Reinforcements

My Blue Moon order arrived. I picked up a pack of civilians from their Pirates range and Skirmishing Grenzers and Grenzer Command from the Seven Years War line. The latter will be the start of my Austrian Army for the Seven Years War.

I believe that I have a campaign picked out that I will work on for the Seven Years War. The Battle of Peterswalde April, 1759. This is an interesting action as it featured mostly skirmish actions on both sides. The Austrians were defending and had a number of garrison troops while the Prussians had considerable amounts of light troops that raided forward deployed magazines of the Austro-Hungarian Army.

I have found near period maps of the area. These were featured in the First Military Survey Maps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Below is teh excerpt of the map from https://maps.arcanum.com/en/map/firstsurvey-bohemia/?layers=141&bbox=1544730.2649412372%2C6581595.444347261%2C1570508.652730413%2C6591130.963625838.

I am keen to look at the forces commanded by Johan Jakob von Wunsch. His Wikipaedia entry indicated that he was a skilled leader of light infantry.

Seven Years War Research

I am slowly working my way through the De Jeney book. Yesterday, Amazon delivered the Grandmaison book that I had ordered. It seems that De Jeney has a bone to pick with Grandmaison as he makes reference to his book and expressed disagreement with his conclusions in places. In flipping through the Grandmaison it makes reference to the end of a war in which he drew his conclusions circa the 1740s. This makes these more interesting as this would have been opinions of tactics going into the Seven Years War rather than an output of developments that came out of the war.

I have also found a copy of Treatise on Partisan Warfare by Johann Ewald. I still have much to read. De Jeney includes several drawings to detail examples that he is talking about. It is proving very interesting. It is also impacting how I am building my forces for Sharp Practice. For instance, I had previously purchansed some Eureka Miniatures Prussian Musketeers, some Dragoons and a light gun. This was loosely based on Rich's articles on his Imaginations campaign. I just placed a Lancashire Miniatures order for some Ottomans. I bougt 8 light horsemen and a group of Serbian or Bosnian musketeers. Not nearly a full force but a start on one. I am well aware that the Ottomans were not part of the Seven Years War, but they did have a number of engagements before and after it. The Ottoman miniatures will be very flexible as they should be usable throughout the whole of the 1700s and through the Napoleonic Wars.

Then I placed an order for my first Austrians. I decided to go with Blue Moon miniatures for the Austrian force. I bought a command pack of Grenzers and the skirmishing Grenzers. I plan on ordering both Hussars and Dragoons. Lastly, some musketeers and a cannon or two as well. Again, I see the Austrian force as a defending force. This will take a while to build up. Unless I get a resin 3d printer for Christmas. Then I can see this moving more rapidly.

I have forces in mind as to how I will paint them. My mother grew up in Dessau both before and during WWII. During that time, she became friends with the Von Anhalt's who were the hereditary nobility of Dessau. Because of this, my Prussian force will be based off of those raised in Dessau. There was a regiment of Infantry and some cuirrasiers raised under the von Anhalts of Dessau. There are also Von Anhalt-Zerbst troops raised as well who fught for Austria. The intent is to have the Anhalt-Zerbst forces be the defending forces while the Anhalt-Dessau forces be the attackers.

Both Zerbst and Dessau raised units of infantry and currassiers. I will likely get the Currassiers later. The main thought right now is basing. I am not liking the sabot bases I am using as I feel formed troops should be more tightly packed for the SYW.

Miniatures Purchased

Nation	Troop Type	Number	Painted
Prussia	Musketeers	24	None
Prussia	Dragoons	??	None
Prussia	Artillery	1 Gun & 5 Crew	None
Prussia	Jagers	15	Need rebasing
Prussia	Artillery	1 Gun & 5 Crew	None
Ottomans	Yoruk Light Cavalry	8	None
Ottomans	Derbent Infantry	8	None
Austria	Grenzer Infantry	20 + Command	None

Seven Years War

I am looking to work on a scenario supplement for the Seven Years War. I am looking to model actions by small detachments instead of recreate any grand battles. In my search for sources, I found the amazing http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/ site. This gives great information on uniforms but not the tactical inforamtion I was looking for. In 2019 I found a book by De Jeney, The Partisan; or the Art of Making War in Detachment. Then yesterday, I discovered Grandmaison's book, A Treatise on the Military Service, of Light Horse, and Light Infantry, in the Field, and in the Fortified Places.

Both of the books were translated close to the time of when they were written. I am a quarter of the way into the de Jeney book. The original author claims 25 campaigns served in the period, all across Europe. He offers recommendations on force sizes and provides uses for them. His recommendation is over half the force should be mounted.

So far this is proving to be an interesting excersize.

Next Projects

Now that the War of Jenkin's Ear supplement is complete, I am looking for the next projects. I will hopefully get some games in with the supplement but I am looking towards the next ones.

ACW Naval

I am keen to try naval landing scenarios. I am using 1/600 scale miniatures. So far I have a couple of painted ships. I am trying to decide if I want to go with Peter Pig infantry or something like Pico armor for the landing forces. I think this could make for an interesting game. The naval miniatures that I have are for actions that occured on the Atlantic coast from Virginia to South Carolina. What is limiting progress at this time is some research and a 3d printer. I have STL files but currently no printer to use. But I have my letter in to Santa already.

Thirty Years War

Here I would like to have a skirmish game about the size of Sharp Practice forces. The rules I want to use are up for grabs. I have a handful of miniatures so far but none have seen any paint. Ultimately, I'd like some Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman, Swedes and Germans. I am looking for good books about skirmish actions in this time period. Not having that much luck so far.

Seven Years War

Another period that I have started and not done anything with. I have a couple of Prussians and Austrians. Some I purchased painted. I will use Sharp Practice for this. I do have a good book about skirmish actions that I need to finish reading. Ultimately, I would love to have an Ottoman force as well that I could use with Napoleonics as well.

WWII

There are several possible directions here. One that currently interests me is the fall of Dessau in April of 1945 by the US 3rd Armored Division. This is largely due to my Mother being in the city at the time. I have her account of the American occupation. This will require me to get some child troops given the state of the defenders at the time. My Mom wrote of Hitler Youth training with panzer fausts and one of her friends died when the one he was training with exploded on him.

The other campaign that interests me is the 3rd battle of Kharkov. I have put off looking at this with the recent troubles that the city has befallen with the Russians. But I am still interested in doing the campaign.

Another area that I considered doing was part of the Italian campaign. Possibly following the jewish Brigade.

Lastly, possibly the Tunisian campaign. This is one campaign that I have done no research into. The terrain could prove to be a challenge.

Yom Kippur War

Lastly, a What A Tamker campaign set in the Golan would be interesting. I have a few tanks for this and given What a Tanker, this would be enough. If I end up with a new 3d printer, I would create a bunch of wreck models for it.

Anyway, there are my thoughts for next year. I'd like to hear if there were any of these that interest you.

The War of Jenkin's Ear supplement is Released!

I have settled on a final cover. The product is released to the PayHip Site. The product includes a history of colonial Georgia and the War of Jenkin's Ear in the colony. It has some rule modifications for To Covet Glory and some adidtional rules for Sharp Practice to complete the scenarios. It includes ships stats for a number of additional vessels and an All At Sea campaign modeled after the Rich's article from the 2013 Christmas Special.

The historical scenarios include five scenarios modeling actual and hypothetical actions before the Spanish invasion. These include four for Sharp Practice and one for Kiss Me Hardy. There are nine scenarios covering the Spanish invasion of Georgia. These are divided into four Sharp Practice scenarios and five scenarios for Kiss Me Hardy.

In addition, there is an outline for a campaign dealing with the Spanish invasion of the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1741. Some suggestions for additional scenarios from the time period, and instructions for assembling the Scout Boats, Piraguas, Fusta, Galliot and Galley 3d models.

I would like to point out that this would not have been possible at all without the help of many people. Rich and Nick at TooFatLardies have created some exquisite rulesets that provide toolboxes to create with. Jonathan Jones who playtested the Kiss Me Hardy scenarios and provided pictures of their fantastic miniatures. Mark Luther for testing out my Sharp Practice scenarios and also sent in pictures of his fantastic terrain and miniatures. I really wanted to use his picture of a wild pig attack against the Georgia Highlanders. Tom Davis and Brian English encouraged me throughout the two plus years to work on this.

Click the picture of the cover below to go to the webstore.

It is also available on Wargame Vault.

A print version will be made available through Amazon by next year.