26th Schroeder Regiment - Test Figures

I've mentioned before that I have struggled to find decent Austrian infantry castings for this project so for the next unit I'm resorting to something a bit different. The unit will be made up primarily of Der Kreigspieler figures with a smattering of Hinton Hunts by David Clayton.

Clayton on the left, DK on the right.

The DK's are 88/1 Austrian Fusilier Charging and were a kind donation made by Aly. The pose is identical to the Hinton Hunt version (AN/4) and they are decent castings. The Clayton figures are rather weedy in comparison and I have had to carry out some remedial work to get rid of their waspish waists and pitted bases.

You can clearly see here that the Clayton figure has been on half-rations.

The unit will represent the 26th Schroeder Regiment because who can't resist parrot green facings?

15th Szeckler Grenzers

The Grenzers are done and now paraded here for your inspection. I've enjoyed painting these as the castings are really superb first generation Hinton Hunt ones first glimpsed here on the blog. Brown uniforms were an interesting change too after lots of recent red and blue ones.

The figures used are:

1 x AN/21 Hungarian Officer, charging (DK figure converted to standard bearer)

9 x AN/25 Hungarian Musketeer, firing

1 x AN/26 Hungarian Officer, marching

12 x AN/27 Hungarian Musketeer, marching

1 x DK Austrian Grenadier drummer (with head-swop conversion)

I'm staying with the Austrian theme for the next unit but with a return to standard white uniform so I will need to break out the snow goggles for my painting sessions.

Another trip to Nigel's

Last Wednesday Tony and I were fortunate enough to be invited to another wargame hosted by Nigel in his fabulous wargame room nestling in the Cumbrian hills. The scenario involved an alternate history of the Waterloo campaign where Napoleon was trying to pass Wellington's flank to the west forcing a battle at Mons.

I was given the Allied force comprising The Prince Of Orange and 'Daddy' Hill's commands, Dutch-Belgians, Nassauers and an awful lot of Highlanders. Tony had the French including an intimidating number of old Guard infantry and cavalry. Nigel umpired and carried out numerous mental arithmetic calculations to keep the game flowing using his house rules.

What follows is not a detailed account of the fighting but hopefully enough to give you a taster of an excellent game.

A general view of the table at the end of turn 1. Tony and I both elected to move everything forward. The barn in the foreground and the house on the hill in the distance were both victory locations.

Tony and I immediately did our usual cavalry thing of drawing sabres and rushing into action. Here you can see the Guard cavalry advance. The Horse Grenadiers to the front eventually went on to win the man of the match award.

Some classic looking ordre mixte here by the French. Most of the units in Nigel's forces are an impressive 30 figures strong.

Lord Hill advances his (mostly) Highlander division. These are a mixture of Qualiticast and Hinton Hunt figures.

The view from the French right-rear. My Nassauer's are defending the woods from the advancing French columns.

The French troops come on in the same old style!

But my lads are coming on too - not in the same old style!

General Perponcher rides forward to encourage the Dutch-Belgians - hurrah!

The cavalry fight in the centre of the field was to last for the whole game but eventually the French got the upper hand.

My Highlanders prepare to counter-attack the Old Guard. Meanwhile the Sailors-of-the-Guard have occupied the house and are very unsportingly firing down on us from the windows.

My centre holds firm...

...but things don't go quite so well on my right. We called the game after 7 turns and it was a victory on points for the French.

It was a visually spectacular game as well as being great fun to play and it was nice to get to use Nigel's lovely British and allied troops. Hopefully one day we'll get to see the Archduke's Austrian forces!

Thanks to Nigel and Tony and also to the Archduchess for her hospitality.