Friday 20 April 2012

10mm War of Spanish Succession Armies Have Arrived

Having been intrigued by the Maurice rules & cards I'd ordered I needed some 18th C armies to go with them. As usual I wanted armies that were easy to paint. I asked around on various forums and the consensus was to go for the War of Spanish Succession (WSS) 1701–1714. I hadn't heard of this war but further research showed that it was the war where the Duke of Marlborough made his name. I'd heard of Marlborough but didn't know that the war was called the War of Spanish Succession.

The uniforms of the period were fairly simple plus there was a great deal of leeway in the uniforms as regimental colonels sometimes just choose whatever colours appealed to them. The picture below is typical of uniforms of the period with just the basic colours changing eg red coat instead of white for the British. Even I should be able to manage these uniforms in 10mm.

French Infantryman

I looked around for suitable figures and decided on Pendraken. They have a good range at a good price plus they have discounted ready made army packs for £22 that save you £4.25 on the list price of the individual packs. I bought the British and French army packs as it will be easier to find opponents if I have two armies. The packs contain 150 infantry in three different poses plus 15 command figures, 15 cavalry and 2 guns each with four crew and a 2 horse limber. Which should give me enough figures for 7 regiments of foot, and two cavalry units plus the artillery which should be more than enough to start playing Maurice. This is why I favour 10mm. For £44 I have two complete armies. If I'd gone 15mm £44 wouldn't have even bought me the infantry for one army.

The pictures below show the contents of the French army pack.

Two more additions to the lead mountain!
 
The contents of the Malburian French army pack


French Cavalry with tricorn hat


Foot, tricorn, marching


Command figures


Foot, tricorn, advancing


Foot, tricorn, march attack


6pdr gun, limber, horses, crew


Now all I have to do is paint 330 foot, 30 cavalry, 4 guns & limbers and 16 gunners then I'm ready to go. I'll have to arrange a date for a game I think so I have a deadline to work to, I'm more likely to get them painted that way.

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting, and indeed that is a lot of lead to get through. What base sizes are you planning on going with, and how many per base?

    Looking forward to seeing them getting some paint, and how you tackle it.

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  2. I'm going to use 25mm x 25mm bases with 6 figures per base for the inf. The Cav will be same size bases with 2 possibly 3 figures per base. Art 25mm by whatever depth I need to fit the gun & crew.

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    Replies
    1. Just wondering, how you have gone with painting these armies? For Maurice I have chosen 10mm Pendraken figures to do a French Seven Years War army using the exact same basing convention. 25mm square bases (close enough to an inch!) make for very easy distance calculations. After painting up some sample 19th Century 10mm figures I picked up at a bring-and-buy, I was very impressed with the look of 6 figures to a base. So far I've painted (but not based) 2 units of foot of the SYW figures and am attempting a couple of cavalry regiments in the coming weeks.

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    2. Sadly they are mostly unpainted as I've moved on to other projects. I couldn't get any one interested locally in playing the game. It's still something I want to do as the rules are great but it's on the back burner for now.

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    3. Pity but understandable. I think the WSS is a greatly under-rated wargames theme as there are great leaders, some cracker battles, and the standardisation of tactics and equipment lends itself to simple game mechanics. I hope you do find converts to Maurice because it's the most fun horse & musket rules I've ever played. Thanks.

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