Minden - 250th Anniversary

The second wave of French cavalry charges across the Minden heath where a thin red line of British and Brown Bess await them.

Today is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Minden, fought in 1759 by the French army of Marshal Contades and the allied army of British, Hanoverian, Hessian and Prussian soldiers under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. We stage our refight of the battle in Brown Deer, Wisconsin using our "Batailles de l'Ancien Regime (or BAR) " rules. It has been a long day and I must retire to bed for the evening, but I will post more pictures and a battle report tomorrow. Who won? You will have to come back tomorrow for the answer.

Suren British Guards - 1st Regiment


Close up picture of the new addition to my British army: the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards with Suren figures and GMB Designs flags.




A longer view of the regiment so far: 45 figures including 5 RSM figures that I had to borrow for today's game. The RSM figures are the ones on the plain green, unterrained bases.

I had a late surge in painting production towards the latter part of this week as I wanted to finish of the 14 partially painted Suren figures and build the Foot Guards up to a viable number of figures for use in our Minden game. I ended up with 40 Surens and then I recruited 5 RSM British figures that I had painted for the Guards in an earlier project. I was desperate so I plunked them down on the base. Eventually, this unit will have 60 center company figures plus 12 grenadiers for a total of 72 figures.

I finished the month with 102 Olley Painting Points: 19 mounted figures (2 points each), 63 foot (1 point each) and one cannon (1 point). Included in that total were 8 Suren Black Watch that were partially painted and finished off on thursday night. I don't count a figure as painted unless it is completed in that month. So sometimes, I have a few figures that are "almost done" but they don't get tallied until they are finished.

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Suren British Artillery Crew

British SYW 6-pd battery with Suren figures on the left and Stadden figures on the right. Both guns are from Elite Miniatures.

March concluded with a roar of painting output as I finished the month with 117 Olley Painting Points (97 infantry & guns at 1 point each and 10 mounted figures which count for 2 points each). This follows on totals of 100 points in January and 115 points in February.

Monday night I finished off six Suren British artillery figures and another Elite 6-pounder in order to complete the two gun battery. I rather like the Suren artillery crew and in fact prefer them over the more formal looking Stadden crew. I used an RSM rammer and officer's sword and made the trail spike from a spare piece of wire that I had in my bits box. I should have also made a linstock out of wire with florists wire wrapped around the stick, but I forgot to do this.


The full battery supports the 1st Regiment of Guards.

The battery complements the Suren Guards rather nicely, as you can see in the picture above. I also finished 9 more Guards over the past couple of days and now have 25 figures painted - almost enough for two grand divisions (30 figures). I have to add some wire cravats to the flag poles before I can prime the figures, otherwise I would have had the standard bearers done too. I am using the GMB Designs flags for this unit.


A closer view of the augmented Guards battalion, now up to 25 figures. Suren figures painted by Der Alte Fritz.

A part of me would like to keep plugging away on the Suren Guards so that I could finish the unit in April, but we have a Jacobite Rebellion game coming up on May 9th and I need to add two more clans, 30 figures each, before then, so it is on to the Highlanders next. I may dodge in a few Surens here and there to take a break from all of that plaid paint.

Suren British Guards

Suren British Foot Guards and Mounted Officer provide support for a Stadden gun crew that is manning a 6-pounder from Elite Miniatures. Painting by Der Alte Fritz (click pix to enlarge)

I have been working on the 1st Regiment of Guards for my British WAS/SYW army over the past week and I finally have enough of them done to justify taking and posting a picture on this blog. As of Sunday evening, I had 17 figures completed and another 9 figures should be completed with one more evening's worth of painting.

The batch of figures shown in the pictures have been a work in progress that probably started in 2006. I painted a couple of the figures and started the rest, then grew tired of the project and set them aside, where they have resided in a cigar box over the past two plus years. I seem to have more enthusiasm for the figures this time around, as I am plowing through them at a fairly fast pace. I have another dozen that were primed this evening and should be hitting the painting table soon. Eventually, the battalion of Guards will have 60 hat men and 12 grenadiers.


A closer view of the British artillery crew (Staddens) and the 6-pounder from Elite Miniatures. The officer in the red coat is a Suren figure.

Last night I took a short break from the Guards and painted a gun crew of six Stadden figures and one Elite Miniatures 6-pounder. The brigade had no artillery, so I thought that I had better remedy this as soon as possible, what with the French reportedly advancing towards the British foreward base at Minden. Today, I cleaned and primed a dozen Suren British artillery crew, 8 Front Rank artillery crew, and 4 Elite Miniatures crew plus another 6-pounder. I am looking forward to seeing how the Suren artillery crew paint up because they have more active poses, in contrast to the curious marching pose that the Staddens have. The Stadden artillery crew would make for good "pioneer" figures in anyone's imagination army.

Close up picture of the Suren British mounted general and some of the Foot Guards.

The handsome gentlemen shown in the picture above will likely become my "army general" for the British contingent fighting in Germania this year. I haven't decided on a name for him yet, although I am leaning toward him being Lord Ligonier during the period of the War of the Austrian Succession. Since this is something of an imaginery campaign, I may decide that Ligonier found the Fountain of Youth and was young enough to lead the army during the SYW as well, even though that did not happen.


Another view of the Guards.


The whole brigade turned out on the Basteau Heath outside of their camp at Minden.

As of this evening, my British army in Western Germany consists of four battalions of infantry: the 3rd (Buffs) Foot, the 8th (Onslow's) Foot, the 11th (Sowle's) Foot and the 42nd (Semphill's) Foot/Black Watch. Note that I am using colonels from the WAS period rather than the SYW. This infantry brigade is supported by one section of artillery and 5 squadrons of cavalry. It is a work in progress that has many months ahead of it, but I have overcome my aversion to painting red coats and seem to be rather fired up to build the brigade as soon as possible.

So far, I have approximately 102 Olley Painting Points done for the month of March, which is a very good pace. Things should slow down a bit in April as I turn my attention to Jacobite Highlanders for our game on May 9, 2009.

The Guards

I am getting the itch to start painting fellows in tricorn hats again and now that I have actually fielded my first SYW British brigade, I'm thinking that I will want to paint some more red coats. I am actually designing my British army around the earlier period of the War of the Austrian Succession, rather than the SYW. One reason for this is the fact that the three regiments of Foot Guards took to the field and fought at Dettingen in 1743 and Fontenoy in 1745.

Sunday afternoon, the day after the SYWA convention, I was cleaning and priming some Front Rank Jacobites for our Forty Five Campaign, when I happened across a box of partially painted Suren British figures. They were in fairly bad condition, so I picked up one figure (big mistake there) and applied a lighter coat of red over the dark red undercoat that was already on the figure. I might as well touch up the blue trousers and turnbacks. And while I'm at it, the equipment could use a little bit of freshening up. Before I knew what had happened, I had nearly finished painting one of the figures. I found that I had the urge to paint some more.

So I have 17 Suren figures that I plan to paint as the 1st Guards Regiment. Why? Because I happen to have the GMB Designs flag for the 1st Guards. My plan is to work on a few of the Surens while I am painting my Jacobites. A few here and there and suddenly I will have a half battalion of 30 figures. From there it is not that much more work to get to 60 figures.

There are several problems with the Suren figures. First and foremost, they require a lot of preparation work. You have to clean out blobs of lead between the legs and under the arms because some of the molds are so bad. Then you have to glue on the weapons and hanger swords, which can be a pain in the neck to do. However, once you have reached this stage, then you get to experience the fun of painting these nicely animated and proportioned figures. I will post some pictures later in the week after I have made some progress.