WSS: More Hessians - eventually!

 Two fresh battalions, ready for the duty boxes. As mentioned previously, these have been marooned on the painting bottletops for about a year, so they are as relieved as I am.

Hessen-Kassel. These gentlemen are the Leibregiment zu Fuß (red cuffs, at front) and the IR Prinz Wilhelm (blue cuffs, at rear). As usual, they are mostly Les Higgins/PMD castings from the 1970s, with a few Irregular friends to fill out the command roles.

I was reading about Hessen-Kassel this week. The first and most important thing to know about the history of the army of that state is that it was complicated. My own WSS armies started life when I acquired the relevant 20mm bit of Eric Knowles' collection, so I was off to a flying start with Bavarians and Austrians, and there were also some French. The other nations in Eric's collection had been in different scales, so I spent the next few years hunting down compatible figures to bulk up the French army and build a British one. When I reached the "Phase Two" stage, at which I planned to decide which was to be my fifth army, the Dutch were an obvious choice, but the prospect of another mass of grey infantry caused me to think again. I eventually plumped for Hessen-Kassel, as a nice colour contrast, and maybe some Hanoverians. My subsequent reading reveals that this has not necessarily been a major change of plan, since there were plenty of Hessians and Hanoverians in Dutch pay after 1702.

Hessen-Kassel was one of a number of nations at that time which hired out their regiments to other armies. For example, Prinz Wilhelm was the colonel of two regiments bearing his name, the first of which (which had yellow facings) was formed for the Venetian service. The second was the one which appeared at Blenheim, possibly in Dutch pay, possibly British. Anyway, as long as they were paid, that's the main thing.

This morning's heroic rescue came when I realised I had mounted one of the flags upside down (I've only done this once before), but, miraculously, the glue was still wet enough to allow me to slide it off and refit it. That is probably all my good fortune for the next month used up in one dose. I refuse to say which flag it was, to avoid everybody looking for traces of damage. [There isn't any].

WSS: The 5th Army - Flags in a Hurry

 My new project extension - the addition of a small contingent of troops from Hesse-Kassel - is under way. For this phase I'll be including a few more Irregular figures in the mix, to add variety and also because I have a lot of them, and I'm starting to run low on some of the Les Higgins stocks.

To help the Irregular boys fit in nicely, I have purchased a supply of 12mm brass discs, to add a little height to the Irregulars, and also give something closer to the standard Higgins bases.

The other thing I need, before painted soldiers start arriving, is a set of laser-printed flags to cover the units I am intending to field. I knocked up some flag images and emailed them yesterday to my man Malcolm at the local print-shop. He rang me this morning to tell me my flags were ready, and I collected them this afternoon. I don't have anything similar to compare this with, but that is an impressive turnaround by my usual standards.

I am more than a little shame-faced to air my home-brewed flags where comparisons might be made with the real deal, but felt that they might be of interest, and might even be useful if anyone else is considering a Hesse-Kassel force.

The Leibfahne flags are mostly guesswork, and the rest are sort of OK at best. Please note that the green surrounds on the white flags are not part of the flag, they are to make it easier to cut a white flag out of a white sheet (an eternal problem). From starting to think about this, these flags have gone from sketches to laser-printed sheet in about 48 hours. What they lack in quality they made up in rapid arrival! The small items at the bottom are cavalry flags.

These are intended for use with 20mm figures - I would certainly not recommend them for 28mm or larger.