Maximilian Affair: Egyptian Auxiliary Corps (19e Régiment de Ligne)

One of the most interesting units of the whole Mexican Adventure has to be the Egyptian Auxiliary Corps, a battalion of Egyptian (Sudanese) infantry who served under French command with distinction in the Veracruz region from 1863 to 67. The bizarreness of having Egyptian troops fighting under French command to put an Austrian Archduke on the Mexican throne meant I had to include a unit of them in my Rebels and Patriots Imperial army...

Whilst Gringo 40's produce some figures, they are in a marching pose and I'm not 100% sure the trousers they are sculpted in are correct (most sources I found seem to show them in baggy Zouave style ones). Also I didn't really want to spend much more money on this project so I rescued a box of Perry Miniatures plastic ACW from the attic to see how close they were uniform wise to the Egyptians.

The main difference was the ACW figures wearing the distinctive short jacket, so I carefully carved that away and removed any obvious knife scraps on the torsos by painting on some liquid cement. I'm not 100% sure the officer is correctly uniformed. It may be the Egyptian officers wore a similar white uniform as the rank and file, but I like the contrast with the officer leading them in a French style blue uniform with fez.

At the end of the day the overal result was decent enough and I am happy with this somewhat exotic unit now added to my Imperial army...

Maximilian Affair: French Régiment de Ligne

The second Rebels and Patriots unit for my Maximillian Affair project, a unit of Régiment de Ligne, who will be treated as Light Infantry in game terms.

The figures are the rest of my Foundry legionnaires, but painted up as Line Infantry. The uniforms are basically the same, the only real difference being the yellow piping rather than red. I decided with these guys to include any figures with uncovered kepis and paint their trousers in the winter red issue, as opposed to the summer white in which my Régiment Étranger are painted.

Some where painted from scratch, some just having their faces, piping and trousers repainted from the original paint job seven years ago.

Maximilian Affair: French Régiment Étranger

It's been just over seven years since I last did any work on my Maximilian Affair project, but with the enforced lockdown and much fun having been had with Rebels and Patriots, I decided to review the project and see how practical it would be to raise a couple of forces for it (and possibly Sharp Practice) from what I had.

Before moving on to other things I'd painted 15 French legionnaires from Foundry so adding what was unpainted I found I had enough for two 12 figure French infantry units. Rather than have two units of Régiment Étranger, I decided to keep one as legionnaires (with white summer trousers and covered kepis were modelled) and make the second up as regular French infantry (with red trousers and uncovered kepis if worn).

The Régiment Étranger proved the easier to finish as I had only one left in a white covered kepi to paint up, although I did repaint all the faces. It was an interesting exercise trying to recreate painting and basing techniques and colours from seven years ago, though I think I have got away with it (the middle one is the one painted this week, the two either side in 2013...).

French & Indian Wars: 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot

My second Sharp Practice/Rebels and Patriots unit for my French and Indian Wars based on the Forbes Expedition is one of the two regular units that comprised part of the force, the 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot.

Fortunately, despite being part of the regular army, the 60th Americans were not as fancy looking as other regular foot regiments which was great from a painting point of view (no lace, yay!). There are various sources with contradictory information on the uniforms, most notably the colour of the gaiters (dark brown/natural leather/black) so I went with what I thought looked best.

The figures are again Galloping Major and I so enjoyed painting these that I've ordered a couple of units worth of Provincials to continue the project with...

American War of Independence: 3rd Continental Light Dragoons (Washington's Horse)

Despite the nice weather I have been cracking on painting up bits of 'Lead Mountain' over the weekend, the latest unit off the painting bench being six U.S. 3rd Continental Light Dragoons (Washington's Horse), who fought at the Battles of Cowpens, Guildford Courthouse and Eutaw Springs, for my Rebels and Patriots army.

As with the vast majority of my Patriot army, these models are from Perry Miniatures, part of their metal range.

Once again I have used Army Painter dip and then some highlights over the top on lighter parts like the tunics and facings which gives them a grubby campaign look to their normally bright uniforms.

Rebels and Patriots: Taking the High Road to Yorktown...

Having played most of the scenarios in Rebels and Patriots, George and I have taken to trying scenarios from other Rampant rulesets and this time we chose Take the High Road scenario from The Men Who Would Be Kings as that had provided some great Colonial clashes. Unlike the original scenario with its fixed scenario length we chose the variable one most Rebels and Patriots scenarios have, deciding to end the game by rolling a D6 at the end of turn 9 and if the combined score of turns and dice score was 15 or higher the game would finish.

Following the Battle of Guildford Courthouse Cornwallis decided to fall back on a defensive position at Yorktown with various British columns being chased by American forces and small battles ensuing. This inspired our game with the retreating British finding an American company already in control of a vital road junction on the line of the main army's retreat...

Spotting the Patriot threat, the British commander deploys his force...

And advances forward, though the 1st Lights decide to hang back and admire the beautiful American scenery...

The British Legion and 23rd Welch Fusiliers lead the British advance on the right flank, with the 71st Highlanders in support, urged on by Banastre Tarleton! In the woods Virginian skirmishers take aim...

Meanwhile on the British left flank, the cunning American plan swings into action - to clear that side of the British light troops and then enfilade the main British army...

The American skirmishers start inflicting casualties on the advancing British and the 2nd Maryland move up in support...

Meanwhile on the other flank, the British skirmishers start taking pot shots at the Amercian militia...

One unit of Virginia Militia is Broken having taken a casualty and badly failed its test but a second moves through and advances on the skirmishers...

It takes a casualty and ends up with a Disorder marker having failed its check...

The Broken test requires and automatic Morale check, which the Militia unit badly fail causing them to Rout. This requires other units within 12 inches to take a Morale test too and whilst the 1st Maryland Continental Line and 1st Continental Artillery stand firm, the remaining two Militia units decide to "sod this for a game of soldiers" and Rout too!

In one turn, having only suffered two casualties, three 18-man strong Militia flee the battlefield. The American right flank had disintegrated and the American plan was in tatters!

More musket fire form the British left saw the 1st Maryland Disordered and 1st Continental Artillery Broken. My dice rolling was as bad as normal!

Whilst both rallied and continued to engage the opponents to their front, the battle was to be decided on the British right were George had focussed his main attack.

Having pushed the Virginian skirmishers back, the British Legion advanced into the wood into the guns of the 2nd Maryland!

With a cry of "Maryland! My Maryland!" they shoot down three of Tarleton's Raiders and Disorder them, forcing them out of the wood  in a round of hand to hand combat!

The 71st Highlanders then moved through the Legion with fixed bayonets to dig out the pesky Continentals!

However a round of fire from the Marylanders and supporting Virginian skirmishers on the Highlanders flanks stops them cold AND shoots Tarleton dead!

Whilst the Highlanders shrug off the loss of their general (they didn't like him much anyway), the British Legion, shocked by the death of their commander, rout!

The 2nd Maryland follow this up with another round of hand-to-hand combat against the Disordered 71st  who being Disordered were fighting at half effect and unsurprisingly are Broken and forced to fall back.

This was the end of turn 9 so I rolled a dice to see if I could bring the game to a conclusion with the Americans still holding onto the junction, albeit by the skin of their teeth! Needing a 6 I rolled a 5! :D

However at the end of the next turn (10) I repeated the roll so with a combined score of 15, the game was over and the Americans victorious!

A great game that ebbed and flowed, I really thought it was over when my right flank disappeared after my awful dice rolling for the Morale checks but the brave 2nd Maryland held up the British right long enough for night to fall and secure victory for the Americans. I was fortunate the game ended after turn 10 as the British still had enough of their army left to carry the field but time was as much their enemy as the 2nd Maryland!

After the game we had some discussion about the benefit, if any, in upgrading the Militia units from a standard 12 to a large 18 which I had done to make it take longer to reach half strength and a permanent Disorder market under the rules. That did seem irrelevant given their inability to hang around on the battlefield after taking minimal casualties, so it might be better to go back to the standard size in the hope they can get a couple of rounds of fire off before heading home - two 18 strong units roll 2 x 12 dice when firing, three 12 strong roll 3 x 12 so there is a benefit if I can get them into action.

French & Indian Wars: Lower County (Delaware) Provincials

You may recall from my Cunning Plan (or two) for 2020 post that I did mention plans to start on a French & Indian Wars army to use with Sharp Practice and Rebels and Patriots (as based up for here), and that the plan was to use the Galloping Major figures and raise a largely American Provincial force rather than a British or French-Canadian one.

My reasons for this are two fold. First off I wanted to paint some figures not sculpted by either the Perry's or from the Foundry school (Copplestone, Artizan, Crusader et al) just for a change and secondly I did not want to paint a whole army of redcoated infantry (I have Malburians waiting for that!).

With the second point in mind I did some research and found the Forbes Expedition if 1758, whilst containing some Highlanders and the 60th Royal Americans (so some red), had Provincials units from Virginia (blue), Maryland (red), Pennsylvania (green), North Carolina (Indian dress) and the Lower Counties, what was to become Delaware (green) - the first unit painted here. All in all quite a colourful mix.

I went with Galloping Major, as apart form the style being different to much of what I have been painting of late (reminded me of Dixon) so a nice change (and they were hugely enjoyable to paint), I especially like the campaign look the figures have, as well as the variety of poses. They are a bit chunkier than Perry's or Warlord so can't be mixed with them, but the range is big enough that you don't need to.

New Anglo-Zanzibar War Range!

Perry Miniatures are certainly springing surprises on us of late, the recent War of the Triple Alliance range came out the blue, but today's a news that the twins will be producing a large and comprehensive range of plastic and metal figures for the last major colonial war of the C19th is great news!

Plastic miniatures for this over looked conflict will apparently British Royal Marine Light Infantry, Zanzibari Marines and Pimba Pirates. British sailors will be available in metal as will be a limited edition set of the Sultan and his bodyguard.

The big news is that the figures will be complemented with the Perry's first move into plastic vehicles with 1/56th kits of HMS Racoon, HMS Sparrow and the unfortunate Zanzibari HHS Glasgow, all with an additional steam launch sprue, to be released this time next year.