Gendarmes Part 3

The second squadron are finished, apart from basing that is, and in keeping with the theme they represent the second company - Anglais.
Recognisable by their violet sash this is the only difference to the first squadron. I decided against trying to do the multitude of lacing styles on cuffs and shabraques that also distinguished the various companies.
For those who like to know the violet was Anitas Craft paint over a basecoat of GW Fortress Grey.

Gendarmes Part 2

The first squadron have been touched up (oo er missus!).

As the first to be put through the revamp I thought it appropriate to make them the first company - Ecossais. Distinguished by their yellow crossbelt the squadron have had faces given some definition, red coats highlighted, white lace repainted and weapons smartened up.

I also decided to give the front belts an edging in black purely to lift the definition on the figure. Right now I'm not sure about the effect but I'll wait and see what it's like when they're based en masse.
For those who like to know such things - the red coats were first washed with a diluted coat of GW Red Gore before highlighting with GW Blood Red; white was teo coats of thinned GW Skull White; crossbelt was GW Golden Yellow over a GW Bubonic Brown basecoat; wepns were GW Boltgun with GW Mithril Silver & black was GW Chaos Black. For thinner I used Klear floor polish (and just one question - does the new formula which is cloudy still work?).

Defeat for the Danes

Just a small game this time with my Danes (four battalions and nine squadrons supported by two field guns) taking on an equally small English contingent (five battalions and nine squadrons) - the English must have forgotten to pay the Danes!
Deploying in a fairly conventional style and using the woods and hedges to protect my right all the horse were massed on my left flank - the more open of the two and the foot deployed in two lines across the center. My opponent deployed similarly except that he had some dragoons supporting his left flank.
Having some field pieces I decided to wait for the enemy advance and try to make some use of the guns. In the first few moves this seemed to pay off with my guns hitting every time. Indeed this continued into canister range and even the first musketry volleys.

Meanwhile the massed heavy horse had crashed together and fought several rounds of melee with no side gaining an advantage. Even the presence of the Danish Lifeguard did little to raise the prospects of a conclusion.

Finally the two front lines of infantry closed together and were almost within touching distance. Both sides blazed away and it seemed as though the Danes were gaining the upper hand. More red coats were falling than the Danish grey.
The first morale tests went in favour of the Danes too. Two English battalions stalled and seemed to be in some confusion. Thinking that they had an opening to exploit the Danes closed the gap to just a few feet.
Musket balls were rammed home in the expectation that the first line of the enemy could be routed with another good shot.
Muskets raised to the shoulder the order to fire was given and both sides opened fire. Whether it was the fact that the Danes were too eager or the English too well drilled, the fact was that the effect was not as great as hoped.
This disappointment was compounded by a wavering in the Danish ranks. Probably caused by the resilience of the enemy the result was to cause disorder and confusion in the ranks of the Danish foot.
The enemy whilst disorganised did manage to fire another round and this saw the end of the Danes.
In a single move both the flanking battalions of the Danish first line ran leaving behind the Wurrtemberg & Foot Guards. Despite the fact the Danish horse were now rallied and ready to go the Danish commander peered through the smoke and saw that facing him were two fresh English battalions with another two, weaken but still effective, battalions preparing to turn into his flank.
With a heavy heart the remaining Danes withdrew from the field whilst they still could.

As I said just a small game with only some six hundred figures on the table. Still for all that it was fun and a game that demonstrated the danger of defending your baseline. With the rout of the infantry the Danes were so close to their base table edge that they ran off in a single turn - if they had advanced by a single move they might have been rallied and fought on. All this caused by my blindness to the field guns. I had them & my opponent didn't so I was going to make damned sure I used them and in the end I think this was a major contribution to my defeat because I place too much reliance on what was less than 10% of the points I fielded.

My thanks to Mark for playing an enjoyable game.

French Gendarmes - part one

Having run out of Wars of the Roses figures to upgrade (and now finding myself some eighty figures short of the project total) I've decided to return to my first love - the War of the Spanish Succession.
And in keeping with an earlier promise - no new figures!

So in the first stage of the revamp of some of my early figures.

First up are the Gendarmes. These elite horse were not part of the Maison du Roi but certainly had precedence over the line horse regiments. Originally I had four companies of the historical sixteen and had them at the theoretical full paper strength of ten figures (200 men at a 1:20 ratio). As part of the revamp I've decided to reduce them to eight figures but increase the number of companies to five. The figures seen here are Hinchliffe French horse from their 7SYW range. Not historically accurate for the WSS but twenty years ago they were the best option from an extremely limited range of choices.
So I have a couple of choices first - do I repaint them and use them or repaint them to sell and replace them?
Right now, given the few times they appear on the table, I'm happy to repaint them for my personal use.
So the repainting will involve removing them from the bases, repainting the bandoliers and cross belts, highlighting and defining the faces and giving the coats some depth. All in all trying to improve on the quality of painting that I was able to achieve back in the early nineties.

Blog notes

One of two things appear to have happened to this blog.

Either my, admittedly sparse, posts are not attracting your attention and no one is commenting on them - good or bad.
Or I've picked up a virus that only consist of adverts and promotions for bogus sites.

If it's the former then I'll try to do better and return to more wargaming. I do have a number of ideas for posts and some of them are horse and musket based (hurrah I hear!!).

If it's the latter then come someone email me with a solution please?