War of Spanish Succession French (1)

I have painted rather a lot of Dutch this year so it was about time that a few Frenchmen appeared to challenge them, so, this week I made a tentative start on them painting up three battalions from the Regiment Champagne. I painted this unit as I'd done them before in 28mm for a project that never got off the ground.

This time though, it's easy in 6mm and was not a lot of work to paint three battalions along with a couple of field pieces.

Colour guides for the French artillery of the War of the Spanish Succession are quite contradictory, but I went for grey coat lined blue with red trousers and stockings, I quite like how they turned out.

Finally, we have our first WSS game today so I wanted to add some suitable buildings, I purchased ten from the Action 6mm range by Monday Knight Productions. Noble Knight did a sterling turn around on the order and they were here in two days, the buildings are clean casts and nicely done but most are rather useless for my needs. They are really mid-late 20th Century Americana and not suitable for Northern Europe, I picked the four most suitable, mounted on some spare 80mm x 60mm bases and got them painted up. I'll likely pick up some of the lovely Total Battle Miniatures ones when next visiting the UK.

Some oddments for the Fall Blau collection

These have been in the painting backlog since the start of the 6mm War of the Spanish Succession project kicked off, sat on the shelf with some other WWII bits and bobs, base-coated and washed ready for the highlights while I concentrated on painting the Dutch.

I'm running out of bases for the WSS collection so dug these out to finish them off.

First of all a BMW with side-car, picked up in a trade, I think its an old Bolt Action Miniatures one, a very nice model with some lovely detail, the rider is a bit of a pain in the arse to make sit right though, I think I made the best of a bad job with positioning him.

A Soviet Rifleman, also one of the old BAM models, I forgot to paint him when I did the last batch!

I've also made a good start on a Panzer II and some tank commanders, but shall not be able to finish those until I pick up some decals for the tank. I'll be at Little Wars next weekend, so hopefully can get something there.

Poilu with VB launchers

When we last played a game of Chain of Command WWI chum James noted that I was short of VB launcher teams for the French, so great mate that he is posted me a pair of teams over at Christmas.

These are very nice figures from Brigade Games, so they have crossed and recrossed the Atlantic before getting painted. The only critique I would have is that there is quite a bit of excess metal on the figures from the casting process and I missed a couple of bits of flash and drill-vents in the initial clean up.

They do paint up rather nice though using my standard method for the Poilu in Horizon Blue and made a nice break from all the 6mm I've done so far this year!

War of Spanish Succession Dutch (7)

This week I've added more units to the late 17th / early 18th Century Dutch force to battle the tyranny of Louis XIV.

I've completed the Dutch Cuirassiers that were pictured in last weeks post. As I know nothing of the unit the mid-blue standard is entirely speculative.

Another, troop of dragoons for the Van Schlippenberg regiment have been painted, both a mounted and a dismounted base for them.

The last unit painted is a battalion of infantry from the Orange-Friesland regiment, blue coats this time rather than the usual greys.

As the Dutch contingent is pretty much complete now I thought I would be a good excuse to lay it all out for a photo en mass. I think with 21 bases of foot, 20 bases of horse, 3 bases each of mounted and dismounted dragoons, 4 guns, plus commanders it's about ready to do battle.

War of Spanish Succession Dutch (6)

I'm still continuing on the mission of painting the Dutch contingent for the War of Spanish Succession of late. Following a club painting session at mine last Sunday when Drew, Bruce and myself convened to crack on with the Baccus 6mm stuff it has continued pretty much the same all week

Looking at what I had painted so far I was looking a little light on horse so that has been my main focus this week, firstly I painted four units of Nassau-Friesland horse, the blue coats making a nice change from the earlier masses of grey/grey-white. I messed up a little on the basing and have probably stuck these a little to far forwards on the base for my liking, but I don't think it matters too much.

Not sure what happened there, I appear to have stuck some static grass to that horses arse, and only noticed in this photograph. I'll have to fix that up.

The next lot of horse are two units of Dutch Cuirassiers, these are painted based upon the illustration from the Osprey 'Marlboroughs Army 1702-11' but it's not said what unit it is. If you do know, please let me know as I only have the Ospreys and the Condray to work from.

This now brings me up to 18 bases of infantry and 18 bases of cavalry painted, with only two bases of Dragoons that is likely where I should focus next!

After buying and reading the Polemos rules Chosen Men, Well Disposed I decided that a few more bases of commanders were in order. The rules specify 30mm squares but I'm an independent minded chap and prefer my generals on round bases.

Firstly a Lieutenant-General and two aides.

For my infantry Major-Generals I hit upon the idea of using a command stand with a Colonels colour. I've got loads of spare ones and this seemed a good excuse to use them up.

Lastly I finished off painting the pack of casualty figures, plus the spare musketeers from the command bases that were not used with the Generals above, these can be the start of my Tempo markers, it looks like I shall need loads!

War of Spanish Succession Dutch (5)

With the new supply of figures that arrived last week I've been able to crack on again this week with the Dutch and another eight bases joined the force.

The first unit is another unit of Dutch foot, Condray gives it as Benheim Van Deelen, but useful as that book is the print quality is terrible and the editing awful. Anyway, a Dutch regiment in grey coats with red cuffs and waistcoats.

The second unit adds a splash of colour among all that grey infantry. Dalrymple's Fusiliers, all resplendent in red coats with yellow cuffs, waistcoat and socks with grenadier caps.

This weeks final addition is two more squadrons added to the Hesse-Cassel horse.

With 18 stands of foot done and only twelve of horse I'll try to add at least another four stands of cavalry over this week.