competition games served to emphasise the trend. However, I shouldn't give WRG all the blame. This is how most wargamers seem to set up most of their battles most of the time: line 'em up and fight' em. Many would argue that this was how battles were in most historical periods. Sometimes I wonder if the actual situations were quite so cut and dried. I was influenced in particular by Angus Konstam's Osprey book on the Battle of Pavia. The battle had always been depicted in the usual linear 'set up opposite each other' style, but Angus did the research and came up with a much more convincing scenario which explained the course of the battle well. This had units and formations encountering each other in 2 or 3 different locations, and from different directions. One doesn't have to read much military history to conclude how confused and unexpected many battle situations are.

Of course, the rather unimaginative set-ups described above are still technically 'scenarios'. But most wargamers would understand the term to mean a variety of imaginative set-ups that provide rather more varied and interesting games. Further to my point above about Pavia, when the appropriate research is done, historical encounters often provide for scenarios that lead to unusual and surprising set-ups, with (for example) baselines that are not always opposite each other, reinforcements that arrive at odd times, initial deployments which take place all over the table, and unevenly matched forces. Armies find themselves attacked from the rear, or both sides, or surprised in various ways. And these types of situations can be reproduced in fictional scenarios as well.

The king of the latter is of course Charles Grant, or rather Charles Grant, then his son C.S. Grant. Their 'Table Top Teasers' are well known to most wargamers, from old copies of Battle or Military Modelling, to the current Battlegames. C.S. Grant and Stuart Asquith have also produced a couple of books consisting of around 50 scenarios each to tempt the wargamer. The more recent of these, Scenarios For All Ages, I have recently been using to pep up my SYW gaming. The books in particular are a testimony to how, with a bit of imagination, each of your games can be very different from the last. If I have one criticism, it is that most Grant scenarios are written for the horse and musket period. There is usually a sentence stating that the scenario can be easily adapted to a number of periods - but somehow that easy adaption is never taken up by the author. A Battlegames Table Top Teaser set in Ancient times, or WW2, would be a real treat.

Two photos from a recent refight of Charles Grant's
Teaser 'Advance Guard', from 1978.
These old scenarios can be downloaded from
Steve-the-wargamers blog, on my Favourite Links

Apart from simply making games more interesting, varied scenarios are useful for testing out whatever rules you are using, and furthering your understanding of them. Can your rules cope with unusual situations? Do you need to develope better conventions for deployment? If you always play the same kind of game, your rules will not get the workout they need for you to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses fully. The better sort of rules these days will also come with deployment options to provide for a number of scenarios. My current WW2 set, Blitzkrieg Commander, is a case in point. Fifteen different scenarios are provided as part of the rules, giving deployment conditions, force ratios, game lengths and victory conditions.

Finding good scenarios based on real battles is more difficult than getting hold of fictional ones specifically designed to give varied games. Doing your own research and developing your own reality-based scenarios is the answer, even if obtaining the right amount of detail for actual actions can often be difficult. What's interesting from my point of view is that when you do develop a scenario from details of a real battle, one often finds (as already mentioned) that the resulting set up is much more unusual than the attack/defence or balanced encounter which forms the basis of so many wargames battles. I was particularly pleased recently to obtain a copy of the book Benghazi Handicap by Frank Chadwick. This is designed to support the Command Decision - Test of Battle rules, but the level of research and presentation is so high it is an outstanding source for the early Desert War (to the end of 1941), regardless of which set of rules you use. It contains 12 scenarios at the end of the book, all eminently gameable without having to acquire large armies. Indeed, using my 1/285th scale miniatures, it seems the 6' x 6' tables suggested for most of the games might be reduced to 4' x 4' in many cases, giving scenarios that are realistic but also ridiculously easy to set up. I have decided to try the Battle of Mechilli scenario first, and will be posting the re-fight soon.

Unfortunately, time is often limited when setting up one's games, and this can be particularly true in a club environment when a quick pick-up game is played. This restricts the amount of thought that can go into the scenario. The answer of course is forward planning, but on the other hand this is a drawback of the more involved scenario - it needs to be thought about in advance, and all the right terrain and the right forces need to be available. Nevertheless, the effort is almost always worth making. It can bring a whole new level of enjoyment to your wargaming.

Happy Gaming!

Post Script

Anyone interested in this subject should take a look at Bob Mackenzie's website: the link to Bob's site is included in My Favourites. On Bob's homepage, go to Wargames and then Scenario Design. An interesting and well written article awaits you.

A baby for my armoured train

When I changed from 20mm to 15mm for my WW2 gaming, I also wanted a new period to play. So I went from late war to early war, and decided to make it as early war as possible - i.e. the 1939 Polish campaign. Besides giving me a whole new era to research, the campaign had the interest of whole new categories of kit. There was cavalry, main battle tanks with the armour and gun power of late war armoured cars, things called tankettes, whole battalions of motorcycles, and armoured trains.

My armoured train was a late addition to my Polish collection. After considering scratch building (or rather, having someone else scratch build one for me), I went for the simple option and purchased the Peter Pig armoured train, intended for the Russian Civil War. This is not quite correct for 1939 Polish trains, but artillery cars captured from the Russians were used by the Poles in 1939, so it is quite close. I have 2 artillery cars with a loco and tender, as can be seen in the photo. There should also be an 'assault car', basically an armoured troop carrying wagon, but PP don't do one. In fact, this is an advantage as the train is quite long enough on the table as it is. I allow the train to deploy some infantry, but basically just imagine the assault car. The train is fun to have on table, but wargaming experience indicates it is not particularly effective as a fighting unit, being rather vulnerable. But it looks quite good and always creates interest from gamers who haven't seen one before.

However, to get to the point, whilst checking the Armaments in Miniature site recently I noticed they had a new model available - a Tatra T-18 armoured draisine. This is basically a small armoured car designed to run only on rails. They were, of course, a Czech design but the Poles bought 15, 4 of which seem to have seen service in 1939. Two were attached to each of 2 Polish armoured trains, as scout/recce vehicles. Armour was 5-8mm, armament 2 Maxim machine guns and crew 3.

This was one of those wargames purchases which is really just for show, and for the hell of it. If my armoured train was a bit of a white elephant in fighting terms, this little rail car would probably be about the most ineffective armoured unit I had ever possessed - restricted to the rails, machine guns only, paper thin armour. But, of course, I had to have one, to represent the 'platoon' of 2 vehicles used by the Poles.

Armaments in Miniature are a 'one man band' operation who nevertheless produce resin castings of a very high standard. I have a couple of their 15mm aircraft and they are gems. I was not disappointed by the Tatra when it arrived. The model is only 35mm long, but detail is good and the casting clear of any bubbles or flash. Even the detail parts like headlights and machine guns are resin, and they also are beautifully done. About the only fault is a bit of a mould line around the turret.


'Work bench' shots seem to be the thing on all the best wargaming blogs, so I thought it only right that I should join the trend. Unfortunately, I don't have a work bench, only the dining room table! Finally, a picture of the finished article in company with the armoured train.


Those interested in more background should refer to the 'PIBWL Military Site', which is the online source for info about Polish armour in general and Polish armoured trains in particular. Well worth a visit.

'Practical Wargaming'

I have just acquired (temporarily) a copy of Wesencraft's 1974 book, courtesy of my local library. This really is a genuine classic, with a set of well worked out but basically simple rules covering a number of periods, along with some great photos and some rather nostalgic stuff on terrain from the days when making one's own was often a real necessity. I have not had this book in my hands for many years (perhaps as many as 20), and I had forgotten how influential on my own gaming it has been.

I could hardly better this quote from the introduction as summing up my present philosophy of miniatures wargaming:

'I have always thought that a game played with easily understood rules that gave a result, played within a broad outline of a particular period, that gave enjoyment to both the winner and his unfortunate opponent, was to be preferred...' (p.8).

Of particular interest is that phrase 'that gave a result'. I particularly like rules that have the winning/losing conditions built in, rather than just suggesting that the result will usually be obvious after a few moves, or that you should spend half the evening totting up points to decide a winner. Built-in victory conditions commonly involves games based around a series of set scenarios, or an army morale system which results in one side clearly collapsing after a reasonable number of moves. Even simpler is the basic rule that when you have lost (say) half your units, you have lost the game. Such rules produce games with a beginning, middle and an end (like chess). First there is a jockeying for position, then the main fight commences, then as casualties mount careful decisions have to made about risk versus conserving one's forces, as each side (or one side) approaches its breaking point. How often have you had games that just petered out in an inconclusive draw, or resulted in some vague discussion about what might have happened if only a couple more hours were available?

The one major blind spot in the book is it's refusal to consider 'modern' (basically 20th century) wargames. Wesencraft's remarks here are rather inexplicable, especially considering that WW2 games were a common feature of gaming from the start. One need only consider the example of the Lionel Tarr rules and the famous 'Tank and Infantry Action on the St. James Road' from the book Wargames. But Wesencraft is insistent:

'With the coming of modern warfare, millions of men are involved and all scale is lost. Either one figure represents thousands of men, one tank dozens of squadrons, or one is forced to go back almost to square one and fight tiny local actions at company strength [...] personally, I do not believe it is possible to scale down on to a table 4 x 8 ft a modern battle...' (p. 15)

It seems the author's considerable ingenuity and inventiveness deserted him when it came to the end of the 19th century.

Revisiting these old wargames books (buying when I can afford to, borrowing when I can't) has a been a particular pleasure over this last year. My only problem is that at some stage the supply of old classics will dry up!

New Grenadiers

Painting is my least favourite part of the hobby. I quite enjoy it on a limited scale, producing a modest number of vehicles or figures, but when it comes to the task of creating enough units for a whole army, I tend to get a bit depressed at the prospect. In fact, my habit in recent years has been to sell off one army and use the money to purchase painted units to form the basis of a new project. Fortunately, I am not a 'butterfly' wargamer, and have a very limited number of projects on which to concentrate. As a result, this process has only had to happen twice in the last 4-5 years.

My SYW armies had a solid start with the painted RSM95 figures provided by the Dayton Painting Consortium. Now I have had to bite the bullet and start creating new units to expand the forces to the size I want. My main project through July, August and early September was the painting of 4 grenadier units, 2 Austrian and 2 Prussian. I was painting at the rate of about 8 figures a week, or 2 sixteen figure units a month, plus the inevitable delays for holidays etc. I copied the style of the figures I already had: that is, block painting to create a definite 'toy soldier' feel. I have taken some close up photos, so you can see my painting style (such as it is) warts and all. I can only say that the results please me, and look quite good enough at wargames ranges, though I'll admit that close up they're hardly collectors standard! I'm afraid I have little pretension towards improvement - my current standard is quite satisfactory for my purposes. So let's see what I have produced...

This is Grenadier Regiment Wedel, formed from grenadiers of IR1 (left) and IR23 (right). I picked on this unit as I already had IR1 as one of my line regiments. My standard line units are usually 5 bases of 4 figures, so 4 bases seemed appropriate for the Prussian grenadier battalions, which were usually smaller than the line units.

The second unit I chose was battalion Kremzow, formed from the grenadiers of IR17 (left) and IR22 (right). The main factors in choosing this unit were the different uniform details, allowing easy identification between the 2 grenadier units, and the fact that it was involved in the crucial battles of Rossbach, Leuthen and Zorndorf.

Information on the composition of Austrian grenadier units is much rarer, as they were more ephemeral in character than those of Prussia, being formed only as temporary formations during the course of a campaign or part of a campaign. The only unit I found definite information on was this one, the Soro grenadier battalion formed for the battle of Kolin from 2 companies each of grenadiers from the Deutchmeister (left) and Botta (right) regiments. Once again, that seemed to call for 2 bases from each battalion. Thanks to the gentlemen on the Yahoo SYW group who offered the information on this unit. Other Austrian grenadier units are sometimes named, but details of the constituent regiments are almost always missing. Therefore, for my last unit I decided on a fictional battalion, and as the first was a German regiment, the second would be Hungarian :

I called these guys the Siskovics grenadier battalion after the officer who was to become inhaber of Hungarian regiment Josef Esterhazy in 1762, and therefore was associated with a regiment which was already part of my forces. The constituent figures are 2 bases from regiment Erzherzog Ferdinand (left), 2 bases from Josef Esterhazy (centre), and one base from regiment Bethlen (right). Those with copies of the Osprey book on Austrian infantry will recognise the three units from plates E1, E2, and E3 - I'm afraid this was the rather abitrary way the component units were selected!

After painting this lot, my appetite for further work is very small indeed. In short, I have had enough of serious painting for a while. However, my next small project is 4 bases of dismounted dragoons for my Prussians, which isn't too daunting. We'll see how they turn out...