New Terrain Goodies (and all that)

 

Front gate house.

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I recently purchased this set of resin 28mm German farmhouse buildings at a local store called Games Plus. It looks like it could be used almost anywhere in northern and eastern Europe. The model comes in five pieces, each with a removable roof: gatehouse; barn; stables; farmhouse; and an extra wall section. I have no idea what company makes this set, only that it is made in China (isn't everything?). I am fairly certain that these are not Miniature Building Authority building models, albeit they look similar.

The farmhouse, stables and barn can all be used as separate buildings on the game table. This will likely be my intended use since the models have a large foot print when used together.

Farmhouse in the right foreground. Barn in the upper center has the large dormer and damaged roof section.
The stables are shown on the left and the gatehouse is rather obvious.

Back to the Seven Years War

So it looks like I am re-engaging with the Seven Years War after a near-year-long layoff from the period. Seeing pictures of Willz Harley's  Mollwitz game on the Fife and Drum Miniatures Forum seems to have rekindled my interest in the SYW gaming. So my plan is to put on the Charles Grant Sr. Mollwitz scenario from "The Wargame" at this year's Seven Years War Association convention at the end of March.

I have most of the figures that I need to stage Mollwitz, but I am short a few units so last evening I resumed painting Minden Prussian Hussars and primed some Austrian grenadiers. A couple more limber teams yet to do that will wrap up the new stuff that I would need.

I had a recent correspondence with Charles Stuart Grant  (CSG) about the Mollwitz scenario and he reminded me that it wasn't historically accurate and that he had created his own Mollwitz scenario (Refighting History Volume 2) that did a better job of recreating the famous battle. So now I'm thinking of running the classic The Wargame Mollwitz in my first game on Friday morning and then running CSG's version of Mollwitz on Saturday. It will be interesting to see how the two scenarios compare on the table top.

I cleared off the Sudan terrain from my main game table (but left Khartoum standing on the back table) and set up the green Cigar Box Battlemats for battles in Europe. It took a little bit over an hour to clear off all of the 54mm Dervish, move the walls of Khartoum off the center table and over to the back table, and then set up my Minden Austrians and Prussians on the table.

My Minden Prussian army is set up for The Wargame version of Mollwitz.
However, the white coats across the table are my RSM French units that I set up 
on the table so that I could take pictures of that army (which is available for sale).

My table set up for The Wargame Mollwitz scenario.
Austrians on the left and Prussians on the right

Here are several pictures of my RSM/Old Glory/Front Rank French army. There are 12 line regiments and two light regiments. There are four each of 4-pound and 8-pound artillery with crew. The cavalry contingent has 11 regiments of 12 figures. I brigade two regiments together to get a 24-figure unit which is on par with my Minden Prussian cavalry.

I really really really like the RSM French cavalry figures that Dennis Smail (founder of RSM) painted for me because (1) terrific paint job; and (2) the RSM cavalry is a perfect fit with my Minden figures and I can use them with my growing army of Minden French figures.

So I have to decide if I am aiming to sell the whole army to one buyer, sell just the infantry/artillery and keep the cavalry for myself, or start breaking the army up into individual units for sale. Don't ask me for the 'star' regiment of the collection, the Grenadiers de France. Everyone wants to buy this unit. I'd only sell it paired up with several other regiments or for the sale of the whole army in one go. Make me an offer.

Some of the RSM French cavalry (eleven 12-figure cavalry regiments).

Some of my RSM French regiments (24 figures on four stands).

I think that these might be Old Glory 28mm French, expertly painted by Dennis Smail.
RSM artillery and Ian Weekley buildings.
Cigar Box Battle Mats