"Marlburian itch" Topic

I find myself looking at Blue Moon 18 mm Marlburian figures.
I'm thinking of fielding a couple armies at a different level than usual, say 48 figures per battalion, maybe 4 battalions per side. I have a couple books on the period but don't have the urge to go into the usual depth, buying lots of uniform books, etc.

Blue Moon has three kinds of infantry – closed coat, open coat and with belly box. I know the last are good for French and Catalan infantry. Can one of you chaps tell me who the open coats are good for?

Also, did the grenadiers form separate units in this period or should I just stick some on the right flank of each battalion?

I'm wondering if I can do this with minor uniform / organization research.

Open coats are Prussians.
Go to the Baccus website for easily accessible uniform information. link
The Imperialists tended to field battalions of converged grenadiers – this was much less common with other nations. I stick a couple on the flank or leave them off. In some cases Grenadiers could be on both flanks.
48 man battalions are pretty huge given that in the field a battalion was around 500 men or less. I use 12 man battalions and field them in brigades of 4-5 battalions each. Given that most battles involved more than 50 battalions per side I would recommend keeping them small.

Thanks for the info. Most of my other black powder period armies (SYW, AWI, Napoleonic, ACW, FPW) are in 12 man units. I'm thinking of doing a different level for this period, just because.

I am doing the period in 28mm. The infantry units are 24 figures strong. Cavalry squadrons are 6 figures strong. The grenadiers are placed on the right hand stand. Go at least 24 strong double ranked. Once you have them on the table you will be happy with the look.

Another question: how many standards would a French battalion have? I know the Brits would have a King's (Queen's at this time?) color and a regimental. Would the first battalion have the Colonel's color and the other(s) have regimental colors?

I'm thinking of having French vs. Imperials. Who knows where this will end up?

The French have 2, I'm fairly certain. I've got a regiment painting guide with standards saved somewhere. I prepared it for Sunjester, but he refused to put the colonels colour on. For some reason he objects to his units having flags which are a white cross on a white background. Villars-Chandieu has a wonderful psychedelic regimental colour, unfortunately I didn't have all the info for them.

Drop me a line @gmail.com

We do 10mm. My units are 36 men on half size bases, and we play in cm not inches.

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All figures are Pendraken. Sunjester based 4 to a base, not 6, and kept his Cav on 20mm, not the proportionate 25mm I used.

Ooh, those look nice. 10 mm, you say? Temptation…

If you have become interested in 10mm you could also check out the OG 10mm line. Very nice figures, the army card applies, and no real nasty postage. That being said, the Blue Moon 15/18 do make some really nice armies.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

Why I Love the WSS: link

My WSS Armies are 28 mm. 16 figures, 3 Grenadiers, 8 men, 1 sergeant, 1 drummer, 2 standards (Regimental and Colonel's) and 1 commanding officer. Infantry mounted on 4- 2x1" stands; Battalion command 4 figures on a 2x2".
Horse are 8 to a unit. 5 troopers, 1 musician, 1standard, 1 commanding officer.

See photos at:: link

For 28mm, see the gems that Ebor miniatures offers at : eborminiatures.com They may be some of the finest figures I've ever owned.

4 battalion's per side?

I think you might have missed the point about Marlborough's battles. they were HUGE.

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Postage to the US is a minimum of £4.00 GBP (About $6 USD). I think the postage is 5%, subject to the minimum.

Its one of those dilemmas: 28s are more visible, you can do all the lace etc, but you get more 10mm. Plus its cost- a pack of 30 10mm for the same price as 3 28mm. 6 men on the same foot print as 1 28, and costs 80p for the base.

Additionally I find the Pendraken figures forgiving of my painting- any problems with the look in my photos is my poor painting, not the figures. I have their ECW, and under magnification you realise there are Apostles on the shoulder belt! My best is 108 men – 3 bns in a weekend, and I'm not a particularly concentrated painter- I wander off, make a cup of tea, watch a bit of telly…

I understand the appeal of 28s, but for mass battles I do feel its all about the big blocks of men.

EDIT

Turns out I've blogged this!
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Painting Guide
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I know the battles are big. My Napoleonic rules are currently using a 12 man unit as a brigade/regiment. I just thought for one period I'd do the microcosm that many gamers use. How many folks do Blenheim on the battalion scale? Yeah, I've seen the odd game put on at conventions on 20 foot tables.

That painting guide/flag chart is great, already bookmarked. Thank you.

My point was I prefer to see a 36 man 10mm unit than a 12 man 28 mm unit representing the same thing, but like I say, I understand the call of the pretty.

I am doing 18 men in 28mm representing the battalion, with no grenadiers. I am basing on metric 60x40 mm stands, 6 to a base. three bases of 3 horse to a regiment – each figure roughly 33-40 men.

I am bathtubbing the Spanish campaign – so need about twenty -twenty five French battalions, but am adding the odd battalion of pro French Spanish, bavarians, and Italians, and adding pro Austrian Spanish, and Austrians to the british side. I am using figures from lots of different manufacturers, including Wargames Factory foot, cavalry and artillery. I have about 200 Foundry figures, and about 200 ebor ones. I also have about 200 new marlburians from the New foundry range – some are very nice, some are (the rest of this line was removed on advice from my legal team).

I think this is a period where if you are wanting to play – you need a few units – and around third of them need to be Mounted (something around 25-40%)

Advice if you do 28mm – consider Imaginations – based on real French, Dutch, British.. so that when someone steps forth and says you have done the hat lace the wrong colour, you can say no these are the troops of the 3rd battalion baron von carpeten-muncheren, that until painted only existed in my head.

If you want some ladies to press into service in 28mm I have some figures that will be coming out in the next few months…

I continue to enjoy the looks of the Old Glory 10mm WSS. I have 5-6mm, 10s, 15's and now 28-30mm (Wargames factory and Front Rank) and keep coming back to the smaller scales for this period. The number of UNITS is large and when deployed into lines, well, the look is wha matches my mind's image best! I just wish there was more equipment available from Russ, for this period. (2 and 4 wheel carts w/loads/tarps; coaches, bakery both loaded up and set up (GREAT strategic objective!), etc.

A really great period and argueably the first "modern" war- or at least the grandfater of modern warfare!

To help with the number of flags in a French battalion question, the answer is they could and did have up to 4 flags per battalion. The Swiss in French pay had this many up to the WAS and maybe into the SYW. The first battalion would have the colonel's color (typically white) with 3 regimentals while the other battalions would have up to 4 regimentals.

If you want to have some fun you can also make some of the flags incorrect for the French as well. It seems that one of the captured flags from one regiment had the colors in each of the quarters incorrect (i.e. yellow in 1 & 4 instead of yellow in 2 & 3) as compared to the other captured flags from the same regiment!

I built my WSS units in 28mm with 24 figures and 4 flags per battalion. I oversized my flags and used The Flag Dude to make them. I had them on his 'cloth' paper and the colors were fantastic. I've been selling off my collection as of late because of a change of interest by our gaming group. If you want to see pictures of my stuff then let me know. It might give you some ideas on how to position the flags. Four flags per battalion has a really nice look to it.

I'd love to see how you position 4 flags in a battalion.

Carefully….

Ok, Last Hussar is correct – carefully! Here are a few photos of some of my units. 24 figure units with 4 flags. You have a choice, 4 across the back of the unit or stack them 2 deep near but not necessarily next to each other.

The Flag Dude can make up flags for your 18mm figures. Personally I like to oversize mine so with your figures I go for 20mm sized flags.

You beggar (that wasn't my first choice of words). Now feel the need to find out how many flags for Prussians and Austrians. Please don't say 4, because I know the need to remodel all 18 units will overwhelm me. Will need to prise the middle figure from the front rank of bases 2 and 5 off and replace if they should have 4.

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I checked my sources and for the Prussians it looks like one flag per company. With the Austrians it is also one flag per company up to 1711 and then it drops down to one per battalion except for the Leib battalion which would have two (the colonel's white and the regimental color).

So what this means is you 'could' go up to 4 or 5 flags per battalion but you don't have to. Here is a photo of a Danish unit I painted up with 3 flags. I like the look of this unit and here the figures are in 2 rows not 3 like the photos of my French units.

If you do Brits, the infantry Queen's colour changed in 1707 following the union. No idea how long it took for them all to change over but I imagine foot-guard regiments and others close to the crown would have changed quite rapidly.

Tricky as two of Marlborough's great victories were before the union (1st May 1707) and two after.

I would imaging it would have taken some time for new colours to make it out to the field so I think it would be a safe bet to use the cross of St George rather than the union flag and you would be correct for all Marlborough's battles with the possible exception of Malplaquet.
At the risk of going against the tide here I find 4 flags on a small battalion a bit lopsided and out of proportion. After all if we are modelling one man = 50 (or whatever scale you use) then technically each standard bearer also represents 50 men. In order to keep things in better proportion I rarely use more than one flag per battalion otherwise what you have looks more like a colour party than a fighting battalion.

Except of course for Scottish regiments who carried the St Andrew saltire.

Simon – I'm with you on longer thought – 4 is excessive. I do like 2: one regimental and one monarch's.

My scale was 1:20 but I understand the thought behind too many flags. I did it because, 1) The French and many other nations DID carry more than 1 flag per battalion at this time. 2) I like the extra color on the table.

It is hard to visualize having that many flags and seeing the absolute beauty on the table. If I would to change anything it would be to have my French mounted only 2 figures deep instead of the 3 that I currently have. Our homegrown rule set had a difference for those units that did volley fire versus those that did platoon and all volley units historically were 4 or 5 ranks deep and the 3 figures deep represented that. I feel that everyone having the same base size would be better to display 3 or 4 flags per battalion.

But, each to their own. Two flags per unit are nice looking as well.

Gents,

Can Ebor and Front Rank be used together on the same table top?

Marengo – yes

The information about the the British change over to the Union colors is out there. I do remember reading about it some time back. If I'm remembering correctly it took some time to get the new colors, but most units did get them around the same time.