Hi Guys
This is my second attempt at this message, the first one was pretty long but didn't go through, this one will be shorter!
I've recieved my copy of ULB (thanks Barry and Lindsay) and I am fired up to get back into late 17th/early 18th Century wargaming. This will be the third time that i have gotten into the period and raised an army. My first army was a 1690's Allied army of mainly British regiments geared toward the Nine Years War, my second go around was in 15mm with a 'British' army geared toward the War of Two Kings in Ireland. This time around i am going to go with 25mm again because I wasn't satisfied with my 15mm army, it just wasn't "charging me up" for some reason. I can't really afford a 25mm army on my budget, especially since I haven't got anyone else in my area interested in the period so i'll be building both sides myself, so I am going to start off with skirmish games and build up from there. I plan on two dragoon units and a batallion of foot for each side, individually based for skirmish games despite the fact that it'll take away from the look when they are later used in large battles. I love skirmish gaming anyway so all this isn't too much of a hardship.
The question I've been asking myself as I have been looking through my books again and cruising the internet looking at catalogues and the gallery on this site is which part of the period do I want to be my main focus? I'll play the whole period of course but what part of the period should my troops look like they come from? I am most interested in the 9 Years War (i'm sure you never would have guessed that after reading about my other to armies) and I'd like to build armies for that again. These armies will also be used in everything from the War of Devolution through the War of Spanish Succession but they are going to be designed for the LOA.
With my war chosen I set out to hunt up figures on the internet and that is where my happy buzz turned to disappointment. The only 9 Years War figures available I either don't like (Dixon; there is a wierd head that appears on alot of the figures in their ranges and they are probably too small to mix well with OG or Front Rank. Reiver; these look very odd to me, very wide and flat) or can't afford on my budget (Foundry). Old Glory has a WSS range that is quite nice and Front Rank has one that is just spectacular (and I will get quite a few of these despite the fact that i usually don't like FR because the soldier look so incredibly FAT), so what to do? I've read Peter barry's article in WI (which also appears in the War Chest here) on the Feather And Lace Brigade and I agree with him but I think that WSS figures mix great with LOA figures and units like this fit right in to either war but I think using just WSS figures is going to make my units look like they are WSS not LOA.
So can anyone offer some advice? Should I suck it up and go for figures i'm not completely satisfied with (which is likely to result in my not painting them and the project fading away)? Try cutting off the tricorns on some of the WSS figures to make floppy hats (I've never tried customising figures before, kind of scary, and then what about makiing figures wearing twelve apostles out of WSS figures)? Or perhaps I should just go with the WSS (which could result in a similar result as option one)? Hopefully someone out there has some ideas and/or advice!
Thanks
P.S. sorry, this one ended up being pretty long too!
Nice folks
