Month: January 2019

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Rosen Allemand

When we did our games over the holidays I was realizing that the French cavalry are at a bit of a disadvantage.  I could put out 8 squadrons of Danish cuirassiers and 8 squadrons of Dutch and Allied dragoons.  On the French side I could only muster 13 squadrons.  It’s not that big of a disadvantage, but I had the lead for another regiment of French, so I added Rosen Allemand.

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I painted Royal Cravattes fairly early and it was brigaded with Rosen Allemand at Ramillies, so I decide to finish the brigade.  Most of my focus from now on is going to be the forces that fought in the village (for infantry), and between the village and the Mehaigne.  I purchased some more French cav, which will now put the Allies at a disadvantage for awhile.  Well, when I get the French painted.

So far most of my French cavalry is blue.  These are blue with red facings.  The royal cavalry regiments are blue (I used royal with them) with red facings.  It kind of blows up my stereotype of everything being white with red (a color combination I love).

As usual the figures are Front Rank.  The flags are from GMB designs – the generic green French cavalry flag.

 

 

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Danish Livgarden til Foids

I’m really not sure that is how you write it….

Anyway, a new addition to my Allied order of battle.  Figures from Front Rank.  The flags are from Reiver castings.  They are beautiful flags.  I painted out the slogan written in French on one of the flags.  They aren’t exactly like what Robert Hall has on his plate for the unit, but they are very close.

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I kind of obsess over getting colors correct.  They were supposed to have straw yellow uniforms with red facings.  It’s a great combination.

I’m about half way through my next unit of Danes – Oldenborgske, which will put me over half way through the Danish foot contingent at Ramillies.

 

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Flags!

I am caught up on putting flags on all the War of Spanish Succession units I have.  Finally!

When I started this project I didn’t know where I would get flags for everything.  I think I’ve just about figured out how to do that now.  To begin with, here’s a shot of the Danish cuirassiers I have completed so far.  It’s half of the contingent that was at Ramillies.  I lined them up as squadrons with space between each squadron – and that makes for a hard thing to photograph.  But here it is.

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Not a great shot.  But they look way better with flags now.  These flags are from League of Augsburg.  I love the cavalry flags they do.  I am less excited about their infantry flags, but I’ll show you what I’ve done with them in a bit.  Still, League of Augsburg makes an ever expanding range of flags.  Their interests tend to run a bit earlier than the War of Spanish Succession.  These Danish flags come from stuff they are doign for later.  Barry and Clarence are great to deal with and it’s easy to order from their website.

A couple of Dutch units I painted some time ago are Salisch, and Pallandt.  Here is Salisch.

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And that shot obscures the red flag, so here’a another shot:

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White with red is a great color combination, don’t you think?  Having flags for this unit completes the brigade that attacked up the “river” on the Allied left at Ramillies: Salisch, Slangenburg, and 2 battalions of Orange Friesland.

And here is Pallandt:

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The flags for Salisch and Pallandt both come from Iain at Flags of War.  I am blown away by the quality of these flags!  I wish he would do more Dutch regiments for Flanders.  The artwork on these are just incredible, the quality of the flags are great (easy to blue together and position a bit before they set), and he is absolutely great to deal with.

In my next blog post there will be flags from GMB Designs.  I love GMB Designs flags.  He does not do flags specifically for the War of Spanish Succession, but many flags for the French in this period are unchanged in the Seven Years War and he has an extensive collection of French Seven Years War flags.

I also have some flags from Adolfo Ramos.  He makes great flags as well, but only has a small number of flags suitable for the War of Spanish Succession.

Back to the League of Augsburg flags.  These flags are drawn with shadowing for waves in the flags depicted.  I don’t really like that very much.  For the cavalry flags, this is fine – it gives some texture to the flag and adds visual interest.  I am extremely pleased with the Danish cavalry flags and am looking forward to adding some Dutch regiments as they offer a nice selection of Dutch cavalry flags.

For the infantry, I decide to modify the flags to reduce the contrast in the effects.  This is fairly simple to do.  Before I cut out the flags I find a paint that is about the same tone as the midtone in the textured background.  I then make up a heavy-ish wash with that paint.  I don’t put the paint straight on but make a heavy-ish wash out of it (or an extremely thin mix of the paint, depending on how you look at it).  I then go over that color on the flag and it works to diminish the contrast.  Here is Danish regiment Prinz Karl with flags now.

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I probably should have done before and after photos, ,and then close-ups of the flags to show them off.  They are great flags with great art work and I’m pleased that a little extra work tones down the contrast.  You can still see the contrast and it gives a geat effect.