Some Big Battalions.

My painting output has been really off lately. I've either been too busy, too tired or too depressed since the spring and watching Netflix with the Mrs. has often seemed a more appealing way to spend an evening. But I decided to cheer myself up and work on a couple of large SYW Austrian battalions I had sorted out over the winter.

I could've done more Fallschirmjaeger, or Canadians, and goodness knows I've got a pile of Colonial or Wars of the Roses figures to work on. But the SYW Austrians give me a very satisfying pleasure. I dunno, I like the SYW Austrians. The baroque genteelness of the Hapsburg Army and their admirable Empress make me smile. And they need more musketeers to stand up to Old Fritz on the table.

These are the last of the Old Glory Austrian "Firing line" figures. I have been organizing my Austrian battalions with 8 musketeers, a drummer, an ensign, an NCO and an officer giving a 12 figure battalion. To do two more like my first battalions would have left me with 4 left over standing and 3 left over kneeling figures. I hate left over figures, and Black Powder is thankfully very flexible in unit size.

I also had an awful lot of extra command figures to flesh things out even more. So I had the clever idea of doing them in two ranks with both standards and extra drummers and officers. This meant making the bases even deeper to protect the muskets and allow for two ranks.

Black Powder suggests a frontage of +50% for a 'large' unit, but 180mm would look exceedingly silly and I didn't have anymore musketeers, so I settled on 160mm by giving a bit more room on the flanks. I also thought that since the battalions are almost always in line I decided to base the units on two 80mm by 50mm stands. Also with large stands like this it's very easy for them to look very flat and boring, even with my usual mix of three shades of flock, some tea and chopped up dried lichen. So I added a few tufts and clumps of Army Painter "meadow flowers". I went with the yellow instead of white to accent the yellow hat tape.

Large battalions aren't an upgrade for the Austrians in the BP supplement The Last Argument of Kings, but it is a common trope in other rules like Warfare in the Age of Reason, so I thought a couple wouldn't be out of place. I could always make them 'raw' or something if I need too.

I also opted to paint them in the older War of Austrian Succession uniform with the coloured waistcoats.

I reinforced the fragile weak spot were the front hand is holding the fore-stock of the musket with a band of epoxy before I primed them. This and the big stands paid dividends when I was flocking the fourth and final stand and fumbled it. My new whitecoats bounced off my knee, the chair and onto the rug! After some hyperventilating and rapid uttering of the F-word I picked it up, expecting snapped off muskets and a bent flagstaff.

Not a scratch!

Giving fire