More cavalry and artillery.

I have completed the second order of Legio Heroica figures and this will bring the total to fifteen elements per army. With the addition of six elements the collection could be expanded to big battle size to face my Ottomans (1680’s).

The Heavy cavalry in the foreground will serve as “cuirassier” class troops until such time the actual figures become available from Legio Heroica (later this year). I am pleased the way the collection turned as I kept to a rather generic collection of uniform colours with no particular nation in mind. The entire range of uniforms were present among the armies of the period.

Painting the General officer I used a lot of ink which restored my interest to use this medium again. I am pleased with the result.

 Next week, I shall put them through a few tests with the updated rule set.

Cheers,  

The Kuruc Rebellion

I have reached the half way mark, painting artillery, cavalry and light horse and decided to do further research on campaigns between the France and Imperial Austria. I found Austrian numbers were not particularly strong as she found it expedient to subsidize the smaller German States to deploy against France. Further reading , a major contributing factor for that step was the need to contain rebellion within the Hungarian kingdom.

"Kuruc labanc csatajelenet1". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kuruc_labanc_csatajelenet1.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Kuruc_labanc_csatajelenet1.jpg

Kuruc Rebellion

This is interesting as the rebellion took about 40 years to suppress and during my era of interest, Austrian needed three armies to contain the insurgents. This is all the more remarkable as Hungarian armies were mainly light cavalry and peasant infantry, in some respects, these could be similar to Moldavian or Wallachian armies of the Great Northern War.

Using the Moldavian list as a reference, I devised this as a preliminary draft:

Kuruc Rebellion, 1671 – 1711

0–1 Cavalry                                    Noble refugees.

2–6 Light Horse                            Lesser nobles or Hussars.

0–1 Warrior or Light Horse          Hajduk and Hussars..

1–2 Warrior                                  Hajduk levy.

1–2 Warrior or early Dragoon       Slavic mercenaries/Kolorachy.

2–3 Warrior or Skirmisher           Hajduk levy.

0–1 Light Artillery

I know Khurasan Miniatures offer suitable figures for the rebellion, but I in a country were postage and import duties would prohibitive. Legio Heroica (Italy) have similar figures among their Polish and Ottoman range, so I shall plan an order soon.

There are a number of films made about the rebellion and these are quite colourful. Not only do the hussars have a variety of clothing, but peasant dress is convincing. One minor drawback, none of the films I have seen have English subtitles. 

Late 17th Century

Between two non-painting projects I decided to build a small collection of later 17^th century French and the Imperial Austrian with allies. 

Researching the period I extended the rules (DBA-HX 3.0 1700-1850) to allow better use of battalions with mixed weapons and the tactics of the time. I would recommend readers to find a copy of John A. Lynn - Giant of the Grande Siècle: The French Army 1610-1715.

From this and other sources an army list for the French was created and 10 others have been written since then.

France, 1670-1700.

1-2 Cuirassier                                  Maison du Roi and may be Mousquetaires if the King is present.

1-4 Cavalry or early Dragoon           Cavalerie Leger.

0-1 Light Horse                                Early Hussar.

4-6 Line Infantry                            Vieux Corps, four battalion regiments.

0-4 Conscript                                   The newer two battalion regiments.

0-2 Skirmisher                                 Enfants perdus.

0-1 Light or Heavy Artillery

A second order should arrive next week and this will give me an opportunity to paint flags and standards. 

Cheers,