WSS-era Artillery and 28mm Front Rank Models

[Rohan Wilmott]

Hello, John & Merry Christmas!

I guess how you paint your guns really depends on what you are aiming to achieve with your armies. If like Ray, you are aiming to reproduce an historical orbat, then you are a little more constrained - thanks for that great info on the guns at Blenheim, Ray - Cheers!

If you intend doing battles other than "the big 4" WSS battles in Europe (at least from the Brit's point of view) then you can cast your net much wider - eg the smaller struggles between the Franco-Bavarians & Imperial troops of 1702-4 give greater scope.

If you plan using historical orbats as a guide for an imagi-nation project, though, then paint what you think you would like to "play with" - paraphrasing Jim - "your toys - paint them as you like them!"

Personally while I'm starting my armies based on the Blenheim OOB's and using Barry's very sensible guidelines for what constitutes a playable army for BLB, I am adding some units from other battles as, in the long run, I plan an Imagi-nation project based on the WSS but using a modified Games Workshop Warhammer map of "the Empire" vs "Bretonnia with some Imperial Allies" - the only fantasy element really being the map.

Much of my unit selection will be driven by interesting uniforms and also flags - so many tempting treats on offer from Maverick & Flags of War. BLB with its small units & Barry's idea of the joy of Big flags makes this a feast, even if the majority of coats in an army are grey/white - officers, NCO's & musicians often added different colour!

As far as artillery goes, for example, I just had to have a 3pdr crewed by Danes in their violet coats with green cuffs even though there is no evidence of any such contingent being used by the Maritime Powers! So really, who can absolutely say that an Austrian short barrelled 3pdr or howitzer didn't make its way into Eugene's train of artillery at Schellenberg & Blenheim. Afterall, what we do know about the OOB's, Uniforms, Flags for this era is probably less than what we don't know.

Enjoy & Cheers, Rohan.

[Churchill]

Ray.

[Captain of Dragoons]

Hi Guys

what I do is a combo between the Historical and the Imagi schools of thought.

I like historical refights (say like Walcourt in the LoA/NYW/GA period) or even historical what ifs (say like the unfought Waterloo between Marlborough and the French in the early part of the WSS).

For ORBATs I think it is important to have the right ratio of troops from each side (scaled down if required - no single gamer or two can do Neerwinden with its hundreds of battalions, sqns and guns.)

I'm not so worry about having the right battalion in the right brigade. If I was doing a river crossing based on the Boyne and I only had one battalion of Blue Guards and I needed another battalion to make up for the missing second battalion of Blue Guards I have no problem using a Hanoverian Battalion (that historically was in garrison at Namur).

However if I had to do one grand project - like Ray's for Blenheim - I would try to stick as close as possible to the Historical Army and ORBAT.

For me I collect Toy Soldiers - or as I tell my wife - Historical Miniatures (60mm King and Country, John Jekins, etc). With the cost of things these days I can only afford to have one tabletop battle period, and seven years ago by accident while looking seraching on the web for stuff about the WSS I came across Barry's site - I didn't even know about the earlier period. It has captured my imagination.

I ordered my first Warfare Miniatures about three days ago. Sticking to the Historical ORBAT (lol) I am trying to make up my mind to do a coverged stand of grenadiers from the Jacobite or Williamite side for Ireland 1689-1691.

cheers
Edward

[j1mwallace]

The problem is .. If you are sticking to a proper historical organisation for a particular battle, do your battalions not have to be different strengths to represent the numbers in the battalion on the day.
Devils advocate

[Churchill]

Ray.

[Riddcowler]

I've heard of flaming pigs but never monkeys!

Whilst I think all wargaming may be 'fantasy' to some degree, I know from personal experience that it can require considerable self-discipline to stick to historical orbats. There's often a sort of, 'Well if they weren't there, they should have been!' temptation...

[EvilGinger]

Don't do historical Orbats as such, but do try very hard to be reasonable about what I include in forces. I don't seem to suffer the temptation to go for elite forces, which afflicts some wargamers, its much more fun giving the other man's guards a good stuffing with your line .


Ginger

[Churchill]

Ray.

[EvilGinger]

Now that's fantastic Ancient Greeks against Ancient Chinese. I am not fond of unhistorical match ups of that sort & magic shouldn't be modelled like that in historical games even if in reality both sides believed in it devoutly.


Ginger

[Captain of Dragoons]

I like Charles Grant's train of thought in his War Gaming in History Series: Scale down battles (in terms of ground and units), correct ORBAT not required (he fights battles of the mid-18th Century, although with image-nations, with units based on historical units), some of the battles features units from nine different nations of the period.

Also Charles Grant does not assign his units with status (ie Guard, Elite, Raw, etc). They all start the game with the same morale unless the historical scenario calls for it or the units are militia.

It would be interesting to re-fight a period battle with BLB2 with the status rules and the re-fight the same battle with BLB2 but with out the status rules and see how different the out come is.

For the number of units, armies that could fight in different encounters is what is good about our period (with even more opportunity then the Mid-18th Century)
-Irish fought in Flanders
-Dutch fought in Ireland
-Danes fought in Flanders, Ireland,
-British fought in Ireland, Flanders, coast of France
-etc, etc
-Spanish, Bavarians fought for both camps depend on which war.

A table top army raised for the Williamite War in Ireland can be used for a game set in Flanders for either LoA War or the WSS.

cheers
Edward

[Ben Waterhouse]

Peter Gilder used to do that - I fantasised when younger in doing his Waterloo or Borodino (and possiblyLeipzig?) as detailed in some 1980's Military Modelling magazines. I seem to recall he divided everything by three and fettled the results for a good game.

[jezamonos]

From my earlier topic on the same question:

EQ8 model - Spoke to Alec at FR and he confirmed that they are for lighter and heavy 6pdr barrels. For early 18th C the larger more cumbersome one should be used, later in the century a smaller lighter barrel was developed to aid moving the guns on the battlefield.