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.

Just found a great review of the new 'Maurice' rules.

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of a great review I found of 'Maurice', Sam Mustafa's new rules for warfare in the 18th century.

It can be found on the 'Glory Eagles De L'Empereur!' blog.

Hello, My Name is Ferb & I'm a Wargameaholic.

I started the new year with the best of intentions. I wasn't going to buy any new systems to play. I'd found the previous year that I didn't get to play the systems I already had often enough and this made remembering the rules difficult.

I was only playing once a week with the occasional extra game. So I'd decided to stick with Impetus for ancients in 15 & 28mm, Malifaux for skirmish gaming, Gruntz for 15mm SciFi fun & Saga for skirmish gaming as it had become popular at the club. I also had FoW & 40K, but I'd gone off 40K and no one at the club seemed to play FoW any more.

These good intentions didn't last long. I started the year with a few games of Impetus then hit a wall as I couldn't find anyone to play my chosen systems who didn't already have games arranged. ( we tend to book up games a couple of weeks in advance). So I looked around and decided to add Infinity to the list. I had a look at the game and it seemed interesting plus there seemed to be a few people playing it so I bought a Combined Army starter set and painted it up. In the meantime I'd managed to book up a few games of Saga to keep me going.

The starter set I bought.


While this was happening the Battletech 25th Anniverary box set came back into the shops. I'd always loved the Battletech universe and had wanted this set for ages plus I could also use the mechs for Gruntz. So I bought my second extra system for the year. But that's not all! January saw lots of sales at various retailers and I noticed that Triple Helix Wargames were selling the Warmachine 2-Player Battlebox at 20% off so I ordered a set. I justified this by telling myself there were lots of Warmachine players at the club so I could get games. Plus it was such a good deal I could sell one set of figures and have a 20pt force plus rules for about £20-£30. My mind conveniently left out that I'd tried Hordes with Trollbloods last year and hated it. I'd even sold all my figures, rules, cards etc on eBay. But hey Warmachine will be different right.

So end of January and I've already bought three new systems and not managed a game with any of them. February would be different though, I had enough systems to ensure finding a game each week so no need to buy any more.

Except that I'd been reading about the Lasalle rules on various blogs. Now I love historical wargaming and I used to have loads of Napoleonic stuff and was a bit of an expert on Waterloo (sadly mostly forgotten now). So, since they sounded fun, I decided to buy the rules and as they were only about a tenner as a downloadable pdf it wasn't a big expenditure. Although if I wanted a game I would need to buy and paint some figures plus I would need to buy two armies so I would have an army for my opponent to use. I decided to go with Pendraken 10mm figures as I could buy an army for about £30 plus they should be quick to paint. So I bought £10 of figures & bases to get started. Extra system number four! Then version 3 of the FoW rules came out.




Lasalle rules from Sam Mustafa


For March I told myself I wasn't going to spend anything on wargaming for the whole month. But that lasted about two weeks. I'd got fed up with Saga and decided it wasn't for me and sold my figures and rules. So at least some money was coming in for a change. I also got my first FoW game for nearly a year and enjoyed it a lot. This led me to spend time on various FoW blogs and I saw a post saying a good way to learn the rules was to use a tank only force. So I bought access to EasyArmy.com found a 'cheap' force and bought two boxes of PSC Panthers. Of course it didn't stop there. I added Nebelwerfers and PaK40's to the list to get to 1750pts. Then I signed up for an El-Alamein campaign so I've started buying forces for that.

Then the Maurice rules and cards came out and they intrigued me so I bought them and started looking at 10mm figures for armies. For some reason I forget I also got interested in Dystopian Wars, mentioning them in the blog got me a good offer on a Blazing Sun fleet from Ben so I took him up on it.

Now I'm looking at Kerr & King terrain sets, new gaming table felt cloths for sea and desert use and out of the blue I started looking at ACW with the Fire & Fury rules. At least I've managed to hold off buying any of this for now.

Kerr & King Large Adobe building

So far this year I've managed
8 games of Basic Impetus
7 games of Saga
1 game of Battletech
1 game of Gruntz
4 games of FoW
2 games of Warmachine
3 games of Malifaux

So of the five new systems I've added I've only played with two of them. This also doesn't include 28mm plastic Saxons, Vikings, Normans and Romans that I bought before christmas and hardly started painting or the 28mm plastic ECW army which is still in the unopened box

So there you have it, I'm a hopeless addict with no self-control. To try and rein in my spending I've decided to add everything I buy and sell to a spreadsheet in the hope it will frighten me into some restraint. In case you're interested my spending so far since I started recording it on 23rd March is £35.41.

Hopefully this will be a warning to anyone thinking that they might like to try wargaming. If anyone offers you a box of Space Marines cheap JUST SAY NO!

Maurice, Rules for Warfare in the 18th Century

The curse of  'Ooh, Shiny!' has struck me again. This time it's 'Maurice', the new rules for 18th century warfare from Sam Mustafa due out in April.
I already have Sam's 'Lasalle' rules for Napoleonic warfare that I'm planning to do in 10mm (for cost reasons). But painting up the figures for two armies so I can get a game is going to take some time. This hasn't stopped me looking at 'Maurice' though.
I've never really been interested in 18th century warfare for some reason even though there are a number of interesting conflicts you could play. But having read up on 'Maurice' I'm hooked on some of the concepts, particularly the use of cards for activation & events (For more details see the review I mention below). It also features

"a limitless campaign system that requires virtually no math or paperwork, and a role-playing game in which the “characters” are officers, units, and armies, whose personalities you create, and whose fates you manage from battle to battle across wars and decades." Sam Mustafa

What really sold it for me though was this excellent review & play thru on Wargaming.info. Incidently one of the best written reviews I've read in a long time.
There is a fly in the ointment though. It's not the cost or finding the time to paint the figures or finding a willing opponent, all of which are problems. It's my lack of ability to paint up the figures. For most periods this wouldn't bother me as most uniforms are doable but 18th century uniforms are all lace edging & fiddly bits. For example the figures shown below are 10mm Pendraken painted by 'clibinarium' as posted on the Pendraken forums.

Just look at the detail he's got on them! And those are 10mm figures, I couldn't even get close to that level of detail in 15mm. Granted he's an expert painter but I don't feel I could do the models justice given my poor eyesight & shaky hands. I'll probably do some research to see if there are any forces with simpler uniforms within the timeframe of the rules. Which is of course one of the other fun aspects of wargaming.
So will I be buying the rules when they come out next month or even downloading the free 'Lite' version already available. The answer sadly is no, but they will be on my list of systems to buy & try. Of course if I can persuade someone at Wessex Wyverns to buy the rules & paint up a ton of figures that will all change :-)
To finish off here's a bit more eye candy from 'clibinarium':