Frederick's Leib Guard - 3rd Battalion (IR15/III)

IR15/III - Third Battalion of the Leib Guard - Minden Miniatures

Today is the 256th anniversary of Frederick the Great's victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Leuthen on December 5, 1757. Many would say that Leuthen was the battle that gave Frederick the title of "the Great".

What better way to celebrate Leuthen than to post my first pictures of the 3rd Battalion of the Leib Guard (IR15/III). The rank and file all wore mitres with yellow mitre bag and silver front plate. The 2nd Battalion (IR15/II) wore tricorns, edged in silver. Both battalions of the Leib Guard were considered to be "grenadiers".

Close up view of three of the five stands plus the regimental officer. click pix to enlarge.

The figures are from the Minden Miniatures range of SYW era figures, sculpted by Richard Ansell. I used the grenadier figures with the "Swedish" cuffs and painted the aigulettes (shoulder knots) that would have been on the right shoulder. One of these days, we shall add the proper dressed Leib Guard figures to the Minden range, but for now, these will do just fine, thank you.

3rd Btn (front) and 2nd Btn (rear) form a brigade of the Leib Guard . Minden Miniatures. Click all pix to enlarge.

We have a SYW game scheduled at Chez Protz in Brown Deer, WI on Saturday December 14th, and as you might imagine, I have been busy building up my Minden Prussian forces for the game. To be fair, I have worked equally hard at adding Austrian units (primarily 2 cuirassier regiments and one Hungarian musketeer regiment) to the opposing side. We will use Bill's "Batailles de l'Ancien Regime" or BAR for short, using a 1 to 20 figure ratio (about 30 figures per battalion of infantry and 24-32 cavalry regiments). We normally play our BAR games using our 1 to 10 ratio Big Battalions, but every once in awhile, we pull out the smaller units and have a go with the rules. They work just fine at either ratio of figures to actual men.

Some viewers have asked how I organize my infantry for my own Fife & Drum rules. I paint both battalions of a regiment plus a mounted officer to command the whole regiment. Since I am using a 1:20 ratio in my Minden Armies, I have 30 figure battalions based on an assumption of 600 men in the battalion. It then follows that the regiment of two battalions would have 60 figures plus the one mounted officer. For basing, I use a 20mm frontage per figure and so I use MDF bases measuring 60mm by 40mm for my 6-figure infantry stands. There are five stands in each battalion.

I currently have four Prussian regiments completed: IR5 Alte Braunschweig, IR1 Winterfeld, IR13 Itzenplitz and IR49 Diericke fusilier regiment. There is also one battalion of grenadiers, the Wedell Grenadier Battalion (1/23) comprised of the two grenadier companies from both the IR1 and the IR23 regiments of musketeers. The recently completed 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Leib Guard and a battalion of jagers complete the infantry portion of my Minden Prussian army.

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