Marines..

One of the Wittenberg volunteer battalions has been formed into a marine unit. They will mostly be used in the Carribean but a couple of companies may find their way to India as well.

The uniform is based on one of British Marine units prior to the SYW, with a different mitre front design. (figs: Front Rank SYW British). They look like a unit of Santa's (sans barbes) ?

India: Some buildings ..

The Wittenberg volunteers with a detachment of native artillery out for a little march and are passsing thorugh a village. (The two large buildings are from Mutineer Miniatures, the third provenance unknown).

Caribbean: Pirates - The Second Batch...

Where shall we have out picnic ?

The Pirates have had their picnic and have joined their shipmates on board and are off looking for a a ship to take ...

Caribbean: Prince Albrecht - progress

Prince Albrecht has had its first paint job, sails added and its deck guns installed - a little more work to do then it'll be ready for its crew.  The second batch of pirates nears completion and the naval crew has been primed.

Caribbean: Pirates - The First Batch...

The pirates up to no good on land ....

Where are we going to bury the treasure ??

The pirates on board, plus a few gun crew ...

I've added a little bit of decoration to the aft end of this pirate ship to spruce it up a bit .....

Pirate Ship No 2

The second of the two pirate ships has been completed from its raw state, a lick of paint for the deck and some colour to hull plus a suitable flag...

I'm off out later today to find some sutiable storage boxes for the ships, fortunately the masts are removable, so it shouldn't be too difficult a task.

Harbour Coastal Modules finished

Finished offf the coastal modules, just had enough of my green cloth left; the cobbles and stonework are done using printed paper sheets. Here they are not looking very Carribean like, as I have a shortage of suitable buildings.

A closer look at the harbour front ....

Carribbean: Pirate Ship 1 finished

The first of two pirate ships has been finished off, a bit of colour added, plus the masts painted and new sails added - topped off with a suitable pirate flag ...

What about the ships crew ? well they have been grouped up ready for painting (and of this morning are on the modelling desk for priming).

In the Shipyards ... Prinz Albrecht

I recently obtained a Megablocks pirate ship, this is going to be Wittenberg's contribution to her treaty with Brittania for service in the carribean - to protect trade against pirates and privateers.

The first phase of the rebuild was to remove all the 'pips' from the decks and fill in the resulting holes, reassemble the ship and add the basis of the gun decks....

Next thing was to complete the new gun decks,

Finally add the masts, these were reduced in height by a couple of inches, looking good with some guns ...

There's a few things to do to finish off, then I can paint it and add sails.

I'm going to concentrate on finishing off my ships and crew, so two pirate ships to do and the Prinz Albrecht - piccies to come as things progress.

Carribean: Port Coastal module

This weekend I've been building a new module for my coastal/isalnd scenery of a port/harbour. My usual construction, 3mm MDF with wood batons for strengthening held together with wood glue, more work to do to finish off the terraining yet though..

A closer look at the port module, trying various boats etc for size and effect ....

Hmm I think it also needs a small fort to protect it, I better cut a base for one.

India: Naval - Give General Chase

Nice to get all the model shiops finished. I set them out on the wargame table to get a feel of how a game would looke - the French fleet tries to evade engagement and the British give chase, just catching up with the tail end of the french line....

From the historical sources I've been able to get the actual names of the main ships involved in engagements during the period:

British:  Cumberland 66, Yarmouth 64, Elizabeth 64,Weymouth 60,Tyger 60, Newcastle 50, Salisbury 50.

French: Zodiaque 74, Bien Aime 74, Compte De Provence 74, Vengeur 64, St Louis 64, Duc D'Orleans 50, Duc de Bourgogne 50, Conde 50, Moras 50, Sylphide 36, Diligent 24.

India: Naval - Little ships

Have done a trial using two of the HMS Victory miniature ships I obtained a while back, one as bought and the other cut down to represent a frigate.

Most of the ships involved in the engagements in Indian waters were either 50/64/74 guns ships. For simplicity I will use the ships as supplied for these.  Each ship will be based, and on the base will be an identification strip showing Country Flag, Number Guns and Name.

Have tried to order from the suppliers all I need for this part of the SYW India project - I need 18 more ships, hope they have a enough stock.

India: Elephants - on the modelling desk

The three war elephants have been assembled, these are supplied with men to sit astride the elephant plus one side of the elephant has a moulded on holder for spears which had to be rmeoved - I had to scratch build the howdahs (Elephants and mahoots - Irregular Miniatures, men in the howdahs Foundry)

India: Elephants - of course

My next addition for the SYW in India will be some elephants, there will be one for the commander of a native army and 3 war elephants. Below is the command elephant (from Irregular Miniatures), plus a couple of oddment figures

I'll be ordering three more elephants and scratch building some howdahs and crewing them with Foundry figs.

India: French Artillery and Commanders for both sides

French artillery completed; artillery crew from Jacdaw, guns from foundry ....

The french commander has arrived, the Count de Lolly (historically de Lally), and an aide from the Compagnie des Indes - 'a cheval et a pied'; figs Jacdaw and Foundry.

The rather portly british commander Lord Clove (historically Clive)  has managed to get onto his horse and is accompanied by his aide from the Madras european regiment (also shown on foot) figs Front Rank and Foundry.

India: Batallion - Compagnie Des Indes

The French increase their forces, the newly raised battalion of the 'Compagnie Des Indes' (morphed by changing the command stand from one of my Wittenberg battalions).

[figs : Front Rank figurines plus a couple of Irregular Miniatures]

India: British Artillery

Lord Clove and his aide inspect the newly arrived artillery company ...

[figs Foundry guns and crew, Oxen + limbers Front Rank]

Note: The native artillery cannon in one of my previous posts were sourced from Irregular Miniatures, Marlburian 25/28mm range - code LM31 Field Gun.

Carribean: Photo Backdrop completed

I've been searching in art shops and local charity shops for a seascape of the carribean (or similar) which I could use to modify to make the backdrop for posing piccies of pirates etc.; last week I 'struck gold', a nice little print of a watercolour (just 99p) - so it's been adapted by placing some extra jungly bits in front to cover up some of the detail in the foreground which wasn't quite right. Here it is with a few figures...

India: Lord Clove Inspects the Troops

Lord Clove recently appointed to the East India Companies' Madras station inspects some of the newly arrived Witenberg volunteers, in the company of his daughter and an officer from the Madras european regiment.

(figs Infantry - RSM; civilians - mix of Foundry, Old Glory and Blue Moon)

What's up next ...

A number of things are getting ready for the painting table, on the India front I have

Artillery crew for French
Artillery crew for British
Some European Civilians

All the pirate figures are ready to enter the painting queue as well. Also I will be assembling little piles of lead for India, firstly to complete all the European units - I'm trying to get the uniforms and figures used such that with a swap of command stand they can be used for actions between Wittenberg and Monrovia in Europa

India: Native Artillery

Native artillery practising, with supervision from a french artillery detachment

[Figs: cannon - Irregular Miniatures; limbers and oxen - Front Rank; crew - Foundry; french - Jacdaw 30mm]

INDIA Work-in-progress: Artillery

Artillery for SYW in India, the artillery park and crew for indian allies, plus a couple of french officers, painting is in progress on these; also waiting for the brush are french and british gun crews.

Photo backdrop for India

Below is a shot of my photo backdrop for taking pictures of completed figures and units for India. It is simple and neutral as possible, showing a temple and part of mughal style fort. I used a printed large sky paper and a couple of printed photos, and painted in the foreground; then I added a couple of flat plastic trees and some spongy green stuff to give some dimension.

go and tell Edna we've got another one of those thing-a-ma-jig's in the back garden again

West Indies: Pirate Island (4) - Having a look round ...

I finished off all the trees and jungle pieces, including some rocky outcrop sections (small pieces from Javis scenics; the large pieces - don't know). The beaches on the island sections have been done and painted so here it is ...

Colonists (?) unload in the bay ...

Another of the little boats surveys the island from the sea ...

West Indies: Pirate Island (3) - going green

I made up my terrain modules with 3mm MDF board on top and bottom with an interior fill (or frame) or 20mm/30mm wood battons. That gave the modules some height. Then I covered the modules with the remains of the green curtain I used for my gaming table surface; I'm thinking of doing the beaches using plastic wood and painting them a simple sand colour - we'll see how that turns out - I'm currently working on the trees/palms.

Blog layout tweak and useful reference book ..

I've been tweeking the layout of items down the right hand side of the blog. Mainly to have a separate Carnatic wars list; to which I've added some links to the FibiWiki for each of the Carnatic wars.

A useful book for SYW India and the Carnatic wars is 'An Account of the War in India: between the English and French, on the Coast of Coromandel' by Richard Owen Cambridge 1761. Its available online here,  also available to buy from Amazon - have put a link to this in the India references.

West Indies: Pirate Island (2) - Jungle and Palms galore

A few shots to show the work I've been doing since yesterday. I've added to all the existing tree/palms bases with about 10 more and split up the 'plastic tree' mat into smaller sections. The aim has been to get a reasonable coverage of  the island; but not too much to make it so you can't move figures around on it.

Some idea of scale of, with a couple of unpainted figures .

One of the coastal modules; with a couple of turtles ..

Next phase to add some height to the modules where needed and get some terraining done. I'm going to try to do this in the simplest way possible; I have my thinking cap on.

West Indies: Pirate Island (1) - Module Bases

The 3rd post today. phew! Unable to do some gardening becuase of the poor weather [shame :)], I set about making up the module bases for my pirate island - ideally somewhere in the carribean. I had some 3mm MDF sheet left over from an old model railway backscene; after sketching out some ideas I opted for the following:

• 2 narrow coast modules
• 2 land modules
• 1 inlet or small harbour module

These were cut to fit onto my gaming table. For the surrounding ocean effect I used some dark blue curtain lining material. Here is my gaming table with the module bases for the 2 coast and 2 land modules - gives a land gaming surface of about 6ft by 2ft4ins.

and alternatively with the inlet/small harbout board...

Naval - some little ships

While browsing for some useful bits for my 18C rooms for the palace of Wittenberg, I came across some nice little ships in the local dolls house emporium; the are about 5-7cms in length. The models shown below are Mayflower and a HMS Victory.

Although a bit crude they make great models for naval warfare. I'm going to try and find the source of these and see if I can order couple more for evaluation.

India: Mighty morphing volunteer battalions

To get things rolling on my SYW India project I've finished morphing two of my existing units by changing the command bases. Firstly the Monrovians volunteers who will be supporting the French ..

and the volunteers from Wittenberg who will be supporting the British....

The dense jungle behind the pictured units is a raft of plastic foliage for terrariums, each bit can be detached and used separately - so a session of jungle making is on the cards.  Oh and for a bit of light amusement ..

Where did they tell me to meet them for the tyger hunt ?

I have also accumulated all the initial figs and guns for the artillery of the french, british and indians; these are next in the painting queue for my India project.

India - planned European Army sizes

Initially each colonial european army (one french the other british) to consist of:
1 regular infantry battalion
1 battalion of local european volunteers
1 battalion of german 'volunteer/mercenaries'
3 battalions of Sepoys
1 battery of artillery
1 squadron of cavalry, probably dragoons

I have added a link to Bears Den Miniatures who do a mughal india range.

Busy with trees ...

I've been sorting out trees and palms for use either in the carribean or southern india, as you can see I've accumulated a few ...

The trees and palms have come from toy sets or bought as oddments from 'Car Boot' sales or in charity shops. I also bought some Woodland Scenics palm (in box on left). Next step is to terrain the bases and add some scatter etc.