Ray King - I joined the Fighting Talk Forum in February 2008 and already had in mind a
Marlburian project. After reading about the famous victory at
Blenheim on the 13th August 1704, decided I would build a collection of
all the British regiments at this battle.With the help of Barry Hilton and many other forum members I built a general picture of the WSS period. Next came the decision of which figures to use, which resulted in me choosing Front Rank miniatures for a number of reasons. The main reason was because they covered all the troop types I would need. The other reasons were that they were practically flash free, good clear castings and with a number of poses and heads looking in different directions.
I next looked for a historic OOB (Order of Battle) for Blenheim and purchased Iain Stanford’s book Marlborough Goes To War which not only had a map of the battle and it’s key points, but also a detailed list of every regiment present, both for Allied forces and the French & Bavarian forces.
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| Diorama of the Battle of Blenheim in Höchstädt, Germany Photograph by J. Williams. (July 16, 2006) used under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
For uniform and flag information, I purchased all eleven Robert Hall colour plates from the Pike & Shot Society, seven of which covered the infantry regiments and four of the Horse & Dragoon regiments. For the regiments not covered by the plates, I managed to get help from Iain Stanford.
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| The Battle of Blenheim 1704 Rebel Redcoat. (March 19, 2012) used under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
I also started a Blenheim OOB thread on the Fighting Talk Forum and bombarded Barry with question after question on everything from grenades and breeds of horses to regimental grades and so on...
Editor - Ray King is the first of what we hope will be many guest authors on the League of Augsburg blog. This was a useful look at how to go about building your collection. Part two of the series will start a series of pictorials that will depict every unit in the collection (so far) - it will will be an invaluable resource for those wishing to paint any of the British regiments from the Marlborough led campaign!
As Ray mentioned the the Fighting Talk Forum, I wanted to point out that it is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in wargaming the period. Besides lots of people who have been gaming in the period for years (decades in some case... yikes) there are published authors and historians who visit from time to time. It is likely that if you ask a question someone there will know the answer!
For a quick way to see all of Ray's collection, type 'Blenheim' in the search bar at the top of the page!