New: WAS Austrian Regt. Sprecher

Austrian regiment "Sprecher" from the War of the Austrian Succession
(later known as the "Lacy" regiment in the SYW)

I finished the basing of my newest Austrian infantry battalion for my War of the Austrian Succession project. It is the Sprecher regiment, later known as the Lacy regiment during the SYW. The battalion had been sitting in the area where I do all of my basing and terraining for several weeks, but on Monday of this week I finally found some time to add the grass and finish the bases.

A closer view of the command stand and those wonderful "Pete's Flags".

If you click on any of the pictures to enlarge them, you can probably guess why I chose this particular regiment to paint. It is the only regiment that used a two-color uniform combination - red facings (turnbacsk, cuffs and lapels) with dark blue waistcoat, making it a very unique looking regiment. This uniform was worn during the first couple of year of the SYW (1756 and 1757). By 1758 the regiment had gone through several inhabers and now wore a fairly standard uniform with red cuffs and lapels, but a white waistcoats and white turnbacks.

A side view illustrating Der Alte Fritz's now-famous 3-rank basing system.

As with the other Austrian regiments in my WAS Project (now that it is an official project, it should have capital letters instead of common lower-case letters), there are 40-42 figures in the battalion based on five stands that give the unit a symetrical look. This unit has three 8-figure stands and two 9-figure stands. This give me the option of removing one of the 9-figure stands, reducing the battalion to 33 figures, which puts it on par with my 32-figure Prussians and Russians.

How the battalion might look utilizing only 4 stands.

Another view of the 4 stand organization

The WAS organization of my forces places most of the rank and file soldiers and the command stand figures in the front two ranks. The base is 60mm by 80mm deep. The frontage matches that of my Russian and Prussian new battalions.

I then add a sort of third rank consisting of a drummer at the end of each flank of the battalion plus either an NCO or an officer in the rear behind the rank and file soldiers.

The two pictures below provide a good look at the sort of three rank basing system.

Of course, my cavalry regiments have to be increased in size from 24 figures to 36 figures in order for them to be able to contend with the larger battalions. In my Der Alte Fritz rules (free download on the Fife and Drum Miniatures webstore site) a full cavalry regiment stands a decent chance of charging into an infantry battalion and winning the melee, but at the cost of being nearly destroyed from the casualties. Generally, it is not a good idea for cavalry to charge a full strength infantry battalion. 

For the Austrian cavalry, the solution might be to use my existing 24-figure cavalry regiments and then add 12 horse grenadiers or carbiniers to bring the regiment up to 36 figures. I use a 1:20 figure to man ratio in my wargame units (32 figure infantry and 36 figure cavalry}.

I now have 9 infantry battalions in my WAS Austrian army and I think that 8 battalions will be enough, given my table dimensions of 12ft by 6ft. I used to have a 15-17 foot table with two side tables, but I got rid of these when I redesigned my Man Cave last year.

My Croat battalions and grenadier battalions from the older SYW basing scheme can be used, "as is" with 24 figures. I can simply take a stand from a grenadier battalion and add it to one of my other grenadier battalions to create a 30-figure grenadier battalion. Light infantry can be any size, so I won't be increasing the size of my Croat battalions.

The WAS Project will hopefully be completed by the end of this summer.

Austrian Battalion Organization (32/40/48 figures)

Austrian regiment Lacy with two 32-figure battalions

CLICK OR DOUBLE CLICK ON THE PIX TO ENLARGE

I completed the second 32-figure battalion of the Austrian Regiment Lacy the other day. The regiment has two battalions of 32 figures all in the firing line pose. The extended muskets necessitated the use of a deeper base of 80mm with a frontage of 60mm. Usually I use a 40mm deep by 60mm wide base for my figures.

The extra depth on the stand protects the leveled muskets, but it also has the bonus of providing more area on the base to add grass, shrubs or battlefield debris to tart up the stand of figures a little bit.

Here are both battalions of Regiment Lacy deployed side by side in a single line.

Just for the fun of it, I pushed some of the stands together to see what the Austrian battalion would look like with either 32-figures on four stands, 40-figures on five stands, and 48-figures on six stands. I must say that I am rather taken with the 40 figure battalion on a symetrical looking five stands. I could use this organization also for the marching pose figures. In this instance, I could use the same 80mm depth and have room for two lines of marching figures and then a third line of file closers such as the NCOs and drummers. That would look very nifty, in my opinion.

What do you think? Please leave a comment in the comment box so that I can guage the opinion on a different organization.

Here is what the battalion would look like with 40 figures.

Here is what the battalion would look like with 48 figures.

Below is a picture of one of the display shelves at the entrance to my wargame room. Among the items shown are the HMS Beagle model, a 1930s radio with bakelite case and several paintings by Chris Gregg (pen and ink on the lower shelf and oil paint on the picture on the wall).

One of the display shelves in my wargame room

I am really giving consideration to building two new Austrian and Prussian armies in the 40-figure organization on the deeper bases. I know that it is crazy to have three different basing formats for my SYW armies, but then I'm retired and have a lot of time to paint figures if I so wish.

My basic armies of Austrians and Prussians are 30 figures on five 40mm x 60mm stands.

My Russian and Pommerian Corps Prussians have 32 figures on four stands.

I could end up building new Austrian and Prussian battalions in the 40-figure organization on five stands.

I can keep my same cavalry figures (2 horse per 2x2 inch squares and 24 figure regiments), but perhaps would have to add another dozen figures to the regiments to keep them proportional to the larger infantry battalions.

Good Gawd, what fun!

Painting Tutorial: SYW Austrians

I was starting a new battalion of SYW Austrians so I thought that I would take a dozen figures aside and illustrate a step by step tutorial for how I paint Austrians. The Russian painting tutorial was well received so I hope that you will find this one useful too.

Twelve steps from primed figure (left) to finished musketeer (right)

Steps 1, 2 and 3

Steps 1 to 3: I start all of my painted figures with a coat of grey primer. I don't like how colors work with black primer and white primer oftentimes shows through for lighter colors such as red. Grey primer is a happy medium and works well for me.

I start the Austrian uniform with a coating of Ral Partha (or Iron Wind Miniatures - IWM paints, 77-707) "Light Grey" for my base coat (step 2). Next I apply a red brown color (IWM 77-713) for the flesh areas as the undercoats (step 3).

Steps 4, 5, and 6

Steps 4 through 6: The next step in the process (step 4) can be tediously time consuming and cause you to lose your will to live. However, it is probably the most important step in my painting procedure. I use a common craft paint black to black in the equipment on the figure. I apply black paint to the tricorn hat and the gaitors. I also apply black as an undercoat for all equipment items such as the musket and the fur pack. Remember how I don't like black primer? Well in this case, equipment items look much better underneath brown, which I use in step 6 for the musket stock, hair and fur pack.

Step 5 is the application of the red facing color on the cuffs and lapels. I use Reaper Pro Paints "Blood Red" (19002) for my basic red color on all of my figures. Through step 6, the figure still looks rather rough, but now that all of the base colors have been blocked in on the figure, the pace will pick up considerably from here on and make the painting of the figure fun and relaxing for me.

Step 6 is the application of all of the brown color (Reaper Master Series #09109) onto the musket stock, the hair and the fur pack.

Now the figures are starting to look like Austrian musketeers -
the transition from Step 7 through completion in Step 12

Steps 7 though 9: Now on step 7, I use some regular grey, mid-tone color for the hat lace and all of the cross belts. The grey is a common craft paint color. I also block in the dark yellow (P3 Rucksack Tan 93062) on the hat pom.

Step 8 is when we start to work on the final white uniform color of the Austrian coat. The white (P3 Morrow White 93073) is thinned down a little bit with a small drop of water to make the color flow that gives the coat color a consistent look. When I use the white paint straight out of the bottle I find that I sometimes get globs of pigment sticking to the figure in an uneven coat. Thinning down the white fixes this problem. I use white straight from the bottle for all of the cross belts because the thinning method doesn't work very well for smaller areas on the figure. I finish off the hat lace by using IWM Light Grey again - this time making small hash marks along the rim of the hat lace so that the darker grey underneath gives the lace some definition.

Step 9 is the application of red highlight color to the base red. I use Reaper Master Series Paint "Fire Red" #09004 for the highlight which helps to make the red "pop"!

Steps 7, 8 and 9.

 Steps 10 through 12 - finishing the figure

Step 10 is another one of my least favorite steps, the application of the metallic musket barrel and bayonet. I have yet to find a color that I really like, but for these models I used Reaper Master Series "Aged Pewter" #09196.

Step 11 is the application of brass (Valejo "Old Gold" #70.878) to butt of the musket, the buttons on the coat and the gaitor buttons, the hanger sword, the scabbard tip and any buckles that might appear on the figure. The gaitor buttons can be a bit of a pain to paint, but the Minden figures have raised buttons that are easy to paint by simply running the edge of your brush along the row of buttons.

Step 12 is when we add flesh highlights (Reaper Master Series "Dark Rose Skin" #09067), just dabbing a single dot on the tip of the nose, on the chin and on each cheek. I apply a couple of lines across the wrist of the figure. I don't paint knuckles, but some people like to do so. I also paint in the eyes by making a pin prick of white paint on each end of the eye socket, which I have previously painted black on Step 9. The final step is to paint the base of the figure dark green. Sometimes I will add some wood grain to the musket stock using Reaper Master Series "Oiled Leather" #09110 and use the same color as a highlight for the hair and fur pack.

Getting to the finish line: Steps 10, 11 and finally, 12.

In recent times I have stopped adding highlights to the muskets and fur packs on the theory that you can't discern the difference from afar. Also, I only use 2 colors rather than the triad paint system. One less color saves me a lot a time.

Steps 4 through 12 shows the progression of the painting after the initial base coats are painted.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and that it will help you with some of your own painting projects. At a future date I will do a Prussian tutorial.

Austrian Firing Line & Other Things

Austrian Regiment Lacy Firing Line

CLICK TO ENLARGE

I completed the basing of the Austrian firing line that I posted HERE several days ago and thought that I would show off the unit with its finished bases. I think that the battalion Lacy turned out rather nicely.

As you may recall, I used the Fife & Drum AWI Hessian musketeers in firing line poses for the figures and simply painted them with Austrian white coats and red facings. Then I finished them off with flags from GMB Designs.

Side view of the battalion

Prussian Gohr (11/14) Grenadiers Work in Progress

Grenadiers from the IR11 von Below Prussian regiment.

More of the von Below grenadiers

My next project on the painting table is one of the Prussian grenadier battalions that served in the East Prussia and Pommerian areas of the Prussian realm. I have completed the 16 grenadiers for half of the battalion - IR11 von Below. I have started the grenadiers from IR14 von Lehwaldt which comprise the other half of the battalion.

I should have these done by next week.

zzz

Austrian Firing Line

Austrian infantry regiment "Lacy" comprised of Fife & Drum Hessians and Minden Austrian command figures.

CLICK PIX TO ENLARGE

I bet that you did not know that Minden Miniatures has SYW Austrians in firing line poses.

Well, you would be right, because there are no firing line poses in the Minden SYW range (yet). However, I decided that I needed a new Austrian battalion of infantry to use in my Kunersdorf game next year - there were some 18,000 Austrian commanded by Loudan that were at the battle. I wanted to do something different for my Austrians so I decided to paint a battalion in a firing line.

Austrian regiment Lacy with 3 stands.

Austrian regiment Lacy with 4 stands

Since Minden does not have regular infantry in firing line poses, I decided to select some of the Fife & Drum AWI Hessians and "convert them with paint." In other words, I would use the Hessian musketeers in firing poses and turn them into SYW Austrians by the simple mechanism of painting the figures white. I also added in some Minden Austrian command figures such as drummers, NCOs and officers to give the battalion a bit more of an "Austrian" look to it.

I think that the miniatures really look like Austrians at first glance, and perhaps at second, third and fourth glance.

Side view of the battalion.

The Austrians are based to my new organizational method with 32 figures instead of 30 figures. I use 4 stands instead of the old 5 stands. I put 8 figures on each stand and on the two flank stands I offset the drummer in the second rank and also place an NCO on the stand.

Austrian Command Stand.

This Austrian unit needed a deeper base than my usual 40mm to provide extra room on the base to protect the extended muskets from possible breakage. So I used a stand that was 80mm deep and 40mm wide. Thus the total frontage of the battalion is 240mm compared to the 280mm that I normally use for my Russians and Pommeranian corps Prussians.

Austrian Reinforcements Are On Their Way

Arenberg Regiment (IR21) - Click all pix to enlarge.

The latest additions to my Minden SYW Austrian army are arriving in time to participate in the refight of the Battle of Kolin at the Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend, IN on March 31 and April 1st.

Alex Akers painted the two 30-figure battalions comprising the IR21 Arenberg Regiment in Austrian service. Please click on any picture to enlarge your viewing pleasure and sometimes a double click enlarges the pix even more.

The inhaber of the regiment was Karl Raymond, Duke von Arenberg as of 1754, so it was his regiment throughout the entire SYW. The regiment's garrison was in Slovenia since 1755, but later changed to Koniggratz in 1763. The regiment was recruited from across the Holy Roman Empire. A report in 1755 stated that the regiment suffered from a high desertion rate due to harsh discipline and drunkeness. [from Stephen Summerfield's book, "Austrian Army of the SYW"]. Despite that record, it was apparently considered a good fighting regiment.

The regiment participated in most of the major battles of the SYW in Silesia-Bohemia including Leuthen, Breslau, Hochkirch, Kunersdorf, Torgau and Freiberg. This is a good regiment to have in any SYW Austrian wargaming army.

Front view of the Arenberg Regiment, painted by Alex Akers.

I thought that Alex Akers did an excellent job of painting this unit for me. He uses a cream undercoat color with white highlights that is very effective. My photographs probably do no justice to Alex's talents. The flags are from GMB Designs and the bases are finished in the usual static grass and tufts.

Ground level view of the Arenberg Regiment. I really like these ground level views.

I am also working on adding a regiment of the Baranyai Hussars to my Austrian army. The WIP picture of the first of two 12-figure squadrons is shown below:

1st Squadron of the Baranyai Hussars.

This is probably one of my favorite Austrian regiments of any kind because I like the combination of the green pelisse and dolman with red lace and trim, plus the sky blue breeches, which really stand out. You will notice that the hussar trumpeter wears a tricorn hat instead of a busby and a long uniform coat rather than the pelisse. My very first painted unit of wargame figures was the Baranyai Hussars, using the old RSM figures. That unit has long passed on to another inhaber, but I remember it fondly.

Finally, Alex painted a regiment of Croats or Grenz Infantry Regiment Peterwardeiner. We selected this regiment because I already had one unit with red coats and one unit with dark blue coats. Alex did not want to paint any of the white coated Croats, so we selected the Peterwardeiner regiment. I will probably paint one of the white coated Croat regiments in the future. This makes identifying the units easy in a game: simple call them the Red Grenzers, Blue Grenzers or Brown Greasers and anyone will know what I'm talking about.

I have yet to base the unit, but they do look rather spiffy so I lined them up for a photo shoot for you to see.

Peterwardeiner Grenze Regiment

Close up view of the Peterwardeiner Grenzers, painted by Alex Akers.

Gyulai Musketeer Regiment

Hungarian Regiment Gyulai (click all pictures to enlarge the view)

I recently received and based a regiment of Minden Hungarian Musketeers, painted by Alex Akers, to add to my collection for the Kolin game at this year's SYWA Convention on March 31, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana.

Combined with the Josef Esterhazy regiment that I already have, I now have an official "Hungarian Brigade of two regiments = four battalions. In my set up, each regiment gets one 3-pounder regimental or battalion gun model. I like all of the new cannon models that Rob Baker made for Fife & Drum, but to my way of thinking, his Austrian 3-pounder is the most elegant of all the cannon in the range. One interetesting thing to note, the Austrians were way ahead of everyone else in that they standardized the wheels of all of their artillery - every cannon used the same wheels. There is also a standard smaller wheel that was used for limbers and for the front wheels of the four wheel ammo wagon.

Austrian 3-pound regimental cannon from Fife & Drum Miniatures

I haven't had time to paint all of the Austrians and Prussians that I need for the game, so I recruited Alex to help me with the Austrians while I concentrated on the Prussians.


I also put together a temporary photo booth so that I can have a better looking background for my pictures. An old blue towel or a faded sheet of blue paper doesn't really do the job anymore. The long view, below, depicts the photo booth. Compare it to the picture at the top of this post.

Long view of the photo booth that I set up to create better back grounds for my pictures.

ggg

Austrian Staff Vignette

Hungarian Grenadiers march past General von Loudon and Prince Charles of Lorraine (click picture to enlarge the view)

I thought that I would post one of my favorite pictures of my Austrian army. It is a vignette in which a converged battalion of Hungarian grenadiers are marching past generals von Loudon and Charles of Lorraine. A few Croats roam about the woods on piquet duty.

The senior Austrian generals and vignettes were painted for me by Leuthen Studios, AKA Ioannis M. and the grenadies and Croats were painted by me. Herb Gundt made the house and the stands of trees. The terrain mat comes from The Terrain Guy (who sadly, is no longer in business).

I finally have gotten back to painting figures at a liesurely pace. My current project is to add more Hesse Seewald infantry to my Imaginations army. You can check out the progress of the IR4 Birkebeil Regiment over on my "Kingom of Hesse Seewald" blog.

The Kingdom of Hesse Seewald Blog

I only started this blog a couple of weeks ago and have acquired 31 "Followers" so far. If you are interested in "following" the activities and posts on this blog (and there has been a lot of activity lately), then become a follower by looking in the right hand column and clicking on "Join this site" button and you instantly become a "follower". The same holds true for this, my main blog, if you would like to follow it as well. I would be honored to have you as a follower.

The Birkebeil regiment has three of the five companies painted so far. I hope to get the remaining 12 figures completed over the current weekend. In case you were wondering, Birkebeil is an old family name of my ancestors, who immigrated from southern Germany in the mid 1700s and settled in Lancaster and York counties in Pennsylvania. They would have been called "Pennsylvania Dutch". The term "Dutchman" was used to denote German immigrants for some reason, even though there was nothing Dutch about them.

I am getting ready for the upcoming Seven Years War Association convention in South Bend, Indiana March 26 to 29th. Most of my inventory has been bagged and I have my game scenarios pretty well practiced and defined. So I think that I'm ready to go. I hope to see a few of my readers at the convention.

vv

Minden Austrian Pictures

Austrian Musketeer Regiment with GMB Designs Flags. (click picture to enlarge)

I have been taking a lot of new pictures of the Minden SYW figure range in order to add pictures to the new Fife & Drum website. I sort of stumbled onto the concept of flipping my iPad camera upside down so that the lens is on the ground level. This leads to a better looking picture in terms of assessing the height of the figures and I can easily crop out any of the foreground turf in order to focus on the figures.

Please visit the new Fife & Drum Miniatures web site at the link below:

Fife & Drum Minis Web Site

Please note that the Fife & Drum website illustrates figures for both the Fife & Drum AWI range as well as the Minden SYW range. I have decided that the term "Fife & Drum Miniatures" will apply to the entire company as a form of product branding, but within that brand, one can find the separate AWI and SYW figure ranges.

Closer view of the Austrian Musketeers - Minden Miniatures

Croats skirmishing. This picture depicts all of the different Croat variants in the range.

A Mass of Croats Ready To Cause Some Trouble

I have grown to really like the Croat figures in the Minden range. Their animation really lends themselves to creating little dioramas on each stand, such as having the kneeling figures crouching down behind rocks and trees.

Converged Austrian (German) and Hungarian Grenadiers. The mounted officer  is the musketeer colonel with a grenadier head swap. I hope to add such a figure to the Minden range eventually, sculptor's time permitting.

Cuirassier Officer, Austrian Officer and a Hungarian Officer.

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Keeping Up With The Austrians

Sometimes you find yourself in the position where you have no figures primed and ready to paint, and you have a lot of figures that need to be based, terrained and finished off. That is kind of the worst of both worlds as far as I'm concerned because I view figure preparation work (filing, fitting, cleaning and priming) a pain in the neck to do and I am not altogether keen on basing my figures.

Since there was nothing to paint, I decided that it was time to grasp the nettle and get on with the task of  all of this unpleasantness.

First on the list: inking and grassing two 24-figure Minden cuirassier regiments, one Austrian and one Prussian. I actually inked the bases last evening (friday) so that I could dry brush them with flesh paint (over dark brown ground) and apply the static grass on Saturday. It is a painstaking task, but something that needs to be done, nevertheless. So I finished off the von Seydlitz Cuirassiers and the O'Donel Cuirassiers, and inked the Alt-Modena Cuirassier Regiment.

That is two Austrian regiments to one Prussian cavalry regiment, not exactly my cup of tea, but since I have neglected my Minden Austrian army for a couple of years, I figured that it was time to balance out the two armies. Hence more Austrian cavalry and infantry.

Next on the list, clean and prime a 30-figure Hungarian battalion (Joseph Esterhazy) for my Austrian army. When I build infantry units, I paint two battalions in the regiment and add a mounted regimental commander. Since I had already painted the first battalion of the Esterhazy regiment, it was time to finish off the regiment.

Finally, as a reward to myself for being so nice to the Austrians, I picked out a 24-figure regiment of Prussian cuirassiers from my growing pile of Minden metal. They will also undergo the clean and prime treatment so that I have a reserve of things to paint somewhere down the road. One of the advantages of owning your own miniatures company is that you can pick and organize a unit of something to paint. That's kind of nice.

***

This evening (Saturday) Mrs. Fritz and I went to the theatre to see the stage version of The Killer Angels at the Lifeline Theatre in Chicago. Apparently, the show has been so popular that they have extended its stage run for a few more weeks. I was curious to see how they would stage the story without the benefit of a vast panorama of outdoor space. They went for a Minimalist Approach to things, using only large blocks of wood and some old travel trunks for scenery. It's hard to explain, but it worked fairly well.

Most of the actors played 2 or 3 roles in the production. For example, General Lee and Sergeant Kilrain were played by the same actor, as was Buford/Major Taylor, Tom Chamberlain/Jeb Stuart. Only the Chamberlain actor had one role. The Lee/Kilrain actor was the best of the lot. They used a "troubador" to advance the plot and provide background information about what was going on. Maps were unfurled at various times on stage and the actors would talk about where the troops were moving and why. I thought that it worked too. 

The uniforms were Minimalist too, but then they almost had to be, given that the actors had to make a lot of costume changes. Between scenes, the troubador would sing Civil War songs and accompany himself on his guitar. Another actor played the mandolin.

My only criticism is that the actors playing Longstreet and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain were kind of the weak links in the cast. Both of them needed more of a stage presence and exude some forcefulness. I had trouble hearing Chamberlain at times because he was so soft spoken and contemplative. Longstreet seemed weak and whiny. That said, I did enjoy the production and I am glad that I saw the play.

Catching Up On Things SYW

I have been taking a little bit of a break from painting AWI figures following Historicon three weeks ago after painting nothing but AWI for at least the past twelve months. It is time to return to the Minden Project and augment my Austrian forces.

First of all, I needed to set all of my Austrians out on the gaming table to assess what I needed to add to the army in order to finish it. When you see the whole collection stretched across the table before your eyes, all of the missing pieces become quite apparent.

1) I need more Austrian cavalry. I only have one 24-figure regiment of dragoons and a partial 12- figure regiment of the Alt Modena cuirassiers ( the only cuirassier regiment with blue facings). So the first project was to paint the next dozen figures in this regiment, which I accomplished last week.

2) Artillery support equipment. I need to paint limbers for 4 guns and add 4 ammo supply wagons for each gun. I might add a couple of three pounder battalion guns.

3) Hungarian Regiment Josef Esterhazy needs its second battalion. I have five other musketeer battalions completed plus two grenadier battalions and two Croat battalions. The extra Hungarian battalion will complete my Austrian infantry contingent.

4) Army Command. I need to paint a command stand for Marshall Leopold von Daun, using the Minden Austrian senior command figures.

It's Time To Get Back To My Minden Austrian SYW Army

Esterhazy Hussars in Austrian service - not my favorite regiment. Minden Miniatures painted on commission.

I have been rather AWI-centric on this blog over the past year or two due to the need to build up armies for participation games at conventions. The best way to show off a range of figures is to see them in a tabletop battle. Now that Historicon is over, and now that both AWI armies are built up to a core level, I now have time to return to the Seven Years War.

Austrian Army Command Stand: Marshal Leopold von Daun and staff.

My Minden Miniatures Austrian army currently includes 5 battalions (30 figures each) of musketeers, 2 battalions of converged grenadiers (10 stands of 6 figures each) and two battalions of Croats (30 figures each) in its infantry component. The first thing is to paint the second battalion of the Josef Esterhazy regiment of Hungarians. Damn those Esterhazys! They are on my black list because they wouldn't let our tour group into Forschstenstein Castle to see their magnificent display of SYW Austrian uniforms and equipment and the vast collection of Prussian uniforms, flags, equipment (all captured at Maxen in 1759). Back in 2005 when we visited the castle, we were told that most of the uniform collection was not on display and they would not let us go into the secret rooms to see them. Imagine travelling across the pond to see the exhibit and to get turned away. Thus, whenever I see any of the Esterhazy units on my wargame table (or any other table for that matter), I will stop at nothing to destroy that wargame unit with all the artillery and musketry that I can muster and throw at those naer-do-wells. :)

I need to add a pair of limber teams to my 6-pounder battery. Perhaps a couple of supply wagons too.

The Austrian artillery park is in pretty good shape. I have two 12-pounders with limber teams already painted (they still need two ammo wagons) and two 6-pounders that are missing their limber teams and ammo wagons.

The Josef Esterhazy Regiment needs its second battalion painted.

Grrr, Esterhazys (above). Ooooh, I really hate those guys, as Indiana Jones might say.

Austrian Cuirassier Regiment "Portugal" needs at least a dozen more troopers to bring the regiment up to 24 figures (actually, it should be more like 36 figures, but putting them all out on the table shows me what I need and what I need to order in the way of new figures).

The Austrian cavalry establishment needs a lot of work. I have one regiment of Sachsen-Gotha Dragoons completed and only a dozen of the Portugal Curassiers. Everyone has this regiment in their Austrian army because it is the only regiment that does NOT have red facings, i.e. it is the only regiment that has blue facings. Putting the figures on the table shows me that I probably need to order another dozen Austrian cuirassiers, as I would like the regiment to have 36 figures (720 troopers at my 1:20 ratio that I use for this army).

I am contemplating the need to paint Austrian hussars, noting that they generally were not used by the Austrians on battlefields. They stayed on the perifery of the field, guarding the flanks and scouting the opposing army's lines, etc. I could paint one of those damn Esterhazy hussar regiments (light blue dolman and pelisse, red breeches and yellow boots), but more likely, I will go with the Baranyay Hussar regiment (green dolman and pelisse, tan or buff breeches, and red facings) which is a spectacular uniform to behold.

I think that I would rather paint some more cuirassiers in red facings, though.