Ocana Frankfurters...

Ok, I know it is a juvenile title for this brief post. But then I'm a 52 year old who plays with toy soldiers, so what do you expect?

In my last post I looked at the order of battle for Laval's German Division at the battle of Ocana in November 1809 ( Laval's OOB, November 1809 ) , and had a few thoughts about what troops would work for the various components. 

Looking at what unpainted lead I have it looks like the Baden contingent (two battalions with 992 men) will be AB Wurttemburgers - largely because I already have some! Although as ever - not enough...But two battalions of 24 should see me through.

Which leaves Frankfurt and the Dutch. The Frankfurt 1st Prince Primate Regiment evidently can be represented by the Battle Honours Pack - BCO1 LINE INFANTRY (ANHALT, COBURG, HILDBURGHAUSEN, 

SCHWARZBURG, FRANKFURT, LIPPE, GOTHA, MENIGEN, WALDECK & WURTZBURG).

I asked on TMP if anyone had any reviews or pictures of these models (Timecast's website lacks any illustrations of the figures) and John Baxter kindly pointed me to an old issue of Wargames Illustrated that had a Battle Honours advert.  And here it is:

The figures at the bottom in shako are the ones in the pack evidently. Now, I imagine they are quite small compared to my ABs but as they will be serving in separate battalions I don't think I'll mind too much. As there was just one battalion with 450 men present at Ocana I'm assuming I can use just one bag (some of the BH bags are packed in what seems to me to be a random fashion!).

So, in summary, my General de Brigade Laval's Division will be made up of the following:

2nd Baden Line Infantry - 2 battalions of 24 AB Wurttemburg figures (I'll probably have a look at other OOBs to see whether it is worth painting extra figures).

1st Frankfurt Line Infantry - 1 battalion of 24 BH Confederation of the Rhine Infantry

4th Hesse Darmstadt Line Infantry - 2 battalions of 36 AB Jena Prussians.

2nd Nassau Line Infantry - 2 battalions of 30 CGM Nassau infantry (of course, should Mr Barton produce some of these as part of his Waterloo project then I'll revisit this choice)

2nd Dutch Line Infantry - 2 battalions of 24 ??????

Hesse Darmstadt Artillery - 2 guns with 8 BH Confederation of the Rhine crew.

Clearly, the Dutch are a problem - irritatingly their uniform had changed by 1815 so the AB figures are of no use. The Dutch had their pom-poms on the left side of their shako rather than at the front.

The above OOB (including the mystery Dutch contingent) totals about 260 figures plus a couple of guns (plus skirmishers) - at my rate of painting I'll need to definately up my production levels in 2014. So, my general plan will be to alternate a battalion of the above with a battalion of Spanish during 2014.