80 Years War miniatures

 

Before The Assault Group (or for short TAG) started sculpting their beautiful Long War range for the early 80 Years War period some years ago, I had started already many years before to collect suitable figures from other branches.

When painted, many of them fit well, although TAG will stay my favourite figures.

I keep buying TAGs' latest issues and will show them on this blog when painted.

Here already several pictures of cavalry from various branches for the first decades of the 80 Years War and one picture of artillery.

Old glory Huguenot Artillery

Old Glory generic gendarmes painted as Spanish

TAG German black reiters

TAG Spanish mounted arquebusiers

                                                                           TAG Spanish mounted arquebusiers in line

And the same in column

Wargames Foundry/Casting Room German Reiter

Wargames foundry/Casting Room Spanish generals

Warlord generic demi-lancers painted as Spanish

Warlord generic mounted arquebusiers painted as Dutch

Fort aan de Buursteeg

 On May 5th the Spring meeting of the Dutch Foundation for Model Figures (in Dutch the NSM; de Nederlandse Stichting voor Modelfiguren) took place at the "Fort aan de Buursteeg" at which place is situated the Visitors Centre for the Grebbelinie. 

For those who don't know the Grebbelinie; this was one of the defense lines of the Dutch army against the invading German army in WW2.
But, although this is the most known period of the Grebbelinie, it already existed some centuries before.

The "Fort aan de Buursteeg" was build in 1786 as a defense against a possible Austrian invasion of the Seven Provinces. As that invasion never happened, the first real invasion came in 1794/1795 when French revolutionary armies crossed the frozen rivers, the allied British and Austrian armies pulled back their forces to Germany and the United Provinces came to its end in 1795 just to emerge as the Batavian Republic, a satellite state of France.

The fortress itself was never threatened by an enemy but was occupied by Dutch, British and later French troops.
The fort was in 1846 split in half as an east-west railroad was built right through the fort and effectively split the fortress in a northern and a southern part.

Underneath are some pictures of the fort whose earthen defenses were made in 1786, but these defenses were added with modern bunkers, artillery position etc just before WW2 by Dutch troops but also in the later WW2 by German troops.

Starting with a drawing of the fort which shows the situation when the railroad was made and now crossed through the fort. The top of the drawing is the facing to the east

What is to see on this moment:
Firstly there is the nice Visitors Centre of the Grebbelinie which is situated in the centre of the northern part of the fort.  A picture of an earlier visit:

a picture of the northern part of the fort with the visitors centre on the left side.

A modern drawing of the fort with the railroad splitting the fort and in red the visitors centre in the northern part of the fort. The top of the drawing is North.

Some pictures fo walking through the terrain of the fort.  

way up to the bastion

bastion from outside

German bunker which was camouflaged/painted as a house build at the backside of the fort. An 88mm gun was placed in the bunker. The fort was then part of the socalle "Panther stellung"

bastion from the inside

an undamaged 1940 Dutch S3 bunker

A Dutch 1940 anti tank position.
We missed it at our visit so this is from the site of the Visitors Centre whose site you can find at: 

https://grebbeliniebezoekerscentrum.nl/ 

As said earlier, we were asked to put on a game connected to the fortress so we took our French Revolutionary miniatures and Peter built a part of the fort so our "what-if" game was connected to this great site. 

So underneath are some pictures of the game.

Jan explaining the game to visitors of the centre and fort. 

The fortress in Dutch hands

 

The wargame in full glory

advancing French

the battlefield

Part of our 1793 bakery inside the fortress

Some remarks; as peter took the pictures, sadly only Jan is visible.
Miniatures used were Eureka (French and Austrians) and Emperor Toad (Dutch). Terrain is mostly handmade by ourselves.

Rules used:  Shadow of the Eagles

And thanks to the NSM for inviting us and also many thanks to the Visitors Centre for having us. It was a splended day. 

The first Dutch heavy cavalry: the Karabiniers Oranje-Friesland

 I have finished the first Dutch heavy cavalry regiment. It is a special unit as it consisted in fact of two smaller regiments

Normally the Dutch cavalry (heavy cavalry and dragoons) consisted of 4 squadrons but the Karabiniers Oranje-Friesland consisted of two two squadron strong regiments: 

- the Orange Carabiniers van zijne Hoogheid (payed by the province of Holland) and
- Orange-Vriesland (payed by the province of Friesland)

By the way, the above mentioned names come from the officer register of 1790 (Naamregister der Heeren militaire officieren....)

The uniform was according to the "Jassenboekje" white with blue facings but with gold buttons for the Orange-Vriesland and silver for the Orange Carabiniers. There were also other, smaller, differences in the dress of both regiments.

But unlike the "Jassenboekje" the plates by Coopmans (see underneath) and also by Duncan Macalester Loup show the Orange-Vriesland in a darker blue (gold buttons) and the Orange Carabiniers in a lighter blue (with silver buttons).

  

So I painted my regiments in two different colours.

As it was a heavy cavalry regiment it of course should have a flag but no flags of Dutch cavalry are known; only one plate show a vague orange coloured cavalry flag.
So on to the drawing board and I used on one side the heraldic sign of Stadtholder William V (which was the owner for both regiments) and on the other side the well known armoured arm with sword coming out of a cloud (used by a lot for Dutch regiments in te past).
As I don't know how to make these on the computer itself, I copied the two pictures and handpainted the flag.
So underneath some pictures of the regiment (or better two regiments). Sadly my standard bearer was glued not totally straight on the horse and I was afraid that I would damage the figure when I would correct that.

Figures by Emperor Toad.

A small French Revolutionary game at home

Of course we must start with wishing you a great 2023, a lot of wargamefun but on the first place a healthy year.

And then just some pictures of a small FR game at home. Sadly the pictures aren't good quality as they are taken with my (old) mobile.

website Aldegarde.nl is down

Our website: Aldegarde.nl is down.

We gave too little attention the last year to the website and we are discussing how to go further with blog and website.

Will be followed up.

Annual meeting Dutch Foundation for Model Figures

We were asked to stage a wargame for the Annual meeting of the Dutch Foundation for Model Figures (Nederlandse Stichting voor Modelfiguren).
As this was to be held in the National Tin Figures Museum (Nationaal Tinnen Figuren Museum) at Ommen, Netherlands and of course we always like to give attention to wargames plus the special attention of the annual meeting was to the Batavian Republic, we were gladly to give a demonstration with our French Revolution game (just before the Batavian Republic).

There were two interesting lectures about the Batavian period and its army by Geert van Uythoven (his book about the 1799 Russian-British invasion of Holland - The Secret Expedition- is recommended) and Marijn Vink.

The museum at Ommen is recommended and, although not very big, houses a lot of great big diorama's, the history of tin figures and about 50 smaller diorama's by Wieringa which we think are great. Therse are not (always) about military history but about general history.

Some pictures of our game:

 And of course pictures of the Ommen museum: