My New Skirmish Game Table

 

Farmer Ansell's farmstead near the town of Miller's Crossing, somewhere in Pennsylvania.

I recently set up a dedicated skirmish level game table in my basement that I can use for rules testing and small war games with my family or for solo play.

The table measures 5ft by 4 ft and is topped by a Cigar Box Battle Mat. The mat has some nice cornfields, wheat fields, forest areas and roads printed on it. The mat provides some useful variety in terrain. The table currently has a setup for an AWI skirmish game between the local militia and a couple of companies of British Light Company soldiers.

A view of my game room. The skirmish game table is located back in the corner of the room.

The village of Miller's Crossing.

The above picture depicts the little village of Miller's Crossing. Miller's Tavern is located in the center of the table and the Ansell farmstead is shown near the upper corner. Two companies of American militia are deployed on the road perpendicular to Miller's Tavern. A small company (8 figures) of riflemen have advanced up the road on the right to to discomfit the advancing company of British light infantry, who are advancing through Miller's Cornfield. . A second Light Company is advancing through Ansell's Cornfield. Unbeknownst to the American rebels, there is a company of the 71st Highland Regiment hiding in the woods on the far left. They are biding their time to either spring an ambush or advance on the flank of the militia. Another company of American militia are advancing up the road to Miller's Tavern.

American riflemen move up the road to harass the British light infantry.

Aerial view of the table reveals the location of the British light company attackers.

Rebel militia reinforcements double quick to the crossroads.

I will be playing the game using the AWI variant of my Kleine Krieg skirmish rules. If anyone wants to be a play tester of the rules then send me an email at altefritz1740@yahoo.com and I will send you a PDF copy of the rules. The rules have been changed to remove the card draw initiative and phasing system, replacing it with a dice-based game system. I would like to get these rules published in the near future and only need some independent rules testers to give them a try and seek out any bugs or inconsistencies in the rules.

Kleine Krieg Rules Q & A

Der Alte Fritz answers questions from play testers of his new Kleine Krieg rules.
(click to enlarge the picture)

I have a number of play testers working on my Kleine Krieg skirmish rules for the Seven Years War and I am getting some good feedback that I thought that I would share with my readers. The questions and the answers are shown below:

Question 1 - Initiative: Do you dice to determine who goes first, as in your rules for larger battles, or is there a different method?

Answer: Initiative is determined by the draw of a card from a deck that you create prior to the start of the game. I make my own cards by cutting them out of cardboard. Each unit in the game will have two cards with its name on the card. All cards for all units are shuffled together and the draw of the card determines which unit gets to perform an Action first. Note that any unit can theoretically draw two consecutive cards and thus perform back to back Actions.

Question 2 - In the turn order: move, shoot, melee and morale (and when for morale). Should it be on the play sheet?

Answer: The turn order is determined by each player when one of his cards is drawn from the card deck. A player may decide that he wants to shoot on the first turn; or move first; or charge into melee, etc. There is a box on the back of the QRC sheet labeled "When to Check Morale" and such checks are taken when

1) Charging unit takes casualties during the charge

2) Defender decides to Stand to a charge

3) Melee loser tests morale

4) Officer or personality figure casualty that occurs on the current game turn

Note that units do not have to test morale when they take casualties from firing (except if taken during the charge - see event 1) above.

Question 3 - Two actions in one turn feels like a lot for a small skirmish game on a smaller 4ft by 6ft table, especially when units are within 18-inches (which is the musket range). 

Answer: the rules are flexible and feel free to make changes during your play testing. On a smaller 4x6 table I would recommend using smaller units of, say, 12 figures instead of the 12 to 24 figures that I use in my skirmish game. You could also experiment with reducing all ranges and movement by half.

Question 4: I do like the idea of a reload as an Action which stops people blazing away willy nilly twice in a bound. It makes it more of a tense game in timing a charge or movement when close to an enemy - are they going to reload in time?

Answer: a "reload" Action is an interesting idea that I will consider adding to the rules. I kind of like the idea of a dastardly Croat letting the Prussians have it in the face on consecutive actions. On the other hand, if there were a "reload" Action in the rules, a unit might want to only fire half of its unit (e.g. fire 6 of 12 figures in a unit) while the other half of the unit holds its fire. Thus the other six figures can fire at an opponent and cover the other half who are reloading.

Question 5: When a unit takes a casualty how do you decide who is hit? I did a dice roll to count along the unit's line, in the manner of the Featherstone and Grant rules.

Answer: My perusal of the rules sheet indicates that the officer casualty procedure is not listed on the rules sheet. Originally, I was using a deck of regular playing cards to determine fire effects and if an Ace card was drawn, then the fire effect applied to the officer in the unit or the Personality figure if he was attached.

I think that your solution is a good idea. So roll a D6 and start counting from left to right along the line of the unit's figures. Thus a roll of "5" indicates that the fifth figure from the left would be the casualty. Or maybe roll two D6 if it is a 12-figure unit.

Question 6: It felt odd with both the winning and losing sides in a melee taking prisoners. Should the winners (sic - "losers" perhaps) just retire?

Answer: Melees are fought on a one to one basis, or up to a maximum of three figures picking on one unfortunate Joe if one of the sides has extra figures in its unit (e.g. one side has 6 figures and the other side has 9 figures - thus one side has three extra figures that it can match up with other melees in the fight. In this instance the extra figures can double up on one figure first, rather than adding two more figures , that is 3 to 1. If there are still extra figures after all figures have doubled up on the opponent, then the third figure can join the melee).

It might be a good rule change to have the losing side in the melee retreating and releasing its prisoners. Thus only melee winners retain captured prisoners.

Question 7: The melee system seems a bit fiddly. I do like the one on one combat ( as in The Sword and the Flame rules). Could the hit and casualty outcomes be shown from the difference in the initial opposed rolls rather than having to roll dice again?

Answer: There is only one dice roll in a melee. The one die roll applies to both the combat part of the melee and the melee outcome result.

The winner of a one on one melee is the figure that rolls the higher number on its combat dice roll. For example, if Player A rolls a "12" on a D20 and Player B rolls a "9" on a D20, then Player A wins the melee. Player A now consults the Melee Results Table and sees that the "12" that he rolled in the melee translates into a Kill outcome (a roll of 12 to 20 is a kill).

If we were to "net out" the opposing numbers, in this case a 12 less a 9 equals a 3 outcome which translates to "loser taken prisoner". The result can be substantially different if the die rolls are netted against each other. If you want to try netting the dice scores, the I would recommend reducing the Melee Effects by half (e.g. a 20 roll become a 10 roll and the 12 to 20 roll outcome of Kill is changed to 6 to 10 equalling a Kill outcome.

For those readers who do not have a copy of the rules in front of them, the melee results table:

On a D20, Melee Results are:

12 to 20    Kill

9 to 11      Wound inflicted on the loser

5 to 8        Flee, the loser retires 12-inches

1 to 4        Loser is taken prisoner

Halving the above table changes the outcome buckets to 6 to 10 = Kill; 4-5 = Wound; 2-3 = Flee, and a 1 = Loser taken prisoner.

I think that the play tester asked a lot of good questions and found a couple of logic holes in the rules. I appreciate all feedback from our play testers. The rules are not set in stone yet so I can still change mechanics that either don't work or produce odd results.

I welcome comments from readers who are not play testers. Just write your observations and opinions in the Comments section of this blog post.

My Prussian Skirmish Game Units

Croats ambush a Prussian supply wagon and its escort of dismounted hussars.
(Minden Miniatures, Perry supply wagon, Cigar Box Battles game mat)

Click/Double Click all pictures to see them in their full awesomeness.

Well, we seem to have come down with a case of skirmish game fever here at Schloss Seewald, and the only prescription for the fever is either more cowbell or paint more figures. I have opted for the latter seeing that I do not own any cowbells.

I have pretty much decided that my convention games for 2020 will all be skirmish level games set in either the SYW or the AWI, or even both! I have observed that convention gamers seem to have more fun playing in the smaller skirmish games, where they might command anything from one to, say, 24 figures, than they do in large battalion/regiment styles of games.

Possible skirmish scenarios include the ever popular ambush of the wagon train convoy, or a raid on the field bakery of the enemy (an army can't fight without bread), or the capture of a certain king who likes to ride out in the country on reconnaisance. You get the idea.

Croat Terror Strikes Again!

A Prussian field bakery seems like a ripe target for a Croat raid.
( A mix of RSM and Minden figures. Field bakery ovens scratch-built by Ed Phillips;
the other buildings were made by Herb Gundt).

An added benefit, I think, is that it should be easier to transport all of the components of a skirmish game set up than it is for a larger game of 12-16 regiments per side. At least I think that to be the case, but if you have been a reader of this blog since its inception in 2010, you know that Der Alte Fritz doesn't like to do anything nice and easy, so there is a risk that the size of my skirmish game set up could grow like kudzu.

I digress though...

Prussian Black Hussars - one of my favorite cavalry uniforms of all time.
(Minden Miniatures dismounted Prussian hussars in mirliton hats)

The Genesis of this Particular Butterfly

The attraction of the skirmish game began to germinate at the recent Seven Years War Association convention in April 2019 in South Bend, Indiana. I was talking with Paul Petri and Herb Gundt about the dearth of game on Saturday evening of the convention and we were trying to gin up a solution to get more games for that time slot. It used to be that Saturday evening was THE Prime Time slot at the convention, but somewhere along the line, the attraction seemed to fade away. I noticed that people were taking off earlier on Saturday and traveling home, whereas they used to stay at the hotel on Saturday night and go home on Sunday.

What to do? Schedule games that are more fun and less serious on Saturday night. Now I know of one curmudgeon who bristles at the idea of wargames being fun, but let's cross him off our list as an outlier on the extreme and focus on the large majority of gamers who go to a convention to have some fun. ("No Fritz, I want to travel several hundred miles to a convention and have a miserable time in each game that I play in.").

First, the Rules

I decided that I needed to have a set of skirmish rules that are easy to learn and yes, fun to play, and ones that could introduce a certain level of role playing. Sharp Practice seemed like a good set, at least until I played them at the Little Wars convention this year. I liked the rules, but they seemed too complicated for a person to pick up right away (that would be ME). Skirmish game rules need to be easy, easy and more easy to learn so that the players can step into their roles and start stabbing their fellow gamers in the back, as needed, during the game.

I looked at a number of skirmish level rules, but then deep in the cobwebs of my brains, I remembered that I used to use my own set of rules, called "Croat Terror", for skirmish games and they met my requirements of (1) easy to learn, and (2) fun to play. The title of the rules has its genesis in a FIW game that Tod Kershner used to run at conventions, called "Iroquois Terror." I thought that Tod's title instantly conveyed the concept of fun, so when I sought to have a game set in Europe, the idea of roving bands of Croat light infantry wreeking terror on Prussian supply convoys led to the name "Croat Terror for my rules. In this day and age of global terrorism, perhaps the title has too much of a raw edge to it and might have to be renamed. What was acceptable in the 1990s may be less so in 2019. Your thoughts on this would be appriciated.

So I decided to go with the "Croat Terror " rules for my skirmish games.

Organizing the Forces

I think that once skirmish units get to be more than about 20-30 figures, then we are no longer talking about playing a skirmish game. I can't pinpoint the precise size, but it is one of those "I'll know it when I see it" types of things. I have elected to go with a company of 12 figures as the basic building block of the combatants. Each group of 12 figures has one NCO in it - this is what I am calling a "company" of figures. Two such companies are commanded by an officer, probably at the captain or major rank.

Some examples of the figure organization are shown below - Prussian freikorps troops and Prussian jagers. The individual stands (25mm diameter discs) and movement trays will be finished off with my usual static grass and tufts or flower. My apologies for showing them in their unfinished state.

Prussian frei-battalion or regiment. Two companies of twelve figures plus a commanding officer.
The forces include a mix of Fife & Drum AWI Continentals painted as Prussians
and some Fife & Drum AWI Hessians painted as Prussians.

Prussian jagers - two companies of 12 figures plus a commanding officer.
(Minden Miniatures, all)

I am using 25mm diameter wood discs for the individual figures, which fit into a movement tray that holds the 12 figures in the company. The NCO is one of the figures on the movement tray plus 11 rank and file soldiers. I decided on using Litko movement trays for my skirmish companies. They are reasonably priced, the unit looks nice and tidy in the tray, and Litko provides really great customer service.

Portable Terrain

I mentioned that portability of the terrain was an important consideration for me. I use a 6ft by 12ft canvas matt that rolls  up onto a cylinder. The problem is that the cylinder is six feet long, so it can be a problem finding a place for it when I load up my car with "game stuff". I have seen a number of game judges using the Cigar Box Battles game mats, as mentioned in an earlier blog post, and so I purchased two 6ft by 5ft mats that are designed to match up (roads to roads, etc.) for my skirmish games. I can fold the mats up into a smaller, rectangular size that takes up way less room than the six foot cylinder. That is a big plus as far as I'm concerned.

I should add that I really like the Cigar Box game mats.

Once the mat is set up on the table, then it is a simple matter of placing trees and buildings and whatever else strikes your fancy onto the game mat. I carry all of my buildings and trees in plastic stackable bins that have a pull-out drawer. When I am packing up, it is easy to put the few buildings into a plastic bin and then do the same for the trees. That's pretty much it as far as the terrain goes. Easy peasy and everything is all tickety-boo.

Figures to use in the Game

Naturally, I am largely using Minden SYW and Fife and Drum AWI miniatures. I add in the occasional RSM and/or Perry figure here and there. Perry has some nice civilian figures in their AWI figure range that are worth having a look. I like to have a lot of civilians roaming around the perifery of the game table. But you had best beware, if you decide to attack a civilian with one of your soldiers, be advised that the civilians can fight back. Oftentimes the civilians are noncombatants, but once one of them are attacked, then they band together and go crazy on the offending side. 

The Tale of Bucket Woman

I recall one game in which a Croat player decided to kill a woman carrying one of those water bucket yokes. We called her Bucket Woman and she was a deadly fighter. To begin, one Croat attacked Bucket Woman and didn't realize that she could and would fight back. The Croat got clocked by one swing of her water bucket yoke.

Bucket Woman - the Biggest Badass in Silesia
(Minden Croats, Foundry Bucket Woman, and Perry Ma and Pa figures)

Two Croats warily approach the dreaded Bucket Woman.
Ma and Pa are in the background observing  the things to come.

OK, then the Croat player decided that he would attack again, only this time with two Croats.  Bad idea, because a water yoke has two wooden buckets and with one swing to the left and one swing to the right Bucket Woman dispatched two more naer-do-well Croats. 

Finally, the Croat player's blood was up and he wanted revenge, however, he was now wise to the ways of Bucket Woman and decided to shoot her rather than get in another melee with her.  And not with just one Croat, but with five Croats, just to make sure. As you might guess, the Croats fired and all of them missed.

But wait, there's more... Bucket Woman had a pistol concealed in her robes and as the black powder smoke from the Croat muskets wafted up into the air, she pulled out her pistol, aimed it at one of the Croats, and despatched him with one shot.

Finally, the Croat player decided that he had had enough and retreated away from Bucket Woman. No one else dared to engage her thereafter.

This is the type of story that makes skirmish games so much fun. They can be very unpredictable and the players can't help but get involved with the role playing aspect of the game.

My Proposed Austrian and Prussian Forces

I will have to do a number of play tests to determine whether a player should have only one company of 12 figures, or will two companies work too, or will two companies clog up the table. Let me know what your thoughts are: 12 figures per player or 24 figures per player.

Thus far I have painted 2 x 12 Prussian Freikorps infantry, 2 x 12 Prussian jagers, 1 x 12 dismounted Black Hussars, and I'm in the process of finishing up 1 x 12 dismounted Zieten Hussars.

My Austrian army currently has 2 x 12 Croats and 2 x 12 Austrian grenadiers with some more units to follow to even up the sides.

I am making good progress in my painting of the skirmish figures so I hope to be able to run some play test games over the summer.

I think that we are going to have a lot of FUN with the Skirmish Game Project

Von Kleist Frei Korps

Foundry Prussian von Kleist Freikorps figures.

The von Kleist Frei Korps was one of my favorite wargaming units, but it has passed into the service of the Duke of Freiberg awhile back. I still get to see it on the table top from time to time since the Duke and I game together on a regular basis. Over the years I have become less and less enamored with Foundry figures, but I have to say that the von Kleist figures and the Prussian artillery crew (painted in von Kleist green) are pretty darn nice looking figures.

The Game's Afoot! Kleine Krieg Tomorrow.

The Regulators will be searching for Lady Pettygree tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning I will be traveling to Brown Deer for our Fourth Annual Light Troop Game at Chez Protz. This year's event features three games: Russians in Persia, French & Indian War, and Lady de Winter's perpetual attempt to capture Lady Diana Pettygree.

Apparently, Lady Pettygree and her gaggle of ditzy friends are flouncing about the countryside looking for places to have a picnic. As usual, she has an escort that is armed to the teeth. All of this makes her suspect in the eyes of the dark overlord back in Brandenburg. I mean, why is an English woman cavorting all over western Germany, at will, with a large bodyguard of French troops?

She must be a spy. In fact, there are rumors that she killed the Duke of Saxe Gotha whilst they were taking a romantic stroll through the Gotha-wald on a warm summer day. The poor Duke somehow took a tumble into the Trummelbach Gorge. Lady Pettygree was nowhere to be seen.

Ever since, it has been the mission of a certain lady who travels in a black coach to find and apprehend that little scamp, Lady Pettygree. And who exactly is it that travels in the black coach?

Why none other than:

Lady de Winter, the Black Rider, and the Regulators.

Come back tomorrow for a report on the day's events. Mwwhahahahahaha!

Battle of Bettendorf

Suren Uhlans de Saxe escort the troublesome Lady Pettygree across Germany, from Frankfurt to Dresden. (figures from the collection of Bill Protz). click all pictures to enlarge.

That troublesome Englishwoman, Lady Diana Pettygree and her coterie of giggling friends, were once again, the cause of considerable trouble in the cold winter snows of Central Germany this past weekend. Ostensibly, a French expedition of light infantry and cavalry used the ruse of escorting this important personage, to try and extend their forward cavalry screen and keep the Prussians away from the environs of Frankfurt. As often happens when this particular troublemaker is involved, a little country joy ride developed into a battle between the French and the Prussian light forces near the town of Bettendorf.


RSM Croats and Austrian hussars lead the vanguard of the Austrian and French forces across the Apfelwasser bridge. Terrain built by Herb Gundt.

So to make a long story short, a bunch of French soldiers and a similar bunch of Prussians ran into one another around the little hamlet of Bettendorf. The town lay on the western edge of the table and a single road traversed the horizontal length of the table. Halfway across, we found the small, frozen Apfelwasser. One of the French objectives was to push their light screen to this river edge. Further down the road, moving from left to right, was the larger Hartz-wasser. If the French were to push their screen to this terrain feature, it would be considered a significant victory. Finally, at the far righthand or eastern edge of the table, was an important crossroads. Possession of the cross roads would indicate a major French victory.

Both armies had approximately four brigades of 120 figures, mixed with infantry, light cavalry and artillery no larger than 6-pound cannon. The troop quality was "Trained", according to the Batailles de l'Ancien Regime ("BAR") rules that we used. My compatriots, Bill Protz, Randy Frye and I used this game as an excuse, or incentive, if you will, to paint lots and lots of light infantry and cavalry. We had long recognized that this branch of the army was woefully under-represented in our respective armies. So Bill and Randy endeavored to paint Fischer's Legion of foot chasseurs and mounted chasseurs, while I chose the multi-armed Von Kliest Freikorps for my army. Our hope was to also paint dismounted cavalry to use in the game, but time conspired against us and so minimal dismounts were available for this game. Oh well, something to shoot for for next year.


French regular infantry and cavalry march through Bettendorf on the way to the Apfelwasser. We played them as freikorps and light cavalry for this game, since we didn't have enough light forces painted. I think that the Auvergne regiment with the purple flag was designated as a converged grenadier unit. So there was some quality amid all of the lower rated troops.


The Croats have now crossed the Apfelwasser and are about to be introduced to their antagonists.


A regiment of Prussian jagers popped out of the woods and delivered a devastating volley that thinned the ranks of the Croats.


While the Croats were drawing all of the Prussian fire and artillery attention, a battalion of French grenadiers attempted to cross a ford (note the rocky area in the stream) and gain the other bank of the Apfelwasser. A company of Prussian jagers defends this section of the stream.

This section of the battlefield featured some interesting developments of note. The French grenadiers succeeded in crossing the Apfelwasser at the ford. Things were looking good since there was nothing more than a company or two of Prussian jagers and some artillery to defend the center. The Prussian commander accordingly called for his dragoons to charge the grenadiers. In essence, the Prussians defended their center with a series of vicious cavalry attacks on the French infantry. The tactic worked as the French grenadiers routed back to their own side of the water, albeit at the cost of most of the Prussian dragoons. Later in the battle, a battalion of Prussian grenadiers emerged from their hiding place behind a reverse slope and the mere sight of tall men in mitre caps was enough for the French to give up the attack.

A regiment of French light dragoons charged across the bridge once the Croats had been cleared away. The Prussians counter-attacked with their own frei-dragoons. The intense hand to hand combat on the bridge was constricted by the narrowness of the span. The Prussian horse would drive the French light cavalry back across the bridge, disordering their supporting cavalry.


The Prussian frei-battalion Von Brittle then moved up to the Apfelwasser to drive back a battalion of French grenadiers, who tried to cross the bridge after the French light cavalry had retired.


Bill's Chasseurs de Fischer (Front Rank figures) seek cover in the woods against the pending attack of the von Kliest freikorps.

Meanwhile, on one of the smaller side tables, Bill and George Rust engaged in a desperate struggle to control the other ford over the Apfelwasser. This was played on a table that measured a mere 2.5 feet wide and fought over a length of only 4 or 6 feet. This demonstrates that BAR style battles can indeed be fought on smaller tables. George's freikorps consisted of 36 horse grenadiers, 12 hussars, 6 dismounted horse grenadiers, 60 Grun Kroaten infantry and two 6-pounders. Bill had a 60 figure battalion of foot chasseurs, 24 light dragoons, 12 hussars and a couple of 4-pounders. The two forces fought each other to a stand still, although it appeared to me that the French had more men standing at the end of the game.

Similarly, Randy and I were fighting it out on the other half table. I had 36 Black Hussars rated as elite, 20 Bosniak lancers rated as Poor, 20 von Kliest infantry rated as trained, and 24 dismounted Black Hussars rated Elite. Randy attacked with another battalion of Fischer infantry, 2 squadrons of mounted Fischer chasseurs, 3 squadrons of light dragoons and a couple of 4-pounders. I also had Milady de Winter's personal bodyguard of 48 black clad infantry, but I elected not to commit them to the battle, because their mission was to find and capture Lady Pettygree.


Some of the Foundry von Kliest Grun Kroaten that I painted for this game. I used the Frank Hammond basing method for the entire von Kliest freikorps (horse, foot and artillery) to give it a unified look.

With no infantry to speak of and no artillery, I had to resort to ambuscade and trickery. So I hid the small company of von Kliest infantry in the woods and waited for the French to pass their front. The von Kliests popped out of the woods and fired into the flank of the French cavalry, dropping four troopers. That was about it for the von Kliests. Randy then drove them off with musketry and entered the woods with his infantry, declining to attack the tempting target of Bosniak lancers, which I displayed to his front. My second little ambush involved the dismounted hussars in the woods, by Randy had this gambit figured out and he flushed them out of the woods where the remainder were mowed down by canister. I now had only the hussars and lancers to contest this part of the table, so I had no choice but to fall back to the cross roads. Advantage French in this sector.

It was a fun little game with most of the intense fighting on the center table, while a friendly affair erupted on the two parallel flanking tables. It was fun playing with troops of lower quality and one has to adjust one's tactics and expectations a little bit in the absence of better quality troops. I am looking forward to more Kleine Krieg wargames in the future, and in fact, I believe that I have a couple of nifty ideas for some fast paced scenarios. More about that within a couple of weeks after I play test the scenario at my home base.

Kleine Krieg December 6, 1758

Von Kliest Grun Kroaten figures from Wargames Foundry (click the picture to enlarge)

I haven't had much in the way of free time to blog over the past several weeks, because I've been a paintin' fool feverishly trying to get my Von Kliest Freikorps finished in time for our winter kleine krieg game this past weekend, on December 6th. I will post more pictures over the next couple of days, both of our game on Saturday, and of my freikorps additions and more of Milady de Winter's Black Legion.

I was able to field a mixed force of 36 horse grenadiers, 12 hussars, 60 Grun Kroaten infantry, 12 jagers and two sections of 6-pounder von Kliest artillery and 10 crew. I also bumped the Black Legion up from 23 figures to 45 figures within the past week, as well as an assortment of mounted officers. Mrs. Fritz hinted that I should hide my paint brushes after Saturday's game, because I probably wasn't going to be doing much painting for the rest of the month. Fair enough, given that I admittedly overdid the painting blitz in order to get ready for the game.


Von Kliest artillery, using Foundry Prussian gunners and artillery pieces from Berlin Zinnfiguren.

Eventually, I will add a couple more squadrons of horse grenadiers to get the unit up to 48 or 60 figures, add another squadron of hussars to get that unit up to 24 figures, and maybe down the road, I might add some von Kliest uhlans.


Here is a preview of the kleine krieg game that we played on Saturday December 6th at Brown Deer, Wisconsin. Here we see a hoard of RSM Croats crossing the Apfelwasser spanned by an HG Walls bridge. Mr. Walls also built the road and frozen river sections, the winter trees, and the snow covered building in the background.




A view of the French army as it marches through the town of Bettendorf towards the Apfelwasser. They could only cross over the bridge or at one of the two fords over the stream. These served as choke points that were well defended by the Prussian frei battalions. Virtually all of the troops in this game were low quality trained or poor troops, albeit with a smattering of veteran grenadiers and the elite Black Hussars (whose eliteness did little to prevent them from being shot out of their saddles by the Fischer light infantry of the French).

All Hallows Eve

A group of Prussian grenadiers from the IR12 Alt Darmstadt Regiment enjoy a little down time for cooking, hunting and maybe a little bit of figure painting.

It is All Hallows Eve and all of the little monsters are done with their trick or treating, so things are quieting down a little bit and I have a little bit of time to paint. Except that I didn't do any painting. I couldn't quite get my painting mojo going this evening, so instead, I cleaned and primed another squadron of von Kleist horse grenadiers so that I can start painting them over the weekend. I also applied the finishing touches to the bases for 7 more of the Black Legion de Winter and 6 von Kleist dismounted horse grenadiers.

I had a decent painting output this month, consisting of the following figures:

12 x CR10 Prussian Gendarmes - Crusader Miniatures (24 pts.)
12 x von Kleist Horse Grenadiers - Foundry figures (24 pts.)
19 x Black Scorpion Pirates and Marines (19 pts.)
6 x Foundry dismounted von Kleist horse grenadiers (6 pts.)

So that results in 73 Olley Painting Points for the month of October. Not bad, considering that the first two weeks of October were devoted largely to preparation work for my Big Battalion Old School Wargame on October 11th. That was quite a big production, and well worth the effort. And then last weekend, Bill, Randy and I hosted a BAR SYW wargame at the Rock Con convention in Rockford, Illinois. So it has been an active month for me.

Now that all of the big games are over, my thoughts turn to getting units ready for the Winter skirmish game that we will play the first weekend in December, up in Brown Deer, Wisconsin. So I am busy painting freikorps and jagers and other types of figures that one does not normally see on a wargame table. I like the Foundry von Kleist horse grenadiers, which is really saying something since I am not normally a big fan of the Foundry style of figures. Somehow, though, they work for me. So I primed another squadron this evening with the hope of getting them done over the weekend. That would give me two squadrons of the eventual three or four that I plan to have in the skirmish game.

As of now, my planned von Kleist Freikorps will consist of the following:

4 sqds x 12 Horse Grenadiers
2 sqds x 12 Hussars
2 sqds x 12 Uhlans
Total Cavalry = 8 squadrons x 12 figures or 96 figures.

1 btn x 60 Green Croat infantry
1 btn x 30 Jager
1 btn x 30 dismounted horse grenadiers
Total Foot = 120 figures

2 x 6 pound light horse artillery (10 crew/2 guns/2 limber teams)

1 x mounted infantry commander
1 x mounted cavalry commander

Now historically, there were 8 squadrons of the horse grenadiers and 10 squadrons of the uhlans and 5 squadrons of the hussars; but I have no intention of painting that many freikorps figures. Hmm, 10 squadrons of uhlans would be an impressive sight, don't you think?

Freikorps von Kleist (FC12)

Von Kleist Dragoons from Foundry, painted by Der Alte Fritz

"Triple blue and three times damned to the Devil (Dreimal blau und dreimal des Teufels)," is allegedly what Frederick the Great said about his various frei-battalion troops. The phrase refers to their typical blue coat with light blue facings and light blue waistcoat.

One frei korps unit that performed better than Frederick's low estimation of the troops in general, was the legion of infantry, cavalry and artillery recruited and organized by Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Kleist in 1759. These were the best of the best in Christopher Duffy's estimation and the eventually grew into a corps of 6,000 men of all troop types.

The unit began its service with Prussian with the formation of a squadron of hussars in 1759 and was gradually augmented with a regiment of Croat styled infantry, a regiment of dragoons wearing a sort of horse grenadier hat, some more hussars, and ten squadrons of uhlans. Finally, a battery of horse artillery decked out in green uniforms and some jagers filled out the corps.


Von Kleist jaegers prowl the woods, directed by Colonel von Kleist and his aide on horseback.

I had thought that my days of painting Prussians had come to an end, seeing as how I had everything that I could possibly need and being limited by the number of boxes of figures that I could transport in my car. But then, our little group came up with the idea of painting figures so that we could do a game featuring light troops, or Kleine Krieg. I happened to have a batch of the von Kleist dragoons in storage. I had acquired these Foundry figures from the old Standing Order days, when I would automatically receive a box of sample SYW figures on a regular basis.

I tried painting a couple of test figures first, and found that I rather enjoyed working with these particular Foundry figures. They have a lot of personality and character to them, and they aren't the misshapen dwarves that seem to pass as Foundry figures these days. And being largely green in color, they are not that hard to paint. The other night, I finished two figures in about two hours of nonstop painting.

I plan to build a corps comprising of a regiment of dragoons (36 to 48 figures), some dismounted dragoons (maybe 24 at most), a battalion of the Green Croat infantry (60 figures), some of the jaegers (30 figures), a squadron of hussars (12 figures), and maybe two squadrons of the uhlans (24 figures). Finally, I will add two 6 pound horse artillery guns with five crew each.

I have a good start on this project, having painted a dozen each of the dragoons and jaegers with another 24 Croats on the painting table. I bet though, that when the resupply of Foundry figures arrives in a few more days, that I will want to switch back to painting the von Kleist dragoons (that look like horse grenadiers). Anticipation makes it all worth while.