Battle of Valmy

School related issues (i.e. my son's Options evening and Parent's Evening both fall on the next two Thursdays so my gaming may well be affected (as Mrs B is away for at least one of these).  But Son Number 1 informs me that he has already chosen his options to do the English Baccalaureate so I may not need to attend the session this Thursday evening.

If I do manage to avoid it AND Mrs B gets back in time from Birmingham, then Mark is arranging the Battle of Valmy (Grand Armee rules) - for which (blasphemy!) I'll be using my later Prussians - hence the need to paint them up asap.

According to the Order of Battle I need 13 bases of infantry (I have 16 already but this is a mixture of Fusileers and Reserve so I'm cracking on with getting some more Fusileers finished).  Three of these are also Mixed so I need to add cavalry to 3 bases, and four are skirmish 1 (I need another two bases with skirmishers on, therefore).  The artillery is a problem - I have 8 bases but need 10 so I may use British to denote the Horse Artillery for this week (I'm ordering some Adler units mid-week to make up the balance and to add some Grenadier, Jaegers and some additional horse troops to finish the army off as well as add more dynamism to the bases - such as commanders on horseback, troops at the advance etc.).

The only figures then needed are 1 base of Hussars, 2 bases Heavy Cavalry (Kurassiers) and 3 bases of Light Cavalry (Dragoons).   And the command bases - of which there are 8 - five infantry, one cavalry, one artillery and the C in C.  So the brushes are out again tonight!

The Battle
The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the French Revolution. The action took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris. Generals François Kellermann and Charles Dumouriez stopped the advance near the northern village of Valmy.
In this early part of the French Revolutionary Wars known as the War of the First Coalition, the new French government was in most every way unproven, and thus the small, localized victory at Valmy became a huge psychological victory for the Revolution at large. The battle was considered a "miraculous" event and a "decisive defeat" for the vaunted Prussian army.

After the battle, the newly-assembled National Convention was emboldened enough to formally declare the end of monarchy in France and the establishment of the First French Republic. Valmy permitted the development of the Revolution and all its resultant ripple effects, and for that it is regarded as one of the most significant battles of all time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Valmy