Back to base and taking stock

 A fresh supply of bases having arrived a couple of days ago, I paused further painting work yesterday to base up the cavalry that have been done in the last couple of weeks and a variety of figures that were painted in the middle of last year but had been languishing without bases since then.  Despite numerous distractions basing is now fully up to date.  Two new Cuirassier Regiments and the extra command and squadron base for each of the first four large horse regiments done last year are ready, 72 horsemen in total.  Alongside them there are 11 bases of horse-holders to go with dragoon regiments, 4 medium guns, 8 assorted limbers, 3 carts, 2 large wagons, 5 pairs of gabions and 12 trees.

Newly finished yellow cuirassier regiment to complement the orange one finished last week.  Figures are all Pendraken except 1 Newline trooper to make up numbers on the command base.

Horse holders for the dragoons.  Another 5 bases yet to be painted but I'm now not sure I need that many as I will only do 2 dragoon regiments.

Medium guns and a surfeit of limbers.  Guns are Pendraken.  Limbers are mainly Irregular Miniatures.  Crew a mix of Pendraken, Irregular and Newline.

Extra command base and squadron for existing cavalry regiments

Gabions, wagons and carts, all from Pendraken

Having done this I have sat back to think about what to do for the next few months.  The first thing is obvious, to finish off the further 2 cavalry regiments, one regiment of dragoons, mounted and dismounted and the assortment of other infantry already on the production line.  Should I then move on to the remaining 3 cavalry regiments and 1 dragoon regiment I have to hand in the lead pile?

As I have been reading scenarios for Thirty Years War and English Civil War battles, one thing that has impressed itself on me is that I am woefully short of cavalry in relation to infantry.  Even a small battle like Cheriton calls for 6 cavalry regiments on one side, 6 plus a dragoon regiment on the other, or a total of 13 cavalry to only 9 foot.  For Fleurus I would only need 4 cavalry regiments for the Spanish but 10 for the Protestants, again more cavalry units than infantry!  Today I can field only 10 regiments - provided none of these has to be large.  Even when I have done the 7 more regiments for which I have the figures I'm going to be short of what will be needed for larger battles by a fair margin.  Without overcoming my reluctance to use things out of place, I cannot field Croats and Harquebusiers - or more than one regiment of Cuirassiers - for English Civil War games, nor have dragoons pottering about in Bavaria or Bohemia.  

My first conclusion is that I need to order more cavalry and I am kicking myself for not having thought this through before Pendraken put their prices up.  My second, helped by the fact that ideas for a battle with these troops at the HKSW meeting next week have been overtaken by a decision to put on a big 2 table Auerstadt-Jena game, is that this project is not going to be the quick and simple one I imagined before embarking on it.  Rather it will become another main thread in the tapestry of painting and gaming.

So, once the current batch of 10mm Thirty Years War figures has been completed I will put a 20mm Roman Legion back on the painting line.  The velites and equites have already been done but the rest are at various stages from base colours to base coat.  That will give me a more balanced Roman force to try out against Macedonians and Greeks and, when I get around to them, Carthaginians.

Second Legion's Velites awaiting bases - Newline Figures

Macedonian phalanx awaiting Romans - and some more user friendly basing.  HäT figures

As that is being done, I will also continue to work on the ancient naval warfare project.  I have started planning a couple of games with larger numbers of bases than last time.  One will be 5th century fleets - nothing bigger than a trieres/trireme.  The second will be Romans vs Carthaginians, to give an outing for larger vessels with missile engines and, for the Romans, the odd Corvus.  Both games will try out the pre-battle manoeuvre scheme and the random events generator that have been drafted but not used in the first game.

Tumbling Dice models in the ancient fleet

A bit late to call these New Year resolutions, but perhaps that means I will follow through on them?