Against Spain - Update

 I've been quiet for a while. Big changes at work, covid and a lot going on at home have conspired to keep me from posting. Like a lot of people at the moment, I've not had the headspace to do everything I want, or like. But this hobby gives me space and time to relax and be creative and with a little of that I've caught up a lot in the last few weeks. 

"Against Spain - Wargaming the Havana and Manila Campaigns of the Seven Years War" is almost finished.  The main text is done and most of the pictures I want in place. I'm currently checking my notes and making sure the sources and citations are correct and play testing the 6 scenarios which the book contains - 3 for each location. 

The book contains an overview of each campaign, the leaders and troops involved, a narrative of the campaigns with period maps and paintings and notes on figures and rules. Like the French Marine troops and Maroons for the Sugar Islands Campaign book Crann Tara, now owned by Caliver books, have figures for the Havana Militia, British Sepoys and Indian labourers available, sculpted by Andy Stadden. Once again the book will be in full colour and will be approximately 80 pages long.

Crann Tara's new Havana Militia

I should be finished everything by the end of this month and off to the printers it will go hopefully becoming available in August. 

New figures for Havana and Manila....and more besides

 I received some pictures from Graham at Crann Tara of new figures which Andy Stadden has completed. These will be prefect for the sieges of Havana and Manila.

Indian Labourers

Good for adding muskets and melee weapons to as well as for helping to dig the siege lines at Manila or for early in-uniformed sepoy peons.

British Sepoys 

600 of these at Manila and of course a staple of combat in India too. 

French Sepoys

It wasn't just the British who made use of Indian soldiers.

Manila Black Militia

The Spanish deployed 3 types of militia at Havana. White, multiracial and black units known in Spanish as "blanco", "pardo" and "moreno". The blancos and pardos wore a typical European uniform of coat, waistcoats and tricorn. The Moreno unit wore a simplified version of this with a cap with turned up flaps or sewn on panels and front and back. 

These uniforms were first recorded after the siege, but lasted through to the AWI and were worn by several of Spain's Caribbean and American possessions. These figures will be prefect to the 1760's through to the 1780's.

Andy has done a great job in sculpting these and Graham tells me they'll be ready in a couple of months. 

Can't wait to get my mitts on some!

Another Jacobite Fight

This time a straight across the table fight featuring 6 Jacobite clan unit's and a small unit of Royal Ecossais against 3 Hanoverian line and two grenadier units. 

A scrappy engagement with lots of fluffed initiative rolls and swapping back and forth between the two sides without either side getting a change to get the upper hand. It did however stop the jacobites for getting a couple of telling charges in and caused them to take some more losses. But they rallied and drove the redcoats back to the table edge, despite them getting reinforcements in the shape of a fresh unit. In the end though weight of numbers began to tell and the remaining redcoats sued for peace after suffering the loss of a further unit. 

The Jacobites didn't get their own way tonight and a few times were kept off by the shooting and bayonet drill of the government troops. But they in turn couldn't quite fend off all the clan units and their perimeter shrunk and shrunk until they had nowhere left to go.

This was the second of our club Jacobite battles. We plan a third next week. Stay tuned! 

Lancers for the King

 I have an interest in the fascinating Cuera Soldiers who protected Spanish settlements from the Gulf of California to the Gulf of Mexico for around a hundred years. These men wore thick leather coats and carried lances and shields, riding horses with leather trappers to protect them from the arrows of the Apache, Comanche and other Indian tribes. 

I think only the London War Room range from RSM makes them in miniature which is a great pity as these men were every bit as colourful and brave as the American cavalry who followed them. 

The picture below is from a hide painting sent to Europe from New Mexico in 1758 and shows what is thought to be the defeat of the Villasur expedition - a column sent by Spain in 1720 to gather intelligence on French movement around the river Platte and to exert control and influence on the region. The expedition including Cuera Soldiers and the Indian allies was ambushed by Pawnee and Otoe tribesmen at dawn, and suffered heavy loss. The survivors made it back to Spanish territory  having penetrated further north and east than any other land based force at that time. The French were delighted to hear of its defeat,  but did not form any links with the region either. 

The Lancers of the King is a book I picked up on EBay and is a translation of the King of Spain's instructions on the organisation and structure of the Cuera Soldiers, their equipment, uniforms, garrison locations and details of the Indian scouts who supported them. It also has background on the history of the region as well as several excellent drawings, photographs and maps. Written in 1965 it's not a common book and probably very scarce on this side of the Atlantic, so I was lucky to find it. It's been a very interesting read. 

I think I might have to try and get my hands on the LWR figs or possibly try converting some Spanish garrochista guerillas by giving them a long coat and ardaga shield. Eagle Figures do some nice figs. Boot Hill and 1st Corps do later presidial cav, but the cross belts etc are probably too much to carve away.

A Jacobite Game

 It's the 275th anniversary Culloden on the 16th and now that I have care of some jacobites I organised an online zoom game with mates from Oldmeldrum Wargames Club. 

Scenario notes and background were issued to the players before hand and the game itself was based on Prestonpans. A slight comms hiccup meant the Hanoverian commander didn't get orders back in time and one of his colleagues had the men deploy facing Edinburgh rather than the Jacobites who had listened to advice, looked at at the map and decided to march round the back of the redcoats. 

The battle was confusing, bloody and broke down into individual scraps and firefights. The melee capabilities of the clansmen were ferocious and the raw redcoats suffered from being wrong footed, struggling to turn and prepare and being poor shots. Not all went for the Jacobites - they lost control over their men once the clans got close enough to charge and at times fluffed activation rolls and had units retire whilst the action was still in full swing. However it went badly for the Hanoverians and they couldn't get organised to get their raw troops from causing anything other than minor damage to the highlanders. Their formation broke up and around half were cut down or fled by the games end.

A historical result and nice getting some toys on the tabletop