Monday, November 17, 2008

Friedrich Hears The News


Couriers arrive at the King Friedrich's headquarters with news of the Electoral Army's defeat at Streinkriesdorf.

Bad Tidings Arrive at Frankfurt
A courier rides breathlessly and at full speed to the headquarters of King Friedrich at the Germanian army headquarters outside of Frankfurt am Main. He brings news of the defeat of the auxiliary Electoral army of allies at the town of Streinkriesdorf, at the hands of those perfidious Gallians commanded by that rascal Chevert.

"Your Excellency, I bring news from Landgraf Bogey of Hesse Fedora," gasps the young courier, "the Electoral Army has been defeated by the Gallian-Reichsarmee forces at Steinkriesdorf!"

A look of horror spreads over the faces of some of Friedrich's staff as they digest the news of this defeat. A low murmur echoes around the collection of senior officers. Finally, King Friedrich raises his hand to call a halt to the panic.

"Gentlemen," says Friedrich in an authoritative voice, "let us not lose our heads. You will be needing them in the next battle."

The officers all nod their heads in agreement. The panic subsides. They look to their king for their orders. King Friedrich turns around and points to the collection of troops assembled in the field behind them:



"The Gallians still must contend with this lot!" exclaims King Friedrich.

The officers begin to cheer, their confidence has returned.

"And if that isn't enough," says the King, "then they still have to fight my Gardes."



"Now gentlemen. We have work to do and a campaign to complete. We will open the seige of Frankfurt tomorrow. The Marquis de Granby has brought his Britannian army down from Minden. And he happened to bring a considerable amount of seige artillery that just happened to be lying about unused."

"I am sure that Lord Granby will put his artillery to good use, Excellency," said General Alberti, "there will be a hot time in the old town tomorrow night."

"Gentlemen, while the Britannians conduct the seige operations, we shall march east and search for some Gallians to put in the stew pot," intoned the King.

Painting Update
It has been awhile since I have posted any news so I thought that I would provide a brief update on the activities at Schloss Seewald over the past several weeks. It looks as though they had a terrific BAR wargame down in Austin, Texas over the weekend. I wish that I could have attended with my brigade of the Gardes. That might have made all of the difference in the outcome.

I have been busy painting von Kleist Freikorps figures for our big Kleine Krieg game in December (how is that for an oxymoron?). Pictures will follow later in the week once I get the forces up to critical mass.

So far, I have completed two squadrons of 12 horse grenadiers and as 12 figure squadron of von Kleist hussars. A third squadron of the horse grenadiers are sitting on my painting table, partially completed. The riders are finished, but I still have to paint the horses. I really do not enjoy painting horses for some reason, but there you have it.

With only three weeks to go until our Kleine Krieg game, I still have much work to do. I plan on building the von Kleist horse grenadiers up to four squadrons, or a total of 48 figures, paint 60 Grun Kroaten infantry, and two 6-pound foot artillery sections. I also have a handful of Milady de Winter's Black Legion to complete and there should be a surprise or two in that unit as we near the game deadline.

10 comments:

  1. Ahhh, Koenig Friedrich has managed to put steel into the spines of his officer corps.

    We shall see what happens this next month.


    -- Jeff

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  2. As always your blog is an inspiration even with the tidings of "bad" news.

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  3. The massed forces of Hesse-Seewald have put new vigor into the Electoral army. Although we were bested by the Gallo-Reichsarmee at Steinkreisdorf, our zeal for the cause has not been lessened!

    Markgraf Hapnich of Carpania
    (Jim)

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  4. Hi,

    Always fascinated by your blog and delighted to see your "big battalions" in action. I have long felt that one can never truly visualizde the intricacies of linear warfare without actually having seen what a battalion in line really looks like (not some 12-figure glorified colour party in one rank).

    One question does bother me though. You have gone to the trouble of raising 60-figure battalions etc, yet the individual figures are on such large bases that (IMO) the "ribbon" effect of a unit in line is lost/distorted to some extent. Is this a basing requirement of these particular figures, something to do with the rules you use, or just a personal liking?

    Cheers
    RtL
    (Member of the WD3 and GdeB/British Grenadier forums)

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  5. Dear Anonymous: the figures could just as easily be mounted on 20mm square (3/4" square) bases. This would give the units a tighter appearance. As long as all of the battalions have the same figure frontage, there should be no problem.

    Bill Protz (Chevert) and I settled on the 1" square base because we were using a lot of Suren figures, some of which require the larger base due to the size of their cast on metal bases on the figures.

    BTW, I use the 3/4" square bases for my BAR variant of Napoleonics.

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  6. Great pgoto looking down the road! And excellent report/story.

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  7. A siege game?
    And I still can't be there?
    Arrgh!!!!
    Don't forget, thought, that Frankfort has an excellently well fortified bridge and bridge head across the Main ... real thing pictures on my bolg, I think.
    Varoious poor relations of the Hurtshog are showing up, of course, as "volunteers"
    And, of course, there's always
    * General Braunsweiger (1) (a Deli-ight of the Brand Name Burgers Alliance, considered an
    expert in combined arms operations, but often is kept in fixed fortifications where - tho highly successful - his units often get sliced quite thinly). (now deserted to Germania, as he is a fan of all things from the Bar Line. )
    :)
    A
    PS:
    It's sheer coincidence that the majority of the Frankszonian army is of 20+ miles to the west dealing with another problem ....

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  8. Dear DAF,

    Thanks for the reply - yes, the Surens do have big bases don't they.

    Ronan the Librarian

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  9. Dear DAF,

    You should also say to RtL (anonymous) that we use individually mounted figures on movement trays. So those big bases of 15 figures are actually a movment tray with 15 individually mounted figures. We remove casualties by individual figures.

    Cheers,
    Randy

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  10. lovely toys, where i can buy some?

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