Old School ToE: The French

And here are the French forces as they stand at present. Again, the dashed lined units are under construction. Ultimately the British will be an infantry strong force and the French will be a bit cavalry heavy...just to keep things a bit un-symmetrical.

Old School ToE

I've been doing a bit of organizing as my 40mm collection gets larger. Here is a table of organization for the British. It's intended to be a balanced "classic" horse and musket force of a reasonable size for the table and keeping the whole force around 100 foot figures and 40-50 cavalry and 2-3 guns...a good size for a fun game with individual basing. The dashed units are still in progress (casting/painting) and the force will be a mix of historical and fictitious units.

I'm trying to get the French done before my Fall teaching begins and the summer gaming party has to slow down.

40mm Cuirassiers (Battle of St. Michel)

French cavalry massed for battle

 Taking a short break from painting my 15mm SCW project, I shifted over to finish up a unit of 40mm cuirassiers that I had cast up a few weeks ago. I painted them up as a unit of fictitious Grolsteiners.  My 40mm armies are a mix of imaginary and historical units, basically to get maximum "color" for the time spent casting and painting.

The Grand Duchess' Cuirassiers (still needing their powdered hair painted)

Irish Regiment Bukeley hold a farm on the French right flank.

 I also took the opportunity to set up a battle using Charles Grant's "Raid on St. Michel" campaign book. This is a scaled version of The Battle of St. Michel (teaser 3) on a 6x5 table. The lots of big figures on a small table still works for a straight up 18th century battle.

Pay waggons parked in St. Michel...the objective!

Table overview the French hold St. Michel and the British assault from the top left

French 6lbr

skirmish on the flanks

French cavalry surge forward

The first British volley brings down only a few troopers

A few turns into the battle the French cavalry charged home and via a run of good melee die rolls in the first round basically sent the British packing leaving little chance for a successful assault on the town so I decided end the battle and cast up some more British infantry to improve their offensive punch. I'll try the battle again in a few weeks.

Wargaming Bliss...

 When you live in my neck of the woods (Virginia USA), a package from the Royal Mail is always a good thing! A hefty batch of Spanish Civil War 15mm figs arrived a few days ago (BTW in great time...less than 2 weeks across the pond from order to delivery and a completely spot-on order...!) from Peter Pig (...many thanks guys!!).

It's like Christmas in July!

 What gamer worth his/her salt can't be salivating over a sight like this!...even my dear wife was impressed by the contents...her "wow, that's a lot in that box...!  ..."made all her past negative comments about my gaming expenditures fade into the past! (I call it the 15s effect...and it goes for 10s and 6s as well)...it always feels like riches when you open a shipment of 15s!

So for about $130. USD I was able to get a nice Spanish Civil War collection up and running doing both sides assuming one base=one company (100 men +-). Based four figures to a 40x40mm base will give me armies that will work for the "Portable Wargame" rules as well as such as AK47 Variant for SCW and Crossfire. So I am really getting back into this period after selling off all my 20mm SCW collection back in the late 90s (...in 20mm the best way to go is the beautiful  "Historical Products" line of SCW sculpted by the late David Alsop now sold by the very knowledgeable Pat Condray)

Nationalists

 I managed to get everything based up this evening and looking forward to a weekend of painting!

Republicans

 I just need a few more figures on the Republican side...and some Morrocans...and...well...you all know how it is...just a few more....
"Arriba Espania!"