Building a Wargames Army 101, Part 2 - The Williamite Army

by Clarence Harrison January 12, 2015

A portion of my Williamite collection

Clarence Harrison - this is simply an overview of the army I already have. You can hop over to the Quindia Studios blog to see all the how's and why's of this force. Here is the goal I set out for my Williamite collection...

DUTCH

Garde te Voet (2 battalions)

Brandenburg

Nassau-Saarbrucken-Ottweiler

converged grenadiers

ENGLISH/IRISH

Hanmer

Wolseley's Horse (2 squadrons)

HUGUENOT

De la Meloniere

Caillemotte

Cambon

Schomberg's Horse (2 squadrons)

DANISH

Garden til Fods

Zealand

Jutland

Funen

Donop's Horse (1 squadron)

Juel's Horse (1 squadron)

Schested's Horse (1 squadron)

ARTILLERY

2 battalion guns

2 field guns

A Dutch brigade deploys near a farm somewhere in the embattled Irish countryside.

This will give me most of the front line foot units at the Boyne and the most often mentioned units of horse from accounts I've read - a very respectable force of twelve battalions of foot and six squadrons of horse. I managed to finish all of these minus two Huguenot battalions and Schomberg's second squadron of horse, but I hope to add them soon.

A few notes:

The number of squadrons for horse is Beneath the Lily Banner units, not historical organization. Those units listed as one squadron end up with 4-8 models (which will be 6 on the game table) when historical strengths are rendered at 1:35. Those with 9 models or more were granted two squadron status.

The ideal number of battalion guns for Beneath the Lily Banners is no more than one per brigade. Most of my games will be played on a 4x6' or 4x8' table so two per side is probably enough. My crews are painted fairly generically so I can use the battalion guns for either side and assign guns as needed for the scenario.

Some of the units will work for either side with a quick flag swap (see here) - one of the beauties of the period!

The real reason King William III was asked to come to England!
sorry... I just couldn't help myself... he was sitting on the shelf next to the table where I was shooting pics...

I'd like to go back and paint the rest of the Danish brigade, add some of the second line Dutch and English infantry, and some more horse for Williams crossing, but I also want to get in some games so I thought I should paint some Jacobites first!

Next week we'll take a look at my plans for the Jacobite infantry.