The Army of Georland

The Army of Georland

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Radical rethink?


I realise it's been a very long time since I posted anything here on the Georland blog and the project has been firmly on the back burner for a while.

This has partly been because I had achieved that mythical state of "having finished" the S Range Franco Prussian armies I had intended to use for the project, and started on other things: then acquired quite a large number of additional S Range figures of various German states infantry and cavalry. This made me feel painting them up was another large project which I wasn't yet up to the challenge of starting.

So while I had (and still have) an intention to refight some of the Georland battles on the tabletop, it also dawned on me over quite a long period of time that maybe I didn't want to use the Franco Prussian figures after all for this. I am perfectly happy to have two good sized Franco Prussian War armies and use them just for that. I was influenced by this picture, a watercolour by George Keef in the Journal, entitled the Battle of Emburgy (or Enburg, depending on your reading of the script)  dated 8 August 1873. A larger version of the picture appears at the bottom of the home page of the Georland blog.

The lines of red coated troops have brought me back to my original intention, which was to use my S Range Crimean armies, to achieve a similar look. I think the FPW option came about because George Keef's original soldiers were mainly semi round FPW figures, with the French providing the Georlan forces.

So while the Franco Prussian Germans will prove useful for some of the wars of the later Epochs, I am now thinking I might go back to British Crimean War figures for Georland, to achieve a similar aesthetic to this picture.

If I do choose to go this way I won't regard the FPW project as a sidetrack, as it stands on its own and without the interest in terms of Georland I doubt I would have got anywhere near as far with painting the figures, as I would have got distracted into something else. (And in fact while I have some further S Range Crimean Highlanders somewhere in the painting crew I also have some Hinton Hunt and Douglas British Crimean figures which will probably get attention before they do). I am unlikely to be happy using the Hinton Hunt and Douglas figures alongside S range ones, but will have to see. Also I have some very nicely painted Hinton Hunt Crimean Russian infantry somewhere which I must dig out sometime.

I also greatly enjoyed  assembling my collection of buildings from German railway scenery manufacturers, so I would also need to give some thought to whether to use these or the Russian style (and slightly larger scale) buildings I have instead.

It is all a bit hypothetical as I doubt anything will happen any time soon. I realise I need to do a fair bit of research for the Orders of Battle for any engagements I might want to refight, as although there is information in the scans I have of the last section of the Journal, they can be hard to decipher and may have lost some of their content to the scanner's margin settings.

But I think some good questions to have.

Monday 2 January 2017

Georland enemies - Command



Prussian generals


Prussian and Bavarian standard bearers

I still have to decide what to do about flags. I want to be able to use the figures for Franco Prussian War as well as Georland. It is not so much an issue for the German troops but I need to decide whether to simply use French flags for Georland, or design a Georland flag  and work out a way of alternating these - possibly by converting officer figures which can accommodate different flags and poles by drilling out a hand to receive them.

Georland enemies - Cavalry



The S Range Franco Prussian War list included a number of German cavalry troop types which all can be used for the enemies of Georland. The various units available to me are:



Prussian Cuirassiers


Prussian Dragoons


Prussian Uhlans




Prussian Hussars


Bavarian Chevauleger

Georland enemies - Infantry




Prussian Line Infantry




Silesian Riflemen




Bavarian Infantry






Saxon Infantry (apologies for the blurred photographs)


Wurttemberg Infantry


One of the good things about the Miniature Figurines Franco Prussian War Range was the presence of figures for various of the German States allied to Prussia, mainly for infantry but also including Bavarain cavalry and Wurttemberg artillery. These national contingents give some flexibility when representing the enmies of Georland.