17th July 1870 - Battle of St Wendle.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

No, it's on my wish list! Just wish someone would pay attention to it!  Any good?

[cameronian]

Yes very, I was particularly struck by his careful micro-analysis of the terrain, did you know the iron works at Stiring were surrounded by stout metal railings ... ? thought not (neither did I  ), its a good buy, if you're gaming this period I would put it in the highly desirable/essential reading section.

[Leman]

In the middle of reading this now, having just read his shorter but nevertheless excellent book on Woerth. Can't recommend these two highly enough (although there are a couple of niggling misprints eg. 7th division referred to as 17th division and X corps shown twice on a map. Careful reading of the text shows that one of them is in fact IX corps). Also, for a break go for the Bavarians - different uniform and different colours. It makes a nice change. I found this when preparing my French for Montebello 1859 and then came to do their allied Italian light cavalry.

[cameronian]

Blimey you're quick off the mark with Woerth, its only been out a few months unless you read it in the original.

[Leman]

Nah, got it three weeks ago and read it straight away. If you're looking for a cheaper version of Spicheren the Naval and Military press produce a facsimile copy but it's a lot harder to read than the Helion one as the type is very small in late C19th font and for some reason the maps are very small and almost impossible to read. It also lacks the contemporary illustrations in the Helion version. These are a goldmine in themselves showing how common the 1860 pickelhaub was despite the introduction of the 1867 model. It's easy to spot with the metal strip down the back. Thank goodness Pendraken produce a pack of 1860 pickelhaub wearing Prussians.

[mollinary]

Thank goodness Pendraken produce a pack of 1860 pickelhaub wearing Prussians.

How true!   And they include a figure running with rifle at the trail, which is the best pose for Prussians of  this period.  I have lots of the 1866 figures for my armies, as they serve for both wars, but I must confess to a true heresy, Prussians without the brass strip at the back of their helmets have been seen in my 1866 forces.  Oh Mea Culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Mollinary

[Hertsblue]

How true!   And they include a figure running with rifle at the trail, which is the best pose for Prussians of  this period.  I have lots of the 1866 figures for my armies, as they serve for both wars, but I must confess to a true heresy, Prussians without the brass strip at the back of their helmets have been seen in my 1866 forces.  Oh Mea Culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Mollinary

Me too, Mollinary. I find it's just easier to be brazen about it. 

[Leman]

Likewise, it's just unfeasible in terms of cost and storage to have two distinct Prussian armies for both wars. However, having seen the new C19th flags I will be ditching the 6mm ones I had originally bought and will be going for the new 10mm ones. Nevertheless I shall continue to hand paint my French as I like the way the metal flag folds. Another couple of months and I'll start getting some new photos up on the web. Although I tend to favour Bruce Weigl's rule system I also play Field of Battle. Has anyone mentioned that the period specific cards can be bought from Arts Cow in the US?

[mollinary]

Yes the new flags look great, I know Maciek has been working on them for some time.   I hope he goes on to do the Prussians and French as well.  I am not sure exactly what size the flags finally worked out, but the samples he sent me seem to be slightly smaller than the Baccus 6mm ones, although superb in their quality of resolution.  I am a bit of a stickler on flag accuracy, so really appreciate all that he has done on the designs, but my jury is still out on the size issue.  I suppose I would go for more or less accurate size, if only the flagstaffs were the right scale.  But for small flags, such a proportion of their size is on the pole that it just looks "wrong".  I have seen many beautifully painted French Napoleonics let down by having tiny flags on tree trunk flagstaffs.   Now Pendraken staffs are no treetrunks, but they are still out of scale. I think that slightly larger than scale for the flag compensates for this, and so would go for ones about 10-11mm on the staff myself.  What do others think?

Mollinary

[Steve J]

If it looks right, then that's fine for me. At this size, and many others for that matter, parts have to be scaled up for the casting process. The same could be said to be true for the graphics on flags. If we truly scaled the images, text etc on flags, I'm sure many would disappear when reduced to the 'correct size'.

[johnl5555]

You can find a link to the cards for FOB on their Yahoo group in the links section.

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Piquet/

Direct links.

Austrians
http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/austrian1866fob-u7as57cqj7e6

Prussians
http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/prussian-1866-1870-fob-w6znj4jr8ceb

1870 French
http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/french-1870-fob-g1fgjpx03444

These cards are for Cameronians FOB period variants for 1866/1870.

I'm a huge FOB fan and am working on it in 1/72 scale.

Thanks,

John

[Leman]

Cheers for that John. I couldn't remember exactly how I got them. Having used them though they are great fun and do provide some interesting and difficult to reproduce situations, eg. when my French gun line was taken in flank by Prussian cavalry because my opponent happened to get a good run of cards. This brilliantly reproduced the hidden ground effect of von Bredow's Death Ride at Mars la Tour.