Seven Years War with Maurice - Part one, the best laid plans...

One period we've talked about gaming for a few years has been the Seven Years War.  With the usual wargamer's procrastination that's all it's been; a lot of gum-flapping and good intentions.  Well, no more!  A few weeks back we came across a rather jolly little rule set, new to the market from inspired mind of Sam Mustafa, 'Maurice'.

One 'test game' using some American War of Independence figures we've got knocking about and we're hooked.  'Seven Years War' someone said.  'Hmm'...someone else said.

So I headed home, raided the piggy bank and Bob's your aunty's live in lover.  So, with the vagueness of our hobby, everything came in from the various suppliers.

I picked up the Maurice rules and cards from and evilbay seller and having had time to ruminate over them I must say they are very nice indeed.  The cards in particular just reek of quality.

After much discussion, we've decided to go with 30x30mm basing and so I gave Pendraken's Minibits a shout and bought in the required basing.  Incidentally, does anyone else think the laser-cut mdf smells like kippers?

The flags are from...um...?  Not sure actually.  I picked them up at Border Reivers and kind of lost track in the hubbub and the heat.  I also found a army and uniform guidebook on Caliver's stall at the show.  I now its all on the interweb, but there is something nice about having it in a book.  And you can never have too many sources eh?

So, oh yes!  Of course, the figures.  For various reasons we chose to return to 15mm and a collective decision was made to use the Old Glory Seven Years war range.  I bought these American imports through Timecast.  Delivery took about a week and unfortunately the order was incomplete.  I'm still waiting for two pacakges to arrive and the chaps at Timecast assure me it'll be about three weeks, if there aren't any problems at customs.  The other chaps have also not received their full armies so this seems to be par for the course with Timecast.

So, everything's set to embark on this new project.  For some reason I seem to have an affinity for the Russians and seem to end up with their armies in many periods.  No sense in bucking that trend here, and with the Austrians and Prussians already spoken for my choice was easy.

I'll kick off then with the unbagging ceremony (as distinct from a debagging ceremony, thankfully) and run through a little review of the figures.  I've never bought any Old Glory miniatures before so this'll be interesting.

Timecast's website says that a pack contains ' approximately 50 infantry,  16 cavalry, or 6 guns with 24 crew'.  'Approximately' is a bit worrying, but here we go.

First pack is 'SYR1 Russian musketeers'.

OK, so this first pack contains only 44 figures.  This is a bit of a problem since I need 48 figures to get the two units I need out of the pack.  I've contacted Timecast to ask for figures to make good the losses, so fingers crossed.  [Edit: Timecast responded to my email with the following: Sorry to hear of the short-fall in the bags, I will certainly get the figures for you and send them with the bags currently on back order, so excellent news!].  Each pack appears to contain four rather flamboyant leaders, four drummers, four flag bearers, four chaps pointing (presumably an NCO?) and then a variable number of line infantry.

The figures themselves are, shall we say, rather generous for 15mm.  A quick measure shows them to be on average 15mm from foot to eye line.  to the top of the head they vary between 18mm and 20mm, so these are big chaps!

Also, I suspect the Old Glory moulds are getting on a bit as there's a LOT of flash on almost every model.  Note particularly the flash from each figure's coat tails to heel.

As I hate cleaning figures, this is going to annoy me immensely.

But they are very nice figures, well sculpted and detailed.  Here are the drummers and one of the flamboyant leaders I mentioned.

And here they are, laid out in the arrangement for my Maurice basing.  Four short...

OK, so moving on, the other units are:

Grenadiers

Hussars

Cuirassiers.

Assorted generals, commanders, and other mounted personalities.

And finally, some artillery.  there appears to be two larger pieces, four medium guns and a small howitzer style cannon.  Thankfully all the bits are there, and although all 24 crew are present, its surprising that they don't appear to be distributed as six consistent crew configurations.

So I'll clean these up and start painting fairly shortly, and let you know how it goes.