Erzherzog Leopold Cuirassiers

 I made my life way to difficult for myself today. Using a white background when photoing Austrians... Two Squadrons of Erzherzog Leopold Cuirassiers, I hope to do all 6 Squadrons, so 36 figure regiment, 

This regiment was highly needed for my Austrians, as they had very little cavalry support. Up next will be Baden-Baden infantry regiment and 4 companies of Horse Grenadiers. Figures are Minden and flag is Maverick Models cloth.

I have a table! 

It's been over 7 years since the last table shoot. 

Sadly it rained(when it wasn't supposed to) So I had to pack down everything, And so the photos weren't the way I wanted them. I also had to edit out a rather fugly pink tent the wife had put up in the garden to paint some garden furniture. 

 This is put up with one side being Anglo-Hanoverian and Prussian vs French and Austrian.

French behind a stone fence, looking down the Anglo-Allied cavalry.

 The table is sparse with vegetation, I need to get more of my trees up and running. But even so, just having a few hills made it hard to depoly the troops 

 The Austrian defending the top of a hill, with French cavalry in reserve. I found 3 french squadrons didn't have their bases finished. So I had to photoshop the bases.

 Austrian Croats, don't what they do best, holding woods.

 The Prussians

 The Anglo-Hanoverians.

 The camera was not helpful and so several pictures were totally out of focus, so the Austrian cavalry didn't even get one picture. But they are there. 

Random officer

I planed on a big 40mm Sharp Practice project. But I found the Perry 40mm range very limited. And I don't like the Sash and Saber 40mm stuff.
I also found I can't really paint 40mm better than I paint 28mm, so I got a little discouraged. 

Anyway, I felt like painting a guy, a British lieutenant from the Royal Welch Fusiliers. 

 I'm happy with the coat, and facings, less with the face, and not happy with the white trousers at all. 

The blued and gild sword also wasn't fantastic.




Also someone requested bigger versions of the Croats from the last blogpost, so I'm throwing them along here at the bottom.

Croats!

I've done 6 Croats from the Karlstädter-Lykaner Grenzinfanterieregiment. I plan on doing more of these. But I've been in a painting slump, with drills, brushes and figures all conspiring against me. So I needed something so show.  

Reading Horrace St Pauls diary, it's amazing how much these soldiers dominated the early part of the Seven Years' War, The Prussians seemed incapable to counter them. a Few hundred Croats could wreak havoc in the Prussian army. Hundreds of Prussians could be killed, wounded and captured, and in one instance, the Austrians literally didn't lose a man. 

The book also makes it clear the perfect Sharp Practice force. While SP isn't my main thing for SYW, I do plan on doing it on the side, and the diary makes it clear that the standard force the Austrians use when they want to make problems Prussian consists of Croats, Hussars, often Grenadier companies and sometimes regular musketeers. So a SP force would be a couple of skirmishing Croats, and grenadiers for close order infantry, maybe a musketeer unit. And also some hussars. 

 I have enough for 9 more infantry with command and a mounted officer. 

 Formed up, which they did do. 

Die Kleine Boom Boom

Trucking away at my SYW Winter Project.

This time I did an Austrian 6pdr with limber.

 I've never done limbers for my artillery, I've always just wanted to get on with it, I mean a limber doesn't add a unit, the so it's just money and time I could spend on more cannon, infantry or cavalry 

 But it does look good with a limber, I don't think I'll use limbers for my Napoleonic project. Given the batteries are like 3-6 cannon and I'll have like 2 or 3 batteries. But for my SYW project and maybe my GNW project it will be easier given less cannon. I plan on adding an ammo wagon.  Having this equipment not only looks good but adds to the footprint of the artillery, which is realistic. 

The Crew, Gun and equipment are all Minden miniatures.
A big kudos to Minden and Jim, for going above and beyond in customer service.

Austrian Grenadier battalion

Well hopefully on Tuesday DHL will deliver my Collectors edition of Kingdom Come: Deliverance a PC game I kickstarted over 4 years ago. This means I'll probably spend my painting time on that game and if I paint, it will most likely be my HYW figures as the game is set in 1403.

But I did manage to finish this grenadier battalion, it's taken some time, I started on it right after Young-Wolfenbüttel was finsihed, but I did those 6 Hussars between some of the bases and I also did a base of Prussian musketeers between the second to last and last base of this unit.

 The companies are from the regiments Kaiser, Carl Lothringen, Deutschmeister, and Neipperg. 

So there might be some time before the next blog post, if the game is any good, I might do a small review of it. Most likely the next unit on the blog is either the finished Prussian musketeer battalion or a HYW unit of mixed pavisers/crossbowmen that I've done 6 figures for some time ago.

Continuing my Austrian project with Baranyay Hussars, two squadrons worth, This is the only Austrian cavalry I had left to paint, but waiting on some Cuirassiers, I do have a crapload of Prussian as well as some French Cavalry.


Baranyay, of course, took part in the epic Raid on Berlin by Hadik. My SYW cavalry usually are based 4 to a base, but since the Austrians hussars weren't quite true battle cavalry yet(unlike the Prussian hussars) I've decided to base them 3 to a base to give them some more spacing.


The Hussars are always a colorful bunch of scoundrels, just how many died from battle vs dueling, alcohol poisoning and STDs? Who knows!

I do plan on doing 6 more, they are planned for the next order. Together with more infantry and cavalry.

 Proper Hussars here, colorful, with sky blue tights, apple green dolman, and pelisse, red braid that really pops on the green. The trumpeter is real dandy with so much cold lace I'm surprised the horse is still able to carry him.

This last pic captures the colors the best, the two others are to washed out even after some editing.

My Nemesis!

Well, say hello to the battalion from hell! My Nemesis.

This unit is singlehandedly the fault why I stopped doing my SYW project for 6 months.

I had trucked away at my SYW project, having done several units of cavalry and decided my infantry need to be painted. I had done 12 of these and based them, I was almost done with the next six when I realized I had fucked up. I had painted them as Jung-Wolfenbüttel but I realized I had painted the turnbacks red, and I thought, no problem I'll just do them as Keiser instead they have the same uniform.

BUT NOOO, Keiser has white cross straps, Jung-Wolfenbüttel have natural leather. The life was drained from me. I did not want to take those 12 of the base, and so I gave up. put those 6 in a box and did other stuff. Now I started on them again and decided to just ignore the wrongness and just finish them so I can get on it my project. I finished the 6 and started on the last 6.

Then I decided I wasn't satisfied with the basing scheme, I originally planned on just doing Might and Reason, so two bases of 12, but I'm drawn more to Honours of war and games like that, So I did rip those 12 of the base, and once I had done that I thought I might as well repaint the turnbacks.

Just to make the experience complete, as I did the last 6 yesterday the power went out.(3rd time in a week) and it was out for 7 hours.



So in the end of 6 months, a battalion of Jung-Wolfenbüttel is complete and in the correct uniform...... Figures are Minden and flags are Maverick Models.



Pictures turned out crap!

 I really like the SYW Austrians, I'm sure if they dressed like this during the Napoleonic wars they would have won the entire thing.

 I have recently ordered a second battalion of Austrian musketeers, I'm unsure if I'm going to do the 2nd battalion of this regiment or some other regiment.

 Even with all the swearing, cursing and thoughts of blowtorch revenge.  I like how the unit turned out. Sadly the light was not my friend today, but there are rumours of rain coming in an hour or so, so I had to take it now or it might be many days before the next time I'd have the chance.

We all know The battle of Leuthen was fought in 200 meter deep snow.

Kolowrat-Krakowski Dragoons

 So I hinted that I  had gone all  out on these, and so I have, while I used water downed paints   on the horses on the Scots Greys, But here I used it all  the way, I also blended much more than I used to, I normally  shy away from blending as I  find it a pain in the ass, but here I did it on almost all the colors. I also tried a new combo of skin colors, starting with a very dark color, Brick red,  then working upwards.

I'm very happy with these, I  really liked the results and so did the same on the Austrian infantry I'm half done with, I also bought reaper paints, and I'm very happy with the two triads I've used so far. New wood for the muskets and carbines. and a new white that became the asutrian uniforms.

Now on the organization,  I restarted my SYW project with Might & Reason in mind, but I'd like to do smaller scale too. So while this would be a dragoon brigade in M&R, I need to find out what this would be at a smaller scale. I've decided to steal the idea from Beneath the Lilly banners. Where each unit is a "squadron" and each Game "squadron" is two real squadrons. So anywhere from  220-380 horses and men. This means that some units will be stuck as the tiny 8 figure units, like most of the British and French units, While this one will be a mighty 24 strong if I do it full strength.

Anyway here it is.

 Horses are still not as good as I want, but better. The last 4(the two black and dark brown) are better then the first 4.

Szekely Hussars, and suprize

Yes I wrote it the propper way with a Z!! So I'm kinda in a ACW mood, but no figures in sight, and I got a small flat package today, so I decided to go back to 7yw for a few days untill the perry plastic acw comes.

So this is the Szekely hussars, they togeather with the Meinke dragoons did lots of cool stuff leading up to the battle of Rochbach. Very cool uniform. light green with dark green pelise, saddlecloth and bushybag. 

Suprizingly(yes another Z) it's quite colorfull. Again the minden figures have superb detail, the sabertache got raised ensigna and all. 

 Even the dragons tooths on the saddlecloth is modeld.

Ah but I would not just show you a WIP of some lowly hussars now would I, because the flat package I got was GMB flags So now my austrians and prussians got some nice flags to show off.

 I seem to have gotten some mix up in the order, I did not get my austrian dragoon flags.

The sers fusiliers are just so cool and they look even coolr with the flag.