Prinz Heinrich IR35 Regiment Joins the Ranks

Prinz Heinrich Fusiliers (IR35)

CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE

Yesterday I finished basing the second battalion of IR35 Prinz Heinrich fusiliers and so I now have a full regiment of two battalions, each having 32 figures. I had completed the first battalion about a year ago and half of the second battalion, but the Zorndorf Project grabbed all of my time. With the SYWA convention over, I have more time to free kreigspeil through the painting queue and paint whatever strikes my fancy.

So I thought that it was high time to complete the second battalion with the 16 additional figures. All of my wargame regiments have two battalions.

Two battalions of IR35 and one battalion of Garrison V Jung Sydow

All of my SYW Minden regiments have two battalions. My existing units have 30 figures per battalion on 5 stands, but the new units have been increased to 32 figures based on 4 stands. The change was made in order to move the figures a little closer together and also to place the drummer on each flank of the battalion, offset a little bit from the rest of the battalion.

The picture below illustrates the new organization of my Prussian armies:

Prinz Heinrich regiment with its battalion guns - 3pdrs.

Each battalion will have two center stands (60mm x 40mm) of 8 figures and two end stands (80mm x 40mm) also of 8 figures. However, the end stands are wider so that I can position the drummer in an offset position from the rest of the stand. This is done to conform to the Prussian drill manual in which the drummers are posted on the end of each flank.

I am thinking that four stands looks a little unbalanced from a visual standpoint. So I am toying with the idea of adding a battalion gun - 3-pounder - stand that will be placed on one of the battalion flanks. The cannon will be allowed to fire as a cannon from long range, but when the battalion draws into musket range, the cannon will no longer function as  a cannon. Instead, it will add one more D10 die to the dice used for firing in my rules. (there is one D10 for every four figures in the battalion).

The regiments/battalions in the new basing scheme will become part of my new Pomeranian Project, that is, a lower quality army than the King's army, and designed to fight the Russians on the Oder River front.

The Garrison V Regiment, Jung Sydow, fought at Paltzig and Kunersdorf, making it a rather unlucky regiment, one might think. The regiment's pictures were posted in the previous posting on my blog, but for some reason, it didn't get any love from my blog readers noting that it received one of the lowest number of visitor hits of any recent blog posts. I am not sure why this is, so here is another view of the first battalion, including the hand-painted flags that I had to make since GMB Designs does not make flags for the Garrison regiments.

Garrison Regiment V - Jung Sydow

Jung Sydow will eventually get a second battalion painted, but not for now.

My next Prussian unit will be the IR46 Bulow Fusiliers who were made famous by Carl Rochling in the familiar print below:

Frederick II dramatically grabs the colour of the von Bulow (IR46) regiment
to lead them forward during the Battle of Zorndorf.

Frederick tried the old "grab the colours to inspire the troops" gambit at Kolin and Zorndorf. In each case, the regiments involved took a powder and Fritz found himself leading the advance all by himself.

So it's back to the painting table to finish the first battalion of IR46. This will give me 4 battalions in my Pomerian Prussian army, which is starting to have enough mass to look like a brigade, if not a small army. I don't have to paint any cavalry because I am keeping the same basing system for them: 2-inch square stands with two horses and riders per stand.