Last update (main post or comment): O5.15.14
Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth! In the Continent we call
(in this time line discovered and settled by Europeans many centuries before 1492 AD, hence could bear a latinized Briton name: an evolution of Bro ar re Yaouank, perhaps, or a derivative of Hy Breasal? Or of Tir Taïrngire? Or Bren(d)any / Bren(d)ania because of Breanainn / Naomh Breandan / (Enez) Sant Brendan? But pedantry favors a 'classical' reference such as Hesperides, because of the avalou aour, the golden apples of their garden)
.
first we had historically thriving colonies of historical countries: in the Northern half of North America (!? = because we have to take into account the FIW, a collateral damage of the WAS and SYW, and thus 'here' of the 'Gallia vs Hesse-Seewald' campaign) the British and French Canada, the 13 (no longer 13 here!) colonies. .
Then we had historical colonies surviving and thriving unhistorically: the Vikings settlements (with later an additional one), the Welsh colony following the expedition of Madog ab Owain Gwynedd in the mid-12°C. –though I know its historicity is far more than debated, as much as that of Atlantis! (on the other hand the Dutch and Swedish colonies undergo their historical fate in any litterary ‘What if’ setting I know; yet here Dutch are absent but Nya Sverige not only survived but founded later a daughter colony deep inland). Some say Basque sailors landed there -Colombus would have used their knowledge: earlier Spanish colonization of 'Brazil' (see comment added O1.05.08)?
Then we had historical countries creating totally unhistorical colonies. °First, Phil ‘WRG’ Barker’s Britons, having sailed West in search of Avalon after the death of Arthur.°Then, as in John Maddox Roberts’ ‘King of the Wood’, Kublai Khan making up for his failed invasions of Japan with a successful conquest of our British Columbia.
°Then Peter the Great sending successively Cossacks and a fleet to the East and conquering our Alaska and Yukon territory (Klondike Gold Rush!).
°Then myself (among other) having a Jacobite Kingdom in Exile (aka the True Crown Province) in Acadia (including Maine) after Culloden ;
and an Irish Catholic Republic approximatively on our Minnesota (following a Texas-like overwhelming of spasely settled previous immigrants of a different religion –Scots, in my mind– who had come here by a long trek avoiding Nouvelle-France);
°while 'Damianoff' in the messages #15328 & #18442 posted on the Old_School_Wargaming Yahoo group added the Marquessade of Maroon and the Margraviate of Mindt: "In that vastness the colonial aspirations of two small states was seen as humourous by the British and they were allowed to keep their territories on the edge of civilization (the better to keep the Indian Tribes at bay)";
°and Ron Ron 'Rivieraunord' on the same group proposed a French Huguenot and a Swedish colonies inland (OSW files);
And now, with Ny Tradgardland, we have fictitious countries («really fictitious» ones, not historical ones under a pseudonym) claiming their own colonies here! Well, it had to be expected… Could the soldier in red be a Ny Tradgarlander militiaman? Seemingly not, recent report describe them in drab brownish grey -more probably a Mindt militiaman.
With reference to descriptions from the most reliable source, this new image just received from Nouvelle France in all likelihood presents Ny Tradgarlander militiamen in training.
And more recently Ober-Bindlestiff landed in the Caribbean...
Thus any attempt of synthesis is provisional.
>REMINDER: this is only a *PROPOSAL*!<
(In order to achieve a minimal 'current' geographical and then historical self-consistency I had to displace several settlements in space -mainly to leave room for the British and French colonies- and occasionally in time -to explain while the founders of Nova Orkjeynar managed to succeed where those of 'my' Vinland have failed; Ameri-go which in its original setting replaces North America, had to be moved westward) Approximative Chronology
°660 A.D.: the Britons having fled the Saxons Westward in the search of Avalon instead of settling in Armorica land in Iceland and then Greenland, but every time after a few years the majority keeps moving, these stepping stones obviously not being the blessed Inis Avallach. They eventually reach the New World where the Vikings did in our time line, but repelled by the combination of harsh climate and hostile natives (whom for some reason they call 'Picts') keep sailing South. They eventually founded the Kingdom of Avallon, first approximately where 'our' Virginia-N.Carolina border reaches the shore; according to the old chronicles compiled in the Historia Brittonum Occidentalium their alliance with the great chieftain Brule the Spear-slayer, who was in the process of federating nine tribes, was decisive in the success of the settlement. They soon re-established occasional contacts with Ireland
and the Kingdoms of the Isles and of Alba; °850 A.D.: having heard of the Lands of the Sunset the Vikings started to explore Iceland and Greenland earlier than in 'our time line', overwhelming the Avallonian posts (most of the Britons had already moved to less harsh Avallonia, anyway, so the remaining population and most of its culture were peacefully absorbed); successively repulsed by the Skraelings (who already had horses; the Wendol, the 'Bear Clan' were specially aggressive) and the Avallonians, they settle near 'our' Elizabeth City and found the Kingdom of Vinland; note that the Greenland settlements survive, albeit barely at times, the 'little Ice Age'.
°1170 A.D.: Madog ab Owain Gwynedd reaches the shores of the Western Continent, founding a Welsh colony;
°1285 A.D.: an expedition sent by Kublai Khan reaches the Western coast of America; the actual settlement, in search of a less harsh climate, was near 'our' Vancouver; the Corean sailors and most of the Chinese Counselors came back home, most of the Portuguese Jesuits (led by the RP Iesus Miyavalpa) and all the Mongol warriors stayed. Shared shamanism led to a good understanding with the natives and an original culture merging both heritages emerged; a few Catholic enclaves reflect the permanent presence of Portuguese Jesuits;
°mid 14° C.: Basque sailors have a semi-permanent post on the New Continent; cod-fishers from France (Brittany, Normandy) and fishermen from the Cape Verde Islands (Spanish in this Time Line) also routinely land there for water and game; the later may have already began to trade for precious wood in 'our' Brazil;
°late 14°-1st half of 15° C.: arrival of a new wave of 'Scandinavian' immigrants - though many came from the Orkneys and Shetland; with their gunpowder weapons, they managed to settle "far, far North" and founded the permanent colony of Nova Orkneyjar. Their descendants later claimed to be the heirs of '1st wave' Vikings 'more courageous' than the founders of Vinland, but Vinlander scholars demonstrated -on the basis of irrefutable linguistic analyses and the study of sagas- the date of their settlement. (Actually the founders of Nova Orkneyjar are intimately related to the Graenlanders of the '2nd wave' that revived the colony, from Vestribyggð to Eystribygð, in the late 14th - early 15th C.; this time the Norse wisely brought with them Laps [and reindeers]. Most of the adventurous Laps were barely Christianized [not that many of the wild Norse were much more] and the Sami and Inuit shamans were delighted to meet. The friendly support of the natives was instrumental in the [relative] success of the revived colony. So far from Europe and the Vatican, and with pressing material difficulties, religious orthodoxy was not a concern. In a form of syncretism shamanism replaced the Catholic cult of Saints, and the cult of Virgin Mary took a very original form. Merely, since only men can become Catholic priests, according to the rules of old Seidhr only women can become shamans. During the Reformation in Europe, and taking some 'Varangian' tradition as an excuse to copy Orthodox popes, Graenlander 'Catholic' priests gained officially the right to marry. Wiccan women, who would be condemned as witches in Old Europe, while reportedly partial shapeshifters are respected here, and as in Iceland everybody believes in the Fairy Folk.Domestication of the musk ox was determining in the success of Nova Orkneyjar, its spread to Greenland essential in the (relative) thriving of the revived colonies. The two countries remained Catholic and claimed together their independence from Norway during the Reformation, almost forming an informal federation; Graenland itself is a Switzerland-like Confederacy including the Faroe islands, which were the 'advanced base' of the '2nd wave'). Some two centuries later Flemishs fleeing the Spanish repression, as Catholics speaking a germanic tongue, joined them.
°Late 1492 A.D.: a flotilla of 13 small ships carrying a motley, multi-cultural crew of emigrants and exiles from intolerant Spain landed in the mouth of a large river in Southern 'America' : this settlement was to be the nucleus of the small free country of Oronegro.
°1494 A.D.: the Reconquista complete, Spain enters the competition;
only the Southern half of 'our' Louisiana East of the Mississippi and Florida remain unclaimed in the East of North America, but the islands in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea are still independent of any major power (the Axtecs *fear* sea travel and the european colonists concentrate on keeping contact with their mother countries). The Vice-Kingdom of Antiglia is progressively expanded to control most of this area
(except for a few sugarcane islands later claimed by Great Britain and France, specially Jamaica, British, and Haiti which is entirely French under the name of Saint-Domingue; 'our' Dutch islands are French: in both the Îles du Vent: Saba, Saint Eustache and Saint Martin and among the Îles sous le Vent Aruba, Bonaire and 
Curaçao {under another name}). The Vice-Rey rules from Havana, in the island here named Hispaniola. [In all Americano-European 'What if' histories I know the fate of South America is kept under a shroud: if the European and Chinese influences did not reach, even very indirectly, more southward than El Salvador / Honduras, half of America would have been fair game for any Cortez. Even repeated contacts with Polynesia s.l. would have not prepared the Indians to face the conquistadors; indeed 
the whole half-Continent south of 'our' Guatemala and Belize is called Brazil. Note that in this alternate time line the Spanish King's proclamation that once baptized the Indians would receive full equality with the colons, was far better applied than in our time line -the leader of the last Quechua uprising, Tupuquantupett, of imperial Inca blood, was in the end, not only granted full amnesty, but fully integrated in the colonial administration and high nobility. Also, in this timeline, the French Crown managed to keep the Islands of Saint-Alexis (claimed in AD. 1530) and Maranhao (with the town of Saint-Louis - 1612) and the harbor of Guanabara; the Malouines were settled and still belong to the Lys. Surinam is British and part of Guyana].Note that 'Antiglia' has one geographical meaning: the islands of the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean and two geopolitical ones: the Spanish Vice-Kingdom 'of the Islands' (as opposed to the one of 'Brazil'), and a wider acceptance (= British Carribean & France Antillaise
) that includes the British and French colonies in South America (Guyana incl. 'our' Surinam and Guyane, Ile St-Alexis, France Equinoxiale de Maranhao, Sainte-Anne & Guanabara, Malouines, Grand Sud, respectively), since they are controlled by the respective Crown Governor / Lieutenant General du Roy of the Islands.'America' being known for long by Conquistadores times, the Pope would have not divided the 'New World' half between Spain and Portugal, so I suppose Portugueses (and Dutchs & Danes) preferred to concentrate on their trading posts and colonies in Africa and the Far East. Thus most of South America
is Spanish, British (larger) Guyana and French Guyane, Islands of Saint-Alexis, Maranhao & Sainte-Anne with the Port Franc of Guanabara, and Les Malouines excepted; in addition during the War of the Quadruple Alliance, the 
(whole Araucania and Patagonia) is now de facto under French protectorate. More, during the WSS to prevent a rumored British descent France had occupied Valdivia: the town was still under French control when Spain triggered the War of the Quadruple Alliance. During the WSS the French Navy had also founded an outpost in the Golfe de Saint Mathias and by the Treaty of the Hague both Valdivia and the (then almost virtual) colony of Saint Antoine were officially given to France. Yet not a single Court acknowledges Araucanie-Patagonie as the 'Nouvelle France du Sud', as it is sometimes called by overenthusiastic French people.
The situation in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea is almost as in Our Time Line, excepted that whole of Haiti, Dominique, Grenade, Saint-Christophe, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Vincent, 'our' Dutch Islands, 'Danish' Sainte-Croix and 'Swedish' St Barthelemy are French, the Danish islands British except for Sainte-Croix (3 islets of the Virgin Islands were recently occupied by Ober Bindlestiff). Spanish population large enough to be more than self-sufficient for home defense. Locally recruited troops in gold yellow with mainly red facings (as on the 'Sangre y Oro' banner). Here Cuba is called Hispaniola, and some traditionalist units of the Vice-Rey's forces, while dressed (almost) according to current European fashion, still wear (Papal Swiss Guard-like) morions. °16°-1st half of 18° C., (North)-Eastern North America: almost as in Our Time Line for the territories not yet settled by European colonists or conquered by the 'modernized' Aztec Empire. But:
-Early 16th C.: after Flodden, Scottish emigration with a large cadre of sailors from the Orkney, Shetland, Hebrides... to a landing point close to Nova Orkjeynar. A tiny but constant flow of miscontents from the British Islands reinforced the colony, so that after the ECW a good part of settlers was of English ascent. Then the new immigrants came from Scotland again: having heard in time of the fate of the first attempt to create a New Caledonia in Central America, the second expedition to Darien went here instead, to be followed by independantists hostile to the Act of Union. While after the Jacobites risings of the 18th C. the Scottish exiles went rather to Acadia, the country (New Brunswick, but in a different location than the one in 'our' avatar of the Multiverse) never acknowledged any direct authority to the British Crown.
-Late 1st half of 17th C.: 'historical' Swedish colonization along the Delaware, with Norses, Danes and Icelanders instead of Dutch settlers: with Vinelander support manage to resist the (mainly British, here - Pierre Minuit was active in Asia) pressure. Resenting the lack of support from the Mother Country as a betrayal the colons turned the colony of Nya Sverige into the independent state of Nya Scandige.
-
mission of Sainte Jeanne d'Arc which with time grew to become the central town of independent Nouvelle Baratarie. Most of later population came from Nouvelle France, a few trappers with their native wives at first and, after the Peace of Utrecht, whole treks of Acadians ('Cajuns', who gave Nouvelle Baratarie its peculiar language) fleeing the new British authority.
-End of 17th C.-early 18th C.: °many French Huguenots, after fleeing to the Low Countries, went oversea to built a country of their own. Some went to South Africa (see Bonne Esperance below), other to North America. From Vinland they trekked to the inland in search of isolation, skirting round Nouvelle France. Yet -perhaps wishing to settle close to other French-speaking colonists- they turned then northward: their Republic of Bon Mondiale may be at the South-Eastern extremity of 'our' Manitoba - Western extremity of Ontario, but more likely further East -cartography was, and still is there, in its infancy.
°Refugees from Zolms are granted lands in the Mohawk Valley.
-Early 18th C.: a new wave of Swedish and Baltic families fleeing the draft in the armies of Charles XII; Nya Scandia turning overcrowded they followed the trail of the Huguenots and settled just South of them, North-West of the Great Lakes. Scots followed them and sparsely colonized an area East of the Neo-Swedish country, only to be overwhelmed by a massive wave of Irish immigrants (see below). For some reasons (an 'official' one being deep theological divergences) the two new Protestant countries, Bon Mondiale and New Sweden, very soon became bitter rivals; but with the encroachment of Irish Catholics sympathetic to their fellow co-religionists in New France, the "Swedes" and "Huguenots" have lately taken a more amicable tone with each other.
-Early 18th C.:Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea: during the WSS a Spanish Governor claimed the independence of his island (Afortunados?).
-Founding of Ny Tradgarland in...?
-In the early 1740 Irish immigrants overwhelm sparsely settled Scots and found an Irish Free State.
-Just after Culloden Acadia (still mainly populated by French Catholics) becomes the Legitime British Kingdom in Exile.
-Creation of the independent colonies of Mindt and Maroon.
°early 18°C., (North)-Western North America: Peter the Great founds the New (Oversea)
Province in Alaska and Yukon; all mineral ressources are proclamed property of the Czar and exploited by workgangs controlled by the Russian administration and 'protected' by the most reliable (most fervently religious) regiments of the Russian regular army and stonias of Cossacks (in turn of oversea service for 5 years). Think of the Gulag, with the Orthodox faith and the cult of the God-blessed Czar instead of Communism / Stalinism. Whale- and seal-hunters on the cost, several Russian villages transferred 'en masse' to colonize the inland, but their people greatly appreciated the change: here they are no longer serfs but free landowners. Old soldiers discharged when their unit is on duty here 
can ask for a land grant and settlement wages. Truth to tell -perhaps because the close cooperation between the Church and the taxmen, and because many of the displaced peasants were Siberian- in isolated settlement specially, secret but enduring traditions were revived by the contact with 'Native' shamans.
°mid-18°C., Eastern Canada: as soon as the landing of the Pretender in Scotland is known, Jacobite agents use the still mainly French population of Acadia to turn it into a 'True Crown' province.
°mid-18°C., Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean: very minute changes in the Virgin Islands area: the Levitzer Rabbinate had to sell to the British Crown its single colony here, being unable to defend it; symmetrically the Electorate of Ober-Bindlestiff managed to obtain, with British agreement, a tiny archipelago (with French-speaking ± Black 'natives', seemingly).
North America by the end of 1745
*So I have ‘Avallon’ {Avallonians - French Avallogne / Avallignons} on the southern third of Virginia, North Carolina + the northern half of South Carolina and Georgia (going west to the longitude of New Orleans). Deeply influenced by France; total merging of the native and immigrant populations, thus no ‘indian’ unit. Uniforms of French pattern, white coat and (irish) saffron breeches; Household cavalry wears a helmet looking strikingly like 'our' bagpiper's bonnet with ostrich feathers; some light infantry wear a wolf scalp as headgear -'native' influence rather than scholary reference to Republican Roman 'velites'; the Militia wears the traditional Britton round hat, short jacket over a waist (under the uniform great coat), large sash, baggy trousers under natural deerskin 'european' gaiters or 'indian' leggins. The bagpipes in the regimental bands (bagadoù) come from the Britton exiles who came after 1532 AD and the annexation of Brittany to France. Flag: a red (Pen)dragon on a white field. A very deviant form of Catholicism, with strong druidic elements reinforced with native animism. Language: Briton evolved under strong Britton influences (Brittany was the major contact in the Old Continent for centuries), but French widely spoken.
*‘Vinland’ {Vinlanders} [the most -controversially?- 'displaced' country] would be South, filling down to the northern border of Florida (Spanish, part of the Vice-Kingdom of Antiglia), and West to the Mississippi.
Uniforms very Prussian in appearance (but the dark blue tends *slightly* to emerald), a few Skraelings light units (Afrikander attitude).
Flag: narrow gold-edged green cross on a black field, overlaid by a white shield with a black raven (reversed for cavalry). Lutheran.
*The Legitime British Kingdom in Exile covers Acadia / Placentia [maybe somewhat amputated in the North-East by {Nova Orkjeynar + Hunover}] including Maine; in practice the frontier with New France is rather fuzzy, most of the population thinking of themselves as 'French', French troops being present for common defense and the French Canadians seeing the country as either a French dominion or a soon to be recovered part of New France; British uniforms with some French influence (see comment added below on O1.08.08), as discussed in «VI – North American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe / VI-A: Regular infantry recruited from European settlers» of the july post about - N. American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe?. Flag: the Union Jack but with 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' on the arms of the cross, as with Irish infantry in French service, and displaying similarly a large crown: the Stuart coat-of-arms just below the crown; note that Acadians speak French, the Jacobite nobility / gentry in exile is fluent in this language, so with the constant exchanges with Nouvelle France the 'British Kingdom' is in practice turning into a francophone country: apart a few traditional commands during parades, French is already the language of the Military.
*As for Gwynedd Newydd (the Welsh colony, capital TreOwain: thanks to John Preece of the OSW for the names), it would be very isolated in our North Dakota: being (self-consistently) unhistorical to the end, I prefer to see it over our New Hampshire. Closely associated to the Jacobite ‘True Crown Province’ above, provides it with light infantry wearing a dark red cape over a very dark red very short coat (without lapels, big 'sailor' buttons, black facings and tie) & waistcoat, a peculiar variant of black 'military' tricorn (rounded top higher, and sides lower, than the norm; with rather thin yellow lace rim) and checked breeches (actually trews gathered under the knee: see comment added below on O1.08.08). Flag: 'country' and home guard see above; field infantry: red lion rampant on a white field, with a green leek in each corner; the 'regimental' side displays a coat of arms with 3 lions on a red field. Never acknowledging any form of suzerainty from London, remained Roman Catholics (with a few odd idiosyncrasies).
*Tiny Ny Tradgardland is Catholic and very close to Louisberg (sic)
("A priest from the fort comes every Sunday to say Mass for the Ny Tradgardlanders"). Yet, given the frequent skirmishs between the Ny Tradgarlander long range patrols and roaming Indian warbands allied to the British, 'Louisberg' is not the well-known Louisbourg -as yet never besieged in this Time Line, btw- fut another coastal fort in the mainland. Flag displaying the Golden Herring of Tradgarland; French commonly spoken, and the language of the rangers when in operation -the Indians of their outfit did not bother to learn Tradgarlander.
*Nya Scandige occupies (part of) historical Nya Svedige {«Nya Scandige», a (now independent) Swedish Colony in the New World (a small Swedish settlement along the Delaware River, centered at Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware, and including parts of the present-day American states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania?). In 'this' World, the Dutchs (and Portugueses) did not enter the competition for the 'West Indies', prefering to concentrate their efforts on Africa and the East, thus would not have overwhelmed a Swedish settlement in 'America' (historically, the Dutchs were major players in Asia till the SYW: this description is set by WAS times, and the minor presence of the Levitzer Rabbinate in the Indian Ocean is not unsettling the balance there; beside in *this* world the major Anglo-French colonial rivalry may have been moved to more alien lands). Theoretically a Republic, but in practice the office of Head of State –equivalent to Dutch Stathouder, Venitian Doge and sometimes of Lord Protector Cromwell-fashion– is hereditary. While 'fiercely independant' tends to mimick ('ape', some say) the Swedish military fashion: uniforms commented upon on O1.14.08.
(The Grafenschaft of Neu Zolms is a tiny German state along the river-lake-and portage route from the Mohawk Valley to Lake Ontario: in 1689 the Swedes allowed a group of several hundred Germans refugees fleeing an outburst of Black Plague in the Grafenschaft of Zolms, in Hesse-Cassel, to settle down there; currently fields some militia and a a single battalion of infantry with integral light guns).
*Sidhe Morrigan (or Morrigana? Correction welcome), the 'Fenian' Irish Catholic Republic (unless some "High Kingdom" sounds more 'Irish'?), is approximatively on our upper Minnesota & /or the Fort Beauharnois area, in direct contact with co-religionist New France (placing the 'American' colonies in a situation not unlike that following the 1774 Quebec Act). Possible uniforms (see comment added below on O1.08.08) endvisaged in «VI – North American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe / VI-A: Regular infantry recruited from European settlers» of the july post about - N. American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe?; look also for possible ±irregular ‘skirmishing’ and ‘charging’ Light foot. Flag: gold harp on a green field; the 'regimental' flag / side could display a 'wide' (French pattern, to advertise the Catholic alignment) green cross, naked against a yellow or white field, outlined in gold against a colored background that could be
of the unit's coat (Arm of Service?) or facing color, or quartered withy both; use of English tongue feverishly avoided, French commonly spoken (many founders had served in French army): the practice is specially (yet officiously) encouraged in the army, since the most powerful potential allies -Nouvelle France, 'True Crown' Acadia, the friendly Native Nations and Avallonia- are all francophone at least at some degree.
*Bon Mondiale (the French Huguenot independant Colony) and the inland Swedish one are set not far from the Neo-Irish country, (North)-West of the Great Lakes. Fuzzy borders except where the two countries confront each other, (part of) the Eastern frontier of the Swedish country is (or soon will be) in direct contact with the Neo-Irish Nation. The National Flag of Bon Mondiale bears the Huguenot cross and the descending dove. At first the two Protestant countries went not well which each other, while wishing to be ignored by the major powers and to have no part in their latent conflict. If the Huguenot had any sympathies, it was toward the Dutchs, and there were none in the Continent. Initially they had no better feelings toward the British than toward the French crown, judging the British Church to be 'an odious caricature of a Reformed Church, created by a Royal Sinner to get a blasphematory parody of religious blessing to his debaucheries and turpitudes'. They prefered to concentrate on their parochial quarrels with the Swedes. Yet, things changed with the arrival of Scot refugees and the emergence of the Neo-Irish country unconfortlably close. "The recent warming of relations between the two reformed neighbors may in large part be due to the efforts of a British envoy, the Great Duke John Churchill. Churchill has the foresight to recognize that these nations hold the keys to expansion into the great northwest, and that an alliance with them may serve to curb the territorial ambitions of New France and its Irish proxy. This rationale also serves the Swedes and the Huguenots because they hope to expand their spheres of influence westward as well. With increased levels of cross border skirmishing particularly with the Irish, there has even been talk of a loose confederation of Protestant states." Further details expected from Ron 'Rivieraunord', the member of the Old School Academy specialist of these two statelets. Reverend Pluccon-Tumeur is the current headman of the Elders Council of Bon Mondiale.
* In this time-line La Nouvelle Baratarie is very, very far from the full extension some of its leaders are dreaming of.
°Refugees from Zolms are granted lands in the Mohawk Valley.
-Early 18th C.:Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea: during the WSS a Spanish Governor claimed the independence of his island (Afortunados?).
-In the early 1740 Irish immigrants overwhelm sparsely settled Scots and found an Irish Free State.
-Just after Culloden Acadia (still mainly populated by French Catholics) becomes the Legitime British Kingdom in Exile.
-Creation of the independent colonies of Mindt and Maroon.
°early 18°C., (North)-Western North America: Peter the Great founds the New (Oversea)
Province in Alaska and Yukon; all mineral ressources are proclamed property of the Czar and exploited by workgangs controlled by the Russian administration and 'protected' by the most reliable (most fervently religious) regiments of the Russian regular army and stonias of Cossacks (in turn of oversea service for 5 years). Think of the Gulag, with the Orthodox faith and the cult of the God-blessed Czar instead of Communism / Stalinism. Whale- and seal-hunters on the cost, several Russian villages transferred 'en masse' to colonize the inland, but their people greatly appreciated the change: here they are no longer serfs but free landowners. Old soldiers discharged when their unit is on duty here 
can ask for a land grant and settlement wages. Truth to tell -perhaps because the close cooperation between the Church and the taxmen, and because many of the displaced peasants were Siberian- in isolated settlement specially, secret but enduring traditions were revived by the contact with 'Native' shamans.
°mid-18°C., Eastern Canada: as soon as the landing of the Pretender in Scotland is known, Jacobite agents use the still mainly French population of Acadia to turn it into a 'True Crown' province.°mid-18°C., Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean: very minute changes in the Virgin Islands area: the Levitzer Rabbinate had to sell to the British Crown its single colony here, being unable to defend it; symmetrically the Electorate of Ober-Bindlestiff managed to obtain, with British agreement, a tiny archipelago (with French-speaking ± Black 'natives', seemingly).
>REMINDER: this is only a *PROPOSAL*!<
Feel free to comment, suggest, amend, add, criticize...
I tried to achieve geographical self-consistency -and to pack Imagi-Nations from various creators in a single Continent, even if as large as North America, is not always easy. But I had also to achieve a minimal historical self-consistency: to leave room for (most of) the British and French possessions in the northern half of North America, I had to move southward the historical Viking ‘Vinland’: so much the more as the Britons arrived first, and were fiercely hostile to these newcomers reminding them of the ‘Saozons’. As an extreme case the Ameri-go Archipelago, which in its own world *replaces* North America, in this 'synthetic' avatar of the Multiverse has to be shifted westwards in the Pacific Ocean so that both can coexist.Feel free to comment, suggest, amend, add, criticize...
*So I have ‘Avallon’ {Avallonians - French Avallogne / Avallignons} on the southern third of Virginia, North Carolina + the northern half of South Carolina and Georgia (going west to the longitude of New Orleans). Deeply influenced by France; total merging of the native and immigrant populations, thus no ‘indian’ unit. Uniforms of French pattern, white coat and (irish) saffron breeches; Household cavalry wears a helmet looking strikingly like 'our' bagpiper's bonnet with ostrich feathers; some light infantry wear a wolf scalp as headgear -'native' influence rather than scholary reference to Republican Roman 'velites'; the Militia wears the traditional Britton round hat, short jacket over a waist (under the uniform great coat), large sash, baggy trousers under natural deerskin 'european' gaiters or 'indian' leggins. The bagpipes in the regimental bands (bagadoù) come from the Britton exiles who came after 1532 AD and the annexation of Brittany to France. Flag: a red (Pen)dragon on a white field. A very deviant form of Catholicism, with strong druidic elements reinforced with native animism. Language: Briton evolved under strong Britton influences (Brittany was the major contact in the Old Continent for centuries), but French widely spoken.
*‘Vinland’ {Vinlanders} [the most -controversially?- 'displaced' country] would be South, filling down to the northern border of Florida (Spanish, part of the Vice-Kingdom of Antiglia), and West to the Mississippi. Uniforms very Prussian in appearance (but the dark blue tends *slightly* to emerald), a few Skraelings light units (Afrikander attitude).
Flag: narrow gold-edged green cross on a black field, overlaid by a white shield with a black raven (reversed for cavalry). Lutheran.
*The Legitime British Kingdom in Exile covers Acadia / Placentia [maybe somewhat amputated in the North-East by {Nova Orkjeynar + Hunover}] including Maine; in practice the frontier with New France is rather fuzzy, most of the population thinking of themselves as 'French', French troops being present for common defense and the French Canadians seeing the country as either a French dominion or a soon to be recovered part of New France; British uniforms with some French influence (see comment added below on O1.08.08), as discussed in «VI – North American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe / VI-A: Regular infantry recruited from European settlers» of the july post about - N. American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe?. Flag: the Union Jack but with 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' on the arms of the cross, as with Irish infantry in French service, and displaying similarly a large crown: the Stuart coat-of-arms just below the crown; note that Acadians speak French, the Jacobite nobility / gentry in exile is fluent in this language, so with the constant exchanges with Nouvelle France the 'British Kingdom' is in practice turning into a francophone country: apart a few traditional commands during parades, French is already the language of the Military.
*Tiny Ny Tradgardland is Catholic and very close to Louisberg (sic)
("A priest from the fort comes every Sunday to say Mass for the Ny Tradgardlanders"). Yet, given the frequent skirmishs between the Ny Tradgarlander long range patrols and roaming Indian warbands allied to the British, 'Louisberg' is not the well-known Louisbourg -as yet never besieged in this Time Line, btw- fut another coastal fort in the mainland. Flag displaying the Golden Herring of Tradgarland; French commonly spoken, and the language of the rangers when in operation -the Indians of their outfit did not bother to learn Tradgarlander.
*Nova Orkneyjar and its traditional 
British rival (New Brunswick) are coastal countries North of Acadia. "Nova Orkneyjar was indeed spared the dead hand of the Reformation and is sympathetic to both France and Austria. Indeed a contingent is currently serving with the blessed Maria-Theresa in Europe as we speak.
The original Prince of Nova Orkneyjar was Henry St Clair, Earl of Orkney. The principalities patron saints are Magnus & Rognvald, whose bones lie buried in pillars opposite each other in the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. During the long winter months there is much feasting and drinking in the palace at Hamnavoe, where the hereditary Skald frequently recites the works of the great Snorri Sturlson, and generations of Nova Orcadians have been raised on the tales of St Olaf and Burnt Njal. These tales can sometimes lead to officers with a pension for the grand romantic gesture rather than military good sense....". Actually the Christianization of many settlers was still superficial, and Catholicism in Nova Orkneyjar peacefully coexists with shamanism, the Sorority of the 'helgu' Gott-vitur Konur (Wicca witches) is a highly appreciated and respected element of the society. Forgotten in Iceland, the Tattuinardoela saga is as popular here as the Kalevala in Finland. Like Graenlanders Nova Orcadians speak Norn /Faroese. The descendants of the refugees from the Eighty Years War still speak Flemish among themselves.
British rival (New Brunswick) are coastal countries North of Acadia. "Nova Orkneyjar was indeed spared the dead hand of the Reformation and is sympathetic to both France and Austria. Indeed a contingent is currently serving with the blessed Maria-Theresa in Europe as we speak. The original Prince of Nova Orkneyjar was Henry St Clair, Earl of Orkney. The principalities patron saints are Magnus & Rognvald, whose bones lie buried in pillars opposite each other in the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. During the long winter months there is much feasting and drinking in the palace at Hamnavoe, where the hereditary Skald frequently recites the works of the great Snorri Sturlson, and generations of Nova Orcadians have been raised on the tales of St Olaf and Burnt Njal. These tales can sometimes lead to officers with a pension for the grand romantic gesture rather than military good sense....". Actually the Christianization of many settlers was still superficial, and Catholicism in Nova Orkneyjar peacefully coexists with shamanism, the Sorority of the 'helgu' Gott-vitur Konur (Wicca witches) is a highly appreciated and respected element of the society. Forgotten in Iceland, the Tattuinardoela saga is as popular here as the Kalevala in Finland. Like Graenlanders Nova Orcadians speak Norn /Faroese. The descendants of the refugees from the Eighty Years War still speak Flemish among themselves.
(The Grafenschaft of Neu Zolms is a tiny German state along the river-lake-and portage route from the Mohawk Valley to Lake Ontario: in 1689 the Swedes allowed a group of several hundred Germans refugees fleeing an outburst of Black Plague in the Grafenschaft of Zolms, in Hesse-Cassel, to settle down there; currently fields some militia and a a single battalion of infantry with integral light guns).
*Sidhe Morrigan (or Morrigana? Correction welcome), the 'Fenian' Irish Catholic Republic (unless some "High Kingdom" sounds more 'Irish'?), is approximatively on our upper Minnesota & /or the Fort Beauharnois area, in direct contact with co-religionist New France (placing the 'American' colonies in a situation not unlike that following the 1774 Quebec Act). Possible uniforms (see comment added below on O1.08.08) endvisaged in «VI – North American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe / VI-A: Regular infantry recruited from European settlers» of the july post about - N. American troops in fictitious Lace Wars Europe?; look also for possible ±irregular ‘skirmishing’ and ‘charging’ Light foot. Flag: gold harp on a green field; the 'regimental' flag / side could display a 'wide' (French pattern, to advertise the Catholic alignment) green cross, naked against a yellow or white field, outlined in gold against a colored background that could be
of the unit's coat (Arm of Service?) or facing color, or quartered withy both; use of English tongue feverishly avoided, French commonly spoken (many founders had served in French army): the practice is specially (yet officiously) encouraged in the army, since the most powerful potential allies -Nouvelle France, 'True Crown' Acadia, the friendly Native Nations and Avallonia- are all francophone at least at some degree.
*Bon Mondiale (the French Huguenot independant Colony) and the inland Swedish one are set not far from the Neo-Irish country, (North)-West of the Great Lakes. Fuzzy borders except where the two countries confront each other, (part of) the Eastern frontier of the Swedish country is (or soon will be) in direct contact with the Neo-Irish Nation. The National Flag of Bon Mondiale bears the Huguenot cross and the descending dove. At first the two Protestant countries went not well which each other, while wishing to be ignored by the major powers and to have no part in their latent conflict. If the Huguenot had any sympathies, it was toward the Dutchs, and there were none in the Continent. Initially they had no better feelings toward the British than toward the French crown, judging the British Church to be 'an odious caricature of a Reformed Church, created by a Royal Sinner to get a blasphematory parody of religious blessing to his debaucheries and turpitudes'. They prefered to concentrate on their parochial quarrels with the Swedes. Yet, things changed with the arrival of Scot refugees and the emergence of the Neo-Irish country unconfortlably close. "The recent warming of relations between the two reformed neighbors may in large part be due to the efforts of a British envoy, the Great Duke John Churchill. Churchill has the foresight to recognize that these nations hold the keys to expansion into the great northwest, and that an alliance with them may serve to curb the territorial ambitions of New France and its Irish proxy. This rationale also serves the Swedes and the Huguenots because they hope to expand their spheres of influence westward as well. With increased levels of cross border skirmishing particularly with the Irish, there has even been talk of a loose confederation of Protestant states." Further details expected from Ron 'Rivieraunord', the member of the Old School Academy specialist of these two statelets. Reverend Pluccon-Tumeur is the current headman of the Elders Council of Bon Mondiale.
* In this time-line La Nouvelle Baratarie is very, very far from the full extension some of its leaders are dreaming of.
*New France is restricted to Canada (including the Ile Royale and the Iles Canso, Iles-de-la-Madeleine and of course St-Pierre-&-Miquelon - whole Terre Neuve indeed; L'Anse aux Français, a small whalers harbour on South-Western Greenland wedged in friendly Graenland, is also part of the Colony) and to its historical extension in the northern half of North America as after the treaty of Utrecht (the westernmost part by ca. 1750 being Irish instead), maybe somewhat amputated in the North-East by {Nova Orkjeynar + New Brunswick}; a chain of forts punctuate a 'trade road' to the west, (somewhere 'neutral' across other recognized countries) all the way to those of the well-settled Isle Royale, Isle de Sainte Marie (Manitoulin), with forts Frontenac, Detroit, Michillimakinac, Saint-Pierre, La Reine, Dauphin, finally Bourbon and Paskoya on the fringe of a wilderness full of *creepy* weirdness (peruse, scroll down) –'our' Louisiana is half Vinlander half Spanish East of the Mississippi, Axtec West of the river (see comment added below on O1.09.08 for new troops). Since Madeleine de Verchères became so famous that she was allowed to keep her family name when married and eventually was name Gouverneur of the Colony, women in Nouvelle-France enjoy full equality of rights and status with men; the militia welcomes female volunteers, and a few even are granted a commission in the Compagnies Franches de la Marine and locally recruited colonial units. Thanks to the coureurs des bois and young chevaliers 'turned native', the French territories are surrounded by a glacis of friendly tribes -theoretically more or less christianized by the jesuits, but still worshiping Faikaka le Gros Bison and (like almost everybody in Nouvelle-France) ignoring such Commands as "Si zigounette dans pilou-pilou avant messe mariage petit Jesus couper coucougnettes".
*Mindt and Marron: tolerated by the Major Powers as buffer statelets against the uncontrolled tribes, are probably South of the Great Lakes, where the major British and French territories diverge westward. Ask 'Dandamianoff' on the OSW group!
*British colonies
–sorry– somewhat amputated compared with Our Time Line: no Acadia, no Maine, no New Hampshire, no Carolinas, no Georgia, and further (tiny) amputation by the encroachment of Nya Scandia…. The 'American' colonies are fully integrated in Canada, which may cause some unrest (see comment added below on O1.09.08 for new troops).
*Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, together with Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, are Axtec. Terra-Cota uniform coats (Axtecalt -sometimes simplified to 'Axteca' or even 'Azteca' by Europeans- being the single ‘*Red* Indian’ major power!), -no more than a poncho for some light types and militia- and a lot of white cotton (If at least some Axtec Guard regiments had musician in a peculiar uniform, and with a large dose of willing suspension of disbelief, this can be a military parade in Axtecalt). The cut of the uniforms is largely of British pattern (for a change - except for the cuff / lower sleeves, of Savoyard pattern, and systematically with cuff flaps; and the gaiters, of 'normal' pattern), but the headgear of the grenadiers is either of Spanish type or some 'local' feathered bonnet; almost all infantry wears the cartridge box 'at the navel' on the waistbelt -larger for light foot, smaller for grenadiers; The 'Knights' are
now elite or veteran Household cavalry, with under the coat a padded waist mimicking a leopard pelt or the plumage of an eagle, and using the peculiar Mexican stirrups and vaquero saddles combined with the complicated saddlery historically of common use among Mexican 'Encuerados' (leather grupera covering the whole horse's hindquarters), complemented by decorated chaparreras; 'Apache' (or rather 'Apache scouts of the US Cavalry'?) types are present in both foot and mounted light troops; light cavalry also includes 'soldados cueras' types (but with an Aztec shield) and the equivalent of late Renaissance 'armored' Pawnees and Comanches. Flag: the 'Eagle on a cactus, eating a serpent', combined with solar symbol(s). Religion currently half-way in its evolution from polytheism to monotheism, with a Solar God (quite similar to the Egyptian Aton, but far less benevolent) rising to pre-eminence. Despite the initial repulsion of the Clergy, Roman alphabet is now of common use among the literates.
* Florida (Southern half of 'our' Louisiana East of the Mississippi and 'our' Florida) is part of the Spanish Vice-Kingdom of Antiglia, governed from Havana in the island here named Hispaniola. The 'free Mandingo' colony of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose is indeed there under Menendez and de la Puente, but the Blacks are runaways from Vinland. The Generalidad is buffered in the bayous and on the western shore of lower Mississippi by the Libre Alliance, a semi-independent, pidgin French-speaking, tribal confederation of 'third breeds' - red Indians, black Maroons 
and white freebooters / buccaneers (mainly French since people of that Nation seem specially attracted to the area by Nueva Orlanda and its Calle de Borbon) and (mainly) French rogues led by the Royaume de Baratarie (which includes Campeche).
Uniforms often of slightly archaic (WSS) cut, sometimes even worn with a morion; a lot of red and golden yellow (Sangre y Oro) (see comment added O1.09.08 for new troops).
In such a context, the Freres de la Cote, BlackBeard-like pirates (among them female daring ones, the dreadful «Pirettes») are still active and may even have an archipelago as a 'republic' of their own - a Republique des Corsaires scattered on several -cutthroat- islands including the Isle de la Tortue protected by the impregnable Fort de Rocher, and islets, but 'politically' centered around New Providence and the port of Nassau. In excellent terms with Baratarie, friendly to France -to Spanish disgust, though the Loups de Mer actually concentrate their attention on British and Vinlander ships.
Similarly, in Saint-Domingue (Ayiti, French) 'true' bull-skin clad, long musket wielding boucaniers are still smoking feral cows meat.Some really *weird* folk lurk in the bayous of Florida -some worshipping even more weird idols- and in remote areas of many islands -the cradle of Voodoo.
In the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean the situation is slightly different from what ‘we know’: if we have one (or more) Swedish colonies in North America, reflecting a switching of interest toward the main land, 'our' Swedish colony here (St Barthelemy) is French instead, as are 'our' Dutch ones [possible uniforms of French colonial infantry: light pearl grey with albatros mauve, gooseberry pink and lavender facings; Regiment Nancy-Bois –a militia cavalry outfirt now ‘profesionalized’- wears a pure white coat, rose pink facings, lavender smallclothes]; then the Danish islands ('our' American Virgin Islands) are British, except for Sainte-Croix, still French as are Dominique, Grenade, Grenadines, Saint-Christophe, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Vincent and Trinitad and Tobago (Iles de la Trinite). Ayiti is entirely French and called Saint-Domingue. The 
Lieutenant General du Roy a la France Antillaise runs from his headquarters at Cap-Francais in Saint-Domingue the 4 Gouvernements of Ayiti, Iles-Sous-Le-Vent, Iles-du-Vent and France Antarctique (Guyane, France Equinoxiale, Saint-Alexis and Malouines et Grand Sud).The slaves in French colonies have had their fate greatly improved in 1685 when Louis XIV, 'Uttermost Christian King of the Church's Eldest Daughter", under the influence of Mme de Maintenon (herself having passed her early childhood in the Caribbean) ordered that all slaves (and Caribs) were to be baptized, then allowed to behave and live as Christians. Meaning that sundays and all Christians holy days were henceforth holydays, that slaves were to receive fish every friday and, according to Henri IV's formula 
'boiled chicken at least every sunday'. Their masters were expected to treat their baptized slaves 'not as cattle or property, but as a father treats his children'. Breaking legal couple and separating children from their parents before the age of 16 were prohibited. In addition, to foster sincere conversions, the slaves were allowed to worship and celebrate 'Our Lord, Virgin Mary and the Saints in their own naive (sic) manner'. Monks who volunteered to evangelize them were encouraged to search for bright and devout boys that would be sent to newly created seminaries -though in fact for two generations they recruited almost exclusively half-breeds.
In 1730 Louis XV abolished slavery and qualified the Traite du bois d'ebene as a crime -by a tradition dating at least from the Renaissance, since 'Franc means free' runaway slaves from other territories were treated as free persons, so the step was logical. Yet the Bien-Aime became brutally far less 'beloved' by the rich colons, all the more so as the shambling administrators were recalled under a cloud and their successors raised regiments of Mandingues -maroons from
British and mostly Spanish colonies (permanent detachments, complete with the soldiers' families, were also dispatched to the islands of the Indian Ocean to enforce the abolition there). At first troops had to be sent from Nouvelle-France (un-prejudiced with regard to slavery -many men were married to Indian women, or half-breeds) but the King's stroke of genius (following possibly a suggestion from Monte-Cristo) was to land the Church with the problem. The Cardinal of Lyons Primat des Gaules and the gallican intellectual leaders of the major monastic Orders agreed that slavery was anathema to the Gospels, so that anyone practicing or advocating it would be handed over to the ecclesiastical investigators and courts -the Inquisition. After several powerful landlords had to flee penniless to Hispaniola (our Cuba) or Jamaica under the threat of been burned at the stake, the opposition was silenced. Yet Louys and his Monte-Cristan counselors mainly count on music and dance to ensure a peaceful revolution despite the hatred accumulated from previous cruel repressions.
In addition, Sainterie (Santeria) was officially recognized as a local rite of Gallican Catholicism, provided animal sacrifices were replaced by a ceremony in remembrance of 'the Last Supper': each participant pours a few drops of his / her own blood in a bowl of vin de vesou (fermented garapa), then the bowl circulates again and each drinks a gulp. Some young half-breed priests are openly Babalawos, and Bembe is played and danced in the churches of Francais Noirs during baptisms, wedding Masses and funerals. The Sainterie 3 main Holy Days -Toussaint, Jour des Rois and Mardi-Gras- are merry festive holidays for a steadily increasing part of the population of French colonies, 'Whites' included. In fact, the 'respectable' 
appearance of quasi-orthodox Gallican Catholicism notwithstanding, most of the population of France Antillaise now tacitly practices a merry, relaxed neo-pagan polytheism with the Sainte Famille (Notre Pere, La Bonne Mere et Le Petit Jesus) -not dissimilar to the 'family cell' Osiris, Isis and Horus of the Pharaohs (though without any reference to Divine Fellatio!)- at the head of a rich pantheon of Saints and Saintes, actually minor deities, not a few inherited from Amerindian (Sainte Mort, a synthesis of Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl with Mary Magdalene at the Cross -pilgrims were struck by her reliquary in France, Saint Isidore = Tlaloc...) or African (the syncretic Sainterie cohort) cults. Even Baron Samedi is perceived as 'chaotic good' rather than 'evil', though some aspects of Voodoo are frown upon (animal sacrifices, 'black' magic) or severely condemned 
(drugging people into 'zombies'). And the yearly elected Reine Fee ('Faerie Queen') of Mardi Gras and Feux de Saint Jean of Cap Français, honored and respected as a 'Witch Queen', is deemed and esteemed at the very same time a powerful witch and a good Christian. Old rumors about the existence of 'devilish women' among the descendants of French males-(Guyane) female Native half-breeds are not forgotten but generally dismissed.
On the whole the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean area is mainly Spanish, specially with regard to population numbers. Yet, following the
disruptions of the WSS, a part of the Vice-Realm -a sugar island ruled by a Catalan Gobernador- quietly turned into a sovereign Caribbean island nation.
In this area, European presence is currently evolving: while the Levitzer Rabbinate was recently compelled to sell Neue Levitzerland to the British Crown,
the Elector of Ober-Bindlestiff has just acquired 3 of the islands : Isle de Marie, Isle de Lucinda and Isle Bad Karl: the Electoress launched a new (Monte-Cristan inspired) fashion on the beaches there. Though no official colony seems to be planned, adventurers from Wittenberg are coming to the West Indies in search of heavenly islands. Some parts of this general area are rather ‘uncontrolled’ and very weird encounters are reported to have happened there (and not only in what corresponds to part of the Bermuda Triangle!).
Rumours whispered in Tortuga allude to a mysterious (volcanic?) Skull Island in this area.
There, an entrance to a beautiful ' underground' / 'chtonian' "land" would be guarded by cannibals and monsters. Reportedly there would be seven such 'portal' islands on the Seven Seas, known according to the seafarer Jean Ray as 'The 7 Castles of the Sea King', each opening on a country of strange beasts and beautiful girls.
To the South Oronegro is a small, multi-cultural and remarkably secular / tolerant country inserted / wedged in the Brazilian coast. set at the mouth and along the lower shores of a wide river . Officially belonging to the Spanish crown, it remains practically independent as a British-Spanish co-protectorate. For long this happy state owned also much to the fact that it really interested none of the Major Powers. Hopefully its sudden thieving as a potential major source of the now so fashionable chocolate will no attract excessive attention / intervention of a powerful European country (or, worse, of *two* potentially competing / warring ones).
*Schwartzwaldeland , 
a German mining colony is rumoured to be developping somewhere in 'our' Oregon - North Idaho: watch for updates! In *this* (synthetic) avatar of the Multiverse, by the late 16th C., the Cipangueses wanted to gain 'modern' mining technologies (most of the intial settlers were Mongol horsemen) and, rather imprudently, created a 'mining colony' of skilled "barbarians" -from the East and mainly through Nya Sverige in order not to increase the Catholic presence -perhaps also because of rumours of some people in Germano-Scandia 'living under the ground like maggots, but accomplished miners and smiths'. miners came mainly from Sweden at first, then the colony's initial success opened the door for refugees from the Thirty Years War: the journey from the East Cost was long, exhausting and too often lethal, but those who did it found a land grant in a haven of religious tolerance. Given the inertia, corruption and ignorance of the Imperial administration, the colony was already de facto independent by 1620. Increasingly worried by the threats from Axtecalt and the 
barbarian "white worms" to the East, Cipango chose to simply, and tactfully, 'ignore' the 1650 formal Declaration of Independance by the Diet of Neuwormen, only blocking any further immigration. *'Here'* the Dieters' contacts with the 'White' world are practically restricted to Russians from Alaska -
under the watchful eye of the Cipangueses, who carefully prevented Schwartzwaldeland from extending to the Pacific shore; thus Schwartzwaldeland was cut from the 'white' world for half a century, and novelties from Europe still need more than a decade to reach it: weaponry, tactics (in line infantry, one private out of six is a pikeman)... are thus 'old fashioned'. Military uniforms are known to be black; upperclass men dress mainly in black or very dark grey, while ladies' fashion is sometimes original -on the opposite the women of the countryside generally wear old-fashioned clothes.
Note that, in depth, the seemingly quiet political situation may become less and less 'rosy'. The miners and metal workers -the raison d'etre of the colony, in direct contact with the Cipangueses- constituted from the start an aristocracy of sorts. As a part of their production is to be handed to Cipango, they are totally exempted of taxes. But, thanks to the laziness / corruption of the Cipanguese administration, the 'contribution' increased with decades far less than their yield, and now, if greasing a few yellow hands they can export to Russian Novajaul'tramarina or even, through members of the Court Jesuits households, as far as the Philippines and Kupang in Timor. Their wealth is obviously growing, and so is the 'unease' of farmers (no merchant class yet, trade is direct within the country); so much the more that -a pure historical accident- the farmers are mainly Catholics, the miners Reformed; and the two 'classes' happen to be differentially concentrated on the two banks of the Columbia river. Also, since echoes of the wars of Peter the Great against Charles XII and the Ottomans reached Schwartzwaldeland, Protestants claim to be russophobes (sentiments don't stand in the way of juicy business), Catholics russophiles: immaterial, but a convenient excuse allowing the Dieters to express and dwell upon their deep divergences in an elliptic, politically correct way. Indeed for some time now the outerworld is without news from Schwartzwaldeland, and wild hypotheses are rampant: the country is like dead.
*Alaska and Yukon are Russian (Novajaul'tramarina? Novajaprovincija?); 
in addition to regular Russian and Cossack units 'turning' here, some very wild 'imitation Cossacks' (as later recruited from Baskirs and Kalmuks) recruited from Yakuts and, chiefly, Chuchchis but, 
given the context, mainly as light foot; a few units of militia and volunteer light infantry (with a few light dragoons to complement the Cossacks?) wear an original mixture of civilian russian & sailor and civilian russian & native clothes, respectively, with the coat (or equivalent) proudly of the Russian regular infantry dark green. Following the fashion of the Court, the few nobles present speak French among themselves, and the upper-class commoners try to ape them.
.
The imaginary ‘Russinovgorodian’ army (commented 01.14) can be seen as a special ‘Colonial Corps’ (with reference to the historical ‘Observation Corps’) specially devoted to garrisonning Novajaul'tramarina; then it would wear the ‘historical’ WAS Russian green. Can be duplicated to absorb 'local' troops depicted above, as commented upon on O2.22.08
*The remainder of 'our' USA, together with our British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchevan and part of Manitoba.... are here a Sino-Indian country. Actually more of an original Mongolian-'Amer'indian synthesis (after each expedition, only a few Chinese mandarins and Portuguese jesuits stayed with the Mongol warriors. These were still animists, and the two shamanisms merged). A 'communist' theocratic empire, Inca-fashion: I call it Cipango (actually an old -Portuguese?- name of Japan) {Cipangueses}. Mustad uniforms, following ‘The Wheels of If’’ novel: of Russian pattern generally, but the mitre of the grenadiers is either of 'Asiatic' (cf. modern Thailand Guard, e.g.) or 'local' (see several popular drawings of scenes of the FIW and AWI, with 'original' mitres) pattern; a few units -either 'Guard' or light types- keep in their dress traces of the 'dual' origin of the Nation: one type of 'Imperial Guard Horse' wears a cossack-like fur hat, a medium-green 'Chinese' shirt with a *lot* of golden embroidery instead of waistcoat, yellow 'European' breeches; while the other wears a typical war bonnet with buffalo's horns, and a porcupine 'pare-fleche' above the waistcoat; of the 3 types of light cavalry, one is typical 'Plain Indian' (or rather US Cavalry Indian scout from a 'Northern' tribe), one still looks very 'Mongol' but with a fur-trimmed hat mimicking a tricorn: while the third combines both influences, with a wolf scalp and a dress actually looking quite 'Late Renaissance Croat'. Flag with chinese interpretation of the native Thunderbird, as traditionally depicted by the North-Western tribes. Independent from China from the start, in practice, and any vassalage disclaimed by the mid-15th C., yet official titles keep reflecting a fiction of 'Imperial Administration', the God-Emperor Himself, for instance, being known as the 'First Secretary of the Central Committee'. Religion: a mixture of shamanism and Cult of the Solar God-Emperor, not dissimilar from Japanese Shin To in the higher classes. Since the late 16th C. Roman alphabet superseded Mandarin Chinese calligraphy except for the most official documents.
The Horse Clans of the Sea of Grass: while 'officially' part of either Cipango or Axtecalt, the Great Plains are barely, if at all, controlled; a few, theoretically 'holy', Trade Trails (as in Farmer's Amerind) cross them. The Tribes use horses as least as much as they did in 'our' 2nd half of the 19th C., and have fully assimilated the wheel. Some groups in this 'Sea of Grass' developped a culture technically quite similar to that of Adams' Horseclans, (though with gunpowder weapons, and without armor).
A linguistic note: when the Mayas met successively these various 'humanoids' from over the Great Water, they realized they all had a language in common: Latin (by then Vinelanders were still Catholics -of a more 'orthodox' practice than the Avallonians, actually- and the Cipanguese expeditions always included Portuguese Jesuits). Thus they bothered to learn only that single tongue. With time a very simplified, debased form of Latin (e.g. declinaisons with only two cases: not dissimilar to the French of the Dark Ages) emerged as the lingua franca of the whole North Continent.
There is a Y-shaped 'unclaimed' (by the White & Yellow Men)
Tribal Wilderness immensely widening in the inhospitable North...
(not long ago, extended South to the current Neo-Ireland and more;
in the late 17th C. down to 'our' Tulsa)
Specially in the North a few rogue Cossaks, trappers, coureurs des bois and adventurous young chevaliers are already roaming this ‘untamed’ area; very weird events are rumoured to occur there:?
CURRENT DIPLOMATIC SITUTION
The New World can be divided into 3 practically independant geopolitical areas: South ‘America’ and the Western and Eastern halves of North ‘America’.
To the South, Spanish Brazil enjoys a quiet domination, progressing inland and tending to ignore the North. The border with Axtecalt has be quiet for more than a century –anyway, except for coastal settlements the area is practically uncontrolled. Similarly with regard to British Guyana (though Brazil recently helped to repulse a British attempt, under Capitain Honorius Harrington, to seize the Malouines -yet pleasurable Laicheux-Monchat had to be given up some five days to the descending 'Red Coats'), and the relationships with the French territories are cordial (The Brazilean Vice-Rey not only does not care about the Grand Sud, but actually appreciates to be done with pressures from Madrid to conquer it).
During the War of Spanish Succession the two Vice Realms were at times practically independant from the Mother Country, and rather at odds. Nowadays Brazil is willing to collaborate with Antiglia *at sea*, in anti-piracy (and possibly anti-British) operations, but is extremely unlikely to send troops North to the mainland.
Little Oronegro is thankfully left alone as a 'neutral' ground useful to all parties.
To the North West, the Russian colony is isolated from other European settlements, and carefully avoids to antagonize the powerful Indiano-Mongol empire. Cipango and Axtecalt are concerned only with their centuries old feud. Both claim to reach the Mississippi, but do not really control this area, and their eastern border is for them of even less importance than, say, its Moroccan border for the contemporary Ottoman Empire. Besides, both are deeply xenophobic and share a common contempt for the ‘barbarian’ white worms (mitigated in the Cipanguese Highest Circles). For centuries Cipango has been dreaming of a breakthrough to the Gulf of Mexico; but the distance, the hostility of an almost unknown wilderness and the vulnerabity of a thousand miles of border to an Axtec counterstroke, as yet deterred more than test raids by barely controlled tribes that can be disawoed without loosing face.
Would the rival Empires of the West interfere with the East, Axtecalt is in contact with Spaniards both across the Mississippi and the isthmus of Panama, so probably would seek allies among the Protestant states. Then Cipango would ally with the Catholics – so much the more as Jesuits are not without influence. Of course a coordinated Spanish landing somewhere West of the Mississippi would greatly help a Cipanguese offensive to the South East; but, without Brazil, Antiglia has neither means nor intention to antagonize the Axtecs.
To the North East, the settlers of European ascent are fully busy with their traditional rivalries, exacerbated by religious differences and bursting periodically to open war (generally in echo to conflicts in Europe). The situation is *almost* bipolar.
- British Canada (including the semi-independant Margraviate of Mindt) is *always* potentially at war with Nouvelle France – a traditional hostility boostered by the creation, with French support, of the Jacobite Kingdom and the Fenian state. Independant New Brunswick, while deeply disliking the Episcopal Church, would align with Great Britain in case of major crisis -if only by 'anti-papism'.
- The Catholics: Spanish Antiglia is basically insular, and following tradition the current Vice Rey His Royal Highness Jose Sanfalzar y Bandalez tends to neglect its mainland Generalidad, Florida. Besides, Antiglia is far away from the regional ‘hot spot’, the French-British area; nonetheless, Catholic and ruled by a Bourbon, it is on French side, for what it may account to.
Closer to Nouvelle France, the Lys is stoutly supported by Avallon, the Jacobite Kingdom, the Welshs, Ny Tradgarland, of course the Irishs and Nouvelle Baratarie. Catholic Nova Orkneyjar is part of the alliance, so much the more as their traditional rivals of Hanovrian New Brunswick are Protestant (mainly of Presbyterian conviction); the Marquisat de Marron while semi-independant is faithful.
- The Reformed States of Continental Europen ascent: Vineland is xenophobic, but keeps privilegied links with Nya Scandige. The later is brotherly attached to the new Suedo-Balt settlement deep inland, and through it is in good relation with the Huguenots of Bon Mondiale. Now Vinland and Avallon are hereditary enemies, and the hatred between the Huguenots and the Irishs has far deeper roots than just colonists rivalry. Yet Ny Scandige had to fight the Britishs for its very survival, and did not forget it, so would not automatically behave as a satellite of British Canada. So much the more as, while still resenting the ‘desertion’ of the Mother Country, the Swedes still harbour stong anti-Russian memories and thus -alone in the New World- were not indifferent to rumours of a recent renewal of the alliance between France and the Turks.
Hesperides ' (plural): some well-readed people of the early 7th C. having associated the apples of Avalon with the golden apples of the Garden of the Hesperides. Institutional geographers boast about their 'classical' culture and prone to display it)
A Lace Wars interpretation of S.M. Stirling's Domination of Draka as a French Huguenot republic in SOUTH AFRICA: the Republique de Bonne-Esperance. Capital city Le Cap, a phoenix on the coat-of-arms.
Historically the Huguenots emigrated to the Netherlands in the late 17°C, and some of them then to South Africa. While 'in our Time Line' only some 200 Huguenots settled in the "Franschhoek" to grow wine, I suppose that in ‘our’ world their immigration was massive ("Les laborieuses populations du Cap"), so that they totally absorbed the Dutch settlers.
.
Nonetheless, just for the ‘look’ of it, I give them bright ‘Orangist’ orange uniforms.
In the true tradition of Draka, all ranks wear proudly a huge machete across the back. You can use here:
*Phil Barker’s Fusilliers de Fenris (!).
*I see the Volontaires du Cap as very similar to WAS French dragoons, but with tricorn.
*A very odd idea is to have Huguenot light infantry dressed like the Bulgarian reservists of early WW1, with their fur hat and typical legwear; add ‘native’ ape hair armbands, &c… for the ‘couleur locale’.
*GW IG Praetorian cavalry can provide the basis of some Elite Lancers, chiefly with the addition to the helmet of 'feathers' as currently worn on a similar one by the Guard of Monaco.
If the Huguenots have less prejudices than the Afrikanders, they can field native units of respectable status and quality, Africans may even provide some 'Guard' unit (anyway Elite Black slave-soldiers were not unknown e.g. the Ghulams). Nevertheless, they would wear ‘Masaï’ orange-red instead of orange, and if they carry a machete it would be at the waist. Michael Moorcock’s ‘Land Leviathan’ gives some interesting hints, e.g.
&an elite unit similar to the WAS French Grenadiers a Cheval, but with a full lion pelt like the praetorian standard-bearers of Trajanic Rome (a form of Republican Guard Horse Grenadiers?);
&this book cover suggest a type of light infantry.
&Another possibilty would be to combine the 'coatee over a short jacket' of the half-breed 'Lapiots de Gorée' sergeants with late 19°C. Zulu ceremonial headdress and typical armbands &c... (OK, Zulus were far from here by Lace Wars times: but Zulu-like dancers feature in the 'Cleopatra' movie, so with such a *respectable* precedent...).
&I keep (since 1959!) fond memories of the 'semi-historical Ethiopian' dress, specially the headgear, of Gina Lollobrigida's guards in 'Solomon and Sheba': combined with the costume of late 19°C. wealthy / noble Ethiopian riders, a leopard skin elegantly slipped on the shoulder, here we have a pleasantly exotic type of light cavalry (from very far from Lace Wars South Africa, both in time and space? So what?).
&Synthesis (/es) of the various types of very colorful Sudanese horsemen / ‘Black knights’ (mainly from Western Sudan) would provide 1 or 2 other outfits of light cavalry...
But you may bother to remember the 'rule of thumb': at least 2/3 of the army 'tricorned' and in 'normal' European Lace Wars uniforms, to keep your army 'looking right'!
The prudish Huguenots never cease to be shocked when they meet 'Zulu' Black Amazons...
Odd at it may sound, our our agent (s) at Catherin II's Court report a possible Russian interest to this area:?
Also of note: rumours still abund about what Europeans believe (wrongly) to be the Christian Royaume du Pretre Jean; generally said to have been founded by converted Meroeans (with a sprinkling of Sabeans, exiled when they converted from Judaism to Christianism) who moved... somewhere inland.
Now some claim that later, following the raving sermons of one Abdul al-Azred, they rejected Christianity, and are now ruled by a white (immortal? At least very, very old and travelled) Witch-Queen 'Who Must Be Obeyed'?
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-= + = + = + =-
.
Indian & Pacific Oceans
In Madagascar pirates in search of 'fresh air' away from the Caribbean are developing the mini-Republique de Libertatia, under the leadership of one Pierre Lafitte, who greatly expanded the colony founded by his compatriot Jacques Misson. His troglodytic 'palace', bristling with heavy navy guns in several levels of natural casemates into the faces of a cliff, oversees and covers an excellent small harbour.
Many pirates dream of a peaceful retirement, with a farm, inn or fisher boat of their own: indeed Queen Ranavalona of Antananarivo granted Lafitte lands and facilities to create for the whole of them an immense collective farm (the Kibbouz, so 'christianized' -well, actually not!- by Lafitte's second, the warrior-poet Avraham 'Yair' Stern).
The numerous young natives working there are even, for the time being, paid by the Crown, provided they receive part-time military and seafaring training: the Queen see them as the nucleus of a 'modern' navy and marine corps -later, army. The meat of the zebus is smoked on the boucane, according to the fashion of Saint-Domingue, the milk used to prepare Mozarelle de bufflone fresh cheese, and together with the lemons and fresh vegetables all rae eagerly bought by the ship crews of all nationalities, either here at French Fort Dauphin (to be sold to Arab sailors, the meat is said to be 'Halal' but actually the cattles are 'gently' killed with a pistol, and blooded afterwards by gravity) or from an agents in Saint-Denis in the Isle Bourbon and Port-Louis in the Isle de France (also, 
Libertatian ships -own as a common good by the Republique- always carry excess of food, to be sold everywhere they stop, to the benefit of the collectivity as a whole). Lafitte also developped the vanilla as potentially a major export; the Kibbouz devotes increasing areas to oil palm, sweet potato, manioc, sugarcane, coffee and tobacco. He also gathered most of the surviving giant ostriches (Aepyornis - far larger than the moa) and their population is steadily increasing, since provisionally they are bred for their eggs (weighting up to 25 pounds) more than their meat: encrusted in mud they remain edible for years, and are now a fashionable curiosity in the whole known world. Along the same lines, in agreement with the King's Jardin des Plantes he had collected half of he last surviving Dodos of the Ile de France (Mauricius) and, still they are unable to survive in the wild in the presence of Man and his commensals (dogs, cats and chiefly rats), he raised them in vast well protected henhouses: their population
is thriving and soon will be commercially profitable.
. . .
Further East to Africa, please notice that the
owns several islands off India, Ceylon and Indo-China, and raised there various interesting types of ‘native’ troops.
Specimens of the dreadful rabid Sumatran Rat-Monkey (a recently discovered species allegedly born from the gang rape of an unfortunate guenon [female monkey] by a swarm of plagued rats) are just reported from the main land, but very few in number so far.
. . .
Further North the R.F. Ullman , a jesuit from Tradgardland (left, with the Pere Hinet), leads a mission to Tibet. Now, the Jesuits are under the direct orders of the Seer of Rome: thus, rather than 'merely' exploring and trying to convert, was the mission sent by the Vatican to find the 'lost valley' of Shangri-La and search for an entrance to Agartha? According to his last message -written in French as usual with well-educated people- the jesuit was planning to "arriver a pied par la Chine".
. ..._._._... .
The Republic of Neues Sudland covers part of what we know as 'Australia'. His creator writes: "RNS is on the Indian ocean, in the NW corner of New Holland (on a map of Australia, from about Broome around to the Kakadu- see the map I'll put on the site), with enclaves in the east (SE NSW). Settled originally by the Dutch it has since been traded between "great powers", before the people got sick of being pawns and broke away from their colonial masters. So the influences are German, British and Russian, with the language spoken being a mix of English, German and various Asian languages, due to the mix of people living there. As I see it, RNS is basically a mercenary-for-hire nation, too far from Europe to get involved directly but making money by hiring out the regiments." A world-wide known source of good mercenary units, and a striking exemple of 'colorful' politics: enjoy!
.Its close neighbor is the HOLY MORMOAN KINGDOM Of NEW WALES, a theocracy founded in 1676 as "Gods Kingdom on Earth" in the promised "Great Southern Land" by the members of a deviant Church fleeing persecutions - they *should* have settled down on the shore of a Great Salt Lake! Relationships between the RNS and the HMKNW are in a state of flux, and the Continent may soon live 'interesting times'.
... . ._._._. . ...
Several 'new lands' added here to the map as we know it.
._._._._.
One (further ) step beyond – pure madness, of course, but…
By the mid-18th C. exploration of the Pacific Ocean by Cook and La Perouse is still in some uncertain future. Thus, the existence there of an immense 7th Continent (called by most of its inhabitants by the justified and ancient name of Mu, often rendered as Lemuria by European explorers -'Lemurian' meaning 'inhabitant of Mu' in the dominant local tongue) is still a likely possibility.
Probably, the inhabitants of these Terres Australes are less weird then is sometimes reported!
If you wish so, for some reason a few Laws of Physics may seem a little relaxed there and e.g. dirigibles may be more or less functional in its sky, but there only: comment. Maybe even peculiar rocks can fly over leylines? Its inhabitants are fully humans, but at least a large ethnical group may be obviously different from all other races on Earth (being ±orange-skinned, for a start?), its various ethno-cultural subgroups displaying striking similarities with some cultures traditionally described under other skies… But the fauna would be mundane (with perhaps local variants -one slightly diminutive, the other larger than the 'big' African- of the Asian elephant, a camel hybrid between the better known African and Bactrian ones...).
Such an ‘Antipodial’ setting offers all the potentialities of any
‘more far fetched’ one (Mars, to put it bluntly), without the corresponding storytelling ‘complications’ - and what a happy opportunity to field women warriors: Bronze Age Warrior Women, Maidenhead Babes that time forgot & (converted) Ferals, Shadowforge Tribals and even simply some ‘Black Amazons’ but with an orange skin? Some areas could be entirely controlled by fierce Amazons.
Another part of this Continent could harbor a
‘White, quasi-European’ (Aïnu?) civilisation with a somewhat deviant clothing fashion (and other odd peculiarities).
For the 'wildnerness' the WarStore ‘Zardoz’ Exterminators, after conversion of the weapons and ammunition pouchs to a less ‘modern’ look, could become ‘feral’ natives – the costume is exotic enough, and fitting to the hot climate.
Occasional shipwrecks (their frequency steadily increasing in proportion with the Spanish presence along the Pacific coast of South America) provided the knowledge and technologies of the ‘White Man’. This also explains why the 'civilized' dress, with local variations (at least 4 'advanced' cultural groups of kingdoms are known, with provincial subcultures), now looks like a clumsy and superficial copy of outdated Western European fashion (and thus, coincidentally, often not dissimilar to that of the (male, specially) Centauri of Babylon 5 –hope the women don’t shave their head!).
Some fashionable upper-class young ladies wear partial copies of European military uniforms. 
Local costume also for a part corresponds to the fashion in the Stardust movie (with de Niro). Other costumes could correspond (but with copies of -’odd’?, though less than this semi-Pirotess' one- tricorns) to the Privateer Press Hordes / Warmachine, Rackham Akkylanians and Dark Age Games Forsaken types endvisaged as ‘odd’ light troops (see also some of these 18th C. pirates converted from LOTR minis). Then, the Aberrant Games Vatacina Guard (with tricorn) could fit here; and if some Highlanders’ 
journey to Australia prematurely ended here, you can even use Chiltren's (with
converted weapons?) 'Galactic Highlanders'! Locally costumes look like some in the video game Fable but with...*tricornes*! Now, the uniforms 'daydreamed' by de Saxe are so... weird they would not be out of place here!
Even the newly 'fashionable' carriages look like very *approximate* copies of Western European ones.
Who would compete with France and Great Britain for the ‘exploration’ (read: ‘attempt of colonization’) of this new continent? Attempt of conquest of the 'barbarian parts' at most, actually: the 'civilized' nations are too powerful, at least some of them incredibly advanced in the fields of biology and (al)chemistry, and nothing can compare with their monstruous unsailed warships.
Some prospective writers claim that in the future (in what for some reason they call ‘Victorian times’) Prussia and a North American country will be major players in the game. But in ‘our’ mid-18th C. neither feels such inclination. Instead one has to look for Russia (here a major power in the North Pacific area), perhaps Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands – the later two may be in association with the Britishs and the former with the Frenchs? Now -any idea of conquest discarded- one may wonder about the destination of La Petillante, the exploration goelette that recently sailed from Monte-Cristo (04."08 entry)…
._._.
*British colonies
–sorry– somewhat amputated compared with Our Time Line: no Acadia, no Maine, no New Hampshire, no Carolinas, no Georgia, and further (tiny) amputation by the encroachment of Nya Scandia…. The 'American' colonies are fully integrated in Canada, which may cause some unrest (see comment added below on O1.09.08 for new troops).
*Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, together with Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, are Axtec. Terra-Cota uniform coats (Axtecalt -sometimes simplified to 'Axteca' or even 'Azteca' by Europeans- being the single ‘*Red* Indian’ major power!), -no more than a poncho for some light types and militia- and a lot of white cotton (If at least some Axtec Guard regiments had musician in a peculiar uniform, and with a large dose of willing suspension of disbelief, this can be a military parade in Axtecalt). The cut of the uniforms is largely of British pattern (for a change - except for the cuff / lower sleeves, of Savoyard pattern, and systematically with cuff flaps; and the gaiters, of 'normal' pattern), but the headgear of the grenadiers is either of Spanish type or some 'local' feathered bonnet; almost all infantry wears the cartridge box 'at the navel' on the waistbelt -larger for light foot, smaller for grenadiers; The 'Knights' are
now elite or veteran Household cavalry, with under the coat a padded waist mimicking a leopard pelt or the plumage of an eagle, and using the peculiar Mexican stirrups and vaquero saddles combined with the complicated saddlery historically of common use among Mexican 'Encuerados' (leather grupera covering the whole horse's hindquarters), complemented by decorated chaparreras; 'Apache' (or rather 'Apache scouts of the US Cavalry'?) types are present in both foot and mounted light troops; light cavalry also includes 'soldados cueras' types (but with an Aztec shield) and the equivalent of late Renaissance 'armored' Pawnees and Comanches. Flag: the 'Eagle on a cactus, eating a serpent', combined with solar symbol(s). Religion currently half-way in its evolution from polytheism to monotheism, with a Solar God (quite similar to the Egyptian Aton, but far less benevolent) rising to pre-eminence. Despite the initial repulsion of the Clergy, Roman alphabet is now of common use among the literates. 
* Florida (Southern half of 'our' Louisiana East of the Mississippi and 'our' Florida) is part of the Spanish Vice-Kingdom of Antiglia, governed from Havana in the island here named Hispaniola. The 'free Mandingo' colony of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose is indeed there under Menendez and de la Puente, but the Blacks are runaways from Vinland. The Generalidad is buffered in the bayous and on the western shore of lower Mississippi by the Libre Alliance, a semi-independent, pidgin French-speaking, tribal confederation of 'third breeds' - red Indians, black Maroons 
and white freebooters / buccaneers (mainly French since people of that Nation seem specially attracted to the area by Nueva Orlanda and its Calle de Borbon) and (mainly) French rogues led by the Royaume de Baratarie (which includes Campeche).Uniforms often of slightly archaic (WSS) cut, sometimes even worn with a morion; a lot of red and golden yellow (Sangre y Oro) (see comment added O1.09.08 for new troops).
In such a context, the Freres de la Cote, BlackBeard-like pirates (among them female daring ones, the dreadful «Pirettes») are still active and may even have an archipelago as a 'republic' of their own - a Republique des Corsaires scattered on several -cutthroat- islands including the Isle de la Tortue protected by the impregnable Fort de Rocher, and islets, but 'politically' centered around New Providence and the port of Nassau. In excellent terms with Baratarie, friendly to France -to Spanish disgust, though the Loups de Mer actually concentrate their attention on British and Vinlander ships.
Similarly, in Saint-Domingue (Ayiti, French) 'true' bull-skin clad, long musket wielding boucaniers are still smoking feral cows meat.Some really *weird* folk lurk in the bayous of Florida -some worshipping even more weird idols- and in remote areas of many islands -the cradle of Voodoo.
In the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean the situation is slightly different from what ‘we know’: if we have one (or more) Swedish colonies in North America, reflecting a switching of interest toward the main land, 'our' Swedish colony here (St Barthelemy) is French instead, as are 'our' Dutch ones [possible uniforms of French colonial infantry: light pearl grey with albatros mauve, gooseberry pink and lavender facings; Regiment Nancy-Bois –a militia cavalry outfirt now ‘profesionalized’- wears a pure white coat, rose pink facings, lavender smallclothes]; then the Danish islands ('our' American Virgin Islands) are British, except for Sainte-Croix, still French as are Dominique, Grenade, Grenadines, Saint-Christophe, Sainte-Lucie, Saint-Vincent and Trinitad and Tobago (Iles de la Trinite). Ayiti is entirely French and called Saint-Domingue. The 
Lieutenant General du Roy a la France Antillaise runs from his headquarters at Cap-Francais in Saint-Domingue the 4 Gouvernements of Ayiti, Iles-Sous-Le-Vent, Iles-du-Vent and France Antarctique (Guyane, France Equinoxiale, Saint-Alexis and Malouines et Grand Sud).The slaves in French colonies have had their fate greatly improved in 1685 when Louis XIV, 'Uttermost Christian King of the Church's Eldest Daughter", under the influence of Mme de Maintenon (herself having passed her early childhood in the Caribbean) ordered that all slaves (and Caribs) were to be baptized, then allowed to behave and live as Christians. Meaning that sundays and all Christians holy days were henceforth holydays, that slaves were to receive fish every friday and, according to Henri IV's formula 
'boiled chicken at least every sunday'. Their masters were expected to treat their baptized slaves 'not as cattle or property, but as a father treats his children'. Breaking legal couple and separating children from their parents before the age of 16 were prohibited. In addition, to foster sincere conversions, the slaves were allowed to worship and celebrate 'Our Lord, Virgin Mary and the Saints in their own naive (sic) manner'. Monks who volunteered to evangelize them were encouraged to search for bright and devout boys that would be sent to newly created seminaries -though in fact for two generations they recruited almost exclusively half-breeds.
In 1730 Louis XV abolished slavery and qualified the Traite du bois d'ebene as a crime -by a tradition dating at least from the Renaissance, since 'Franc means free' runaway slaves from other territories were treated as free persons, so the step was logical. Yet the Bien-Aime became brutally far less 'beloved' by the rich colons, all the more so as the shambling administrators were recalled under a cloud and their successors raised regiments of Mandingues -maroons from
British and mostly Spanish colonies (permanent detachments, complete with the soldiers' families, were also dispatched to the islands of the Indian Ocean to enforce the abolition there). At first troops had to be sent from Nouvelle-France (un-prejudiced with regard to slavery -many men were married to Indian women, or half-breeds) but the King's stroke of genius (following possibly a suggestion from Monte-Cristo) was to land the Church with the problem. The Cardinal of Lyons Primat des Gaules and the gallican intellectual leaders of the major monastic Orders agreed that slavery was anathema to the Gospels, so that anyone practicing or advocating it would be handed over to the ecclesiastical investigators and courts -the Inquisition. After several powerful landlords had to flee penniless to Hispaniola (our Cuba) or Jamaica under the threat of been burned at the stake, the opposition was silenced. Yet Louys and his Monte-Cristan counselors mainly count on music and dance to ensure a peaceful revolution despite the hatred accumulated from previous cruel repressions.
appearance of quasi-orthodox Gallican Catholicism notwithstanding, most of the population of France Antillaise now tacitly practices a merry, relaxed neo-pagan polytheism with the Sainte Famille (Notre Pere, La Bonne Mere et Le Petit Jesus) -not dissimilar to the 'family cell' Osiris, Isis and Horus of the Pharaohs (though without any reference to Divine Fellatio!)- at the head of a rich pantheon of Saints and Saintes, actually minor deities, not a few inherited from Amerindian (Sainte Mort, a synthesis of Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl with Mary Magdalene at the Cross -pilgrims were struck by her reliquary in France, Saint Isidore = Tlaloc...) or African (the syncretic Sainterie cohort) cults. Even Baron Samedi is perceived as 'chaotic good' rather than 'evil', though some aspects of Voodoo are frown upon (animal sacrifices, 'black' magic) or severely condemned 
(drugging people into 'zombies'). And the yearly elected Reine Fee ('Faerie Queen') of Mardi Gras and Feux de Saint Jean of Cap Français, honored and respected as a 'Witch Queen', is deemed and esteemed at the very same time a powerful witch and a good Christian. Old rumors about the existence of 'devilish women' among the descendants of French males-(Guyane) female Native half-breeds are not forgotten but generally dismissed. On the whole the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean area is mainly Spanish, specially with regard to population numbers. Yet, following the
disruptions of the WSS, a part of the Vice-Realm -a sugar island ruled by a Catalan Gobernador- quietly turned into a sovereign Caribbean island nation.In this area, European presence is currently evolving: while the Levitzer Rabbinate was recently compelled to sell Neue Levitzerland to the British Crown,
the Elector of Ober-Bindlestiff has just acquired 3 of the islands : Isle de Marie, Isle de Lucinda and Isle Bad Karl: the Electoress launched a new (Monte-Cristan inspired) fashion on the beaches there. Though no official colony seems to be planned, adventurers from Wittenberg are coming to the West Indies in search of heavenly islands. Some parts of this general area are rather ‘uncontrolled’ and very weird encounters are reported to have happened there (and not only in what corresponds to part of the Bermuda Triangle!).
There, an entrance to a beautiful ' underground' / 'chtonian' "land" would be guarded by cannibals and monsters. Reportedly there would be seven such 'portal' islands on the Seven Seas, known according to the seafarer Jean Ray as 'The 7 Castles of the Sea King', each opening on a country of strange beasts and beautiful girls.
To the South Oronegro is a small, multi-cultural and remarkably secular / tolerant country inserted / wedged in the Brazilian coast. set at the mouth and along the lower shores of a wide river . Officially belonging to the Spanish crown, it remains practically independent as a British-Spanish co-protectorate. For long this happy state owned also much to the fact that it really interested none of the Major Powers. Hopefully its sudden thieving as a potential major source of the now so fashionable chocolate will no attract excessive attention / intervention of a powerful European country (or, worse, of *two* potentially competing / warring ones).
*
a German mining colony is rumoured to be developping somewhere in 'our' Oregon - North Idaho: watch for updates! In *this* (synthetic) avatar of the Multiverse, by the late 16th C., the Cipangueses wanted to gain 'modern' mining technologies (most of the intial settlers were Mongol horsemen) and, rather imprudently, created a 'mining colony' of skilled "barbarians" -from the East and mainly through Nya Sverige in order not to increase the Catholic presence -perhaps also because of rumours of some people in Germano-Scandia 'living under the ground like maggots, but accomplished miners and smiths'. miners came mainly from Sweden at first, then the colony's initial success opened the door for refugees from the Thirty Years War: the journey from the East Cost was long, exhausting and too often lethal, but those who did it found a land grant in a haven of religious tolerance. Given the inertia, corruption and ignorance of the Imperial administration, the colony was already de facto independent by 1620. Increasingly worried by the threats from Axtecalt and the 
barbarian "white worms" to the East, Cipango chose to simply, and tactfully, 'ignore' the 1650 formal Declaration of Independance by the Diet of Neuwormen, only blocking any further immigration. *'Here'* the Dieters' contacts with the 'White' world are practically restricted to Russians from Alaska -
under the watchful eye of the Cipangueses, who carefully prevented Schwartzwaldeland from extending to the Pacific shore; thus Schwartzwaldeland was cut from the 'white' world for half a century, and novelties from Europe still need more than a decade to reach it: weaponry, tactics (in line infantry, one private out of six is a pikeman)... are thus 'old fashioned'. Military uniforms are known to be black; upperclass men dress mainly in black or very dark grey, while ladies' fashion is sometimes original -on the opposite the women of the countryside generally wear old-fashioned clothes.
Note that, in depth, the seemingly quiet political situation may become less and less 'rosy'. The miners and metal workers -the raison d'etre of the colony, in direct contact with the Cipangueses- constituted from the start an aristocracy of sorts. As a part of their production is to be handed to Cipango, they are totally exempted of taxes. But, thanks to the laziness / corruption of the Cipanguese administration, the 'contribution' increased with decades far less than their yield, and now, if greasing a few yellow hands they can export to Russian Novajaul'tramarina or even, through members of the Court Jesuits households, as far as the Philippines and Kupang in Timor. Their wealth is obviously growing, and so is the 'unease' of farmers (no merchant class yet, trade is direct within the country); so much the more that -a pure historical accident- the farmers are mainly Catholics, the miners Reformed; and the two 'classes' happen to be differentially concentrated on the two banks of the Columbia river. Also, since echoes of the wars of Peter the Great against Charles XII and the Ottomans reached Schwartzwaldeland, Protestants claim to be russophobes (sentiments don't stand in the way of juicy business), Catholics russophiles: immaterial, but a convenient excuse allowing the Dieters to express and dwell upon their deep divergences in an elliptic, politically correct way. Indeed for some time now the outerworld is without news from Schwartzwaldeland, and wild hypotheses are rampant: the country is like dead.
*Alaska and Yukon are Russian (Novajaul'tramarina? Novajaprovincija?); 
in addition to regular Russian and Cossack units 'turning' here, some very wild 'imitation Cossacks' (as later recruited from Baskirs and Kalmuks) recruited from Yakuts and, chiefly, Chuchchis but, 
given the context, mainly as light foot; a few units of militia and volunteer light infantry (with a few light dragoons to complement the Cossacks?) wear an original mixture of civilian russian & sailor and civilian russian & native clothes, respectively, with the coat (or equivalent) proudly of the Russian regular infantry dark green. Following the fashion of the Court, the few nobles present speak French among themselves, and the upper-class commoners try to ape them..
The imaginary ‘Russinovgorodian’ army (commented 01.14) can be seen as a special ‘Colonial Corps’ (with reference to the historical ‘Observation Corps’) specially devoted to garrisonning Novajaul'tramarina; then it would wear the ‘historical’ WAS Russian green. Can be duplicated to absorb 'local' troops depicted above, as commented upon on O2.22.08
The Horse Clans of the Sea of Grass: while 'officially' part of either Cipango or Axtecalt, the Great Plains are barely, if at all, controlled; a few, theoretically 'holy', Trade Trails (as in Farmer's Amerind) cross them. The Tribes use horses as least as much as they did in 'our' 2nd half of the 19th C., and have fully assimilated the wheel. Some groups in this 'Sea of Grass' developped a culture technically quite similar to that of Adams' Horseclans, (though with gunpowder weapons, and without armor).
A linguistic note: when the Mayas met successively these various 'humanoids' from over the Great Water, they realized they all had a language in common: Latin (by then Vinelanders were still Catholics -of a more 'orthodox' practice than the Avallonians, actually- and the Cipanguese expeditions always included Portuguese Jesuits). Thus they bothered to learn only that single tongue. With time a very simplified, debased form of Latin (e.g. declinaisons with only two cases: not dissimilar to the French of the Dark Ages) emerged as the lingua franca of the whole North Continent.
[In fact, following my rule of thumb, at least 2/3 of any army is in totally ‘normal’ western european uniform: tricorn, justaucorps, waistcoat, breeches, gaiters or high boots. Only a few elite or on the opposite militia or light troops would wear another headgear or / and some ‘exotic’ dress. I suppose that, under constant flow of 'novelties' from Europe -China was not very innovative in those centuries- all the 'advanced' countries became quite europeanized in their dress fashion and practice of warfare].
There is a Y-shaped 'unclaimed' (by the White & Yellow Men)
Tribal Wilderness immensely widening in the inhospitable North...
(not long ago, extended South to the current Neo-Ireland and more;
in the late 17th C. down to 'our' Tulsa)
Specially in the North a few rogue Cossaks, trappers, coureurs des bois and adventurous young chevaliers are already roaming this ‘untamed’ area; very weird events are rumoured to occur there:?
All report terrifying Native tales about a 'new' (at the scale of collective memory: maybe 2 centuries old) 'Lurking Fear'.
CURRENT DIPLOMATIC SITUTION
The New World can be divided into 3 practically independant geopolitical areas: South ‘America’ and the Western and Eastern halves of North ‘America’.
To the South, Spanish Brazil enjoys a quiet domination, progressing inland and tending to ignore the North. The border with Axtecalt has be quiet for more than a century –anyway, except for coastal settlements the area is practically uncontrolled. Similarly with regard to British Guyana (though Brazil recently helped to repulse a British attempt, under Capitain Honorius Harrington, to seize the Malouines -yet pleasurable Laicheux-Monchat had to be given up some five days to the descending 'Red Coats'), and the relationships with the French territories are cordial (The Brazilean Vice-Rey not only does not care about the Grand Sud, but actually appreciates to be done with pressures from Madrid to conquer it).
Little Oronegro is thankfully left alone as a 'neutral' ground useful to all parties.
To the North West, the Russian colony is isolated from other European settlements, and carefully avoids to antagonize the powerful Indiano-Mongol empire. Cipango and Axtecalt are concerned only with their centuries old feud. Both claim to reach the Mississippi, but do not really control this area, and their eastern border is for them of even less importance than, say, its Moroccan border for the contemporary Ottoman Empire. Besides, both are deeply xenophobic and share a common contempt for the ‘barbarian’ white worms (mitigated in the Cipanguese Highest Circles). For centuries Cipango has been dreaming of a breakthrough to the Gulf of Mexico; but the distance, the hostility of an almost unknown wilderness and the vulnerabity of a thousand miles of border to an Axtec counterstroke, as yet deterred more than test raids by barely controlled tribes that can be disawoed without loosing face.
Would the rival Empires of the West interfere with the East, Axtecalt is in contact with Spaniards both across the Mississippi and the isthmus of Panama, so probably would seek allies among the Protestant states. Then Cipango would ally with the Catholics – so much the more as Jesuits are not without influence. Of course a coordinated Spanish landing somewhere West of the Mississippi would greatly help a Cipanguese offensive to the South East; but, without Brazil, Antiglia has neither means nor intention to antagonize the Axtecs.
To the North East, the settlers of European ascent are fully busy with their traditional rivalries, exacerbated by religious differences and bursting periodically to open war (generally in echo to conflicts in Europe). The situation is *almost* bipolar.
- British Canada (including the semi-independant Margraviate of Mindt) is *always* potentially at war with Nouvelle France – a traditional hostility boostered by the creation, with French support, of the Jacobite Kingdom and the Fenian state. Independant New Brunswick, while deeply disliking the Episcopal Church, would align with Great Britain in case of major crisis -if only by 'anti-papism'.
- The Catholics: Spanish Antiglia is basically insular, and following tradition the current Vice Rey His Royal Highness Jose Sanfalzar y Bandalez tends to neglect its mainland Generalidad, Florida. Besides, Antiglia is far away from the regional ‘hot spot’, the French-British area; nonetheless, Catholic and ruled by a Bourbon, it is on French side, for what it may account to.Closer to Nouvelle France, the Lys is stoutly supported by Avallon, the Jacobite Kingdom, the Welshs, Ny Tradgarland, of course the Irishs and Nouvelle Baratarie. Catholic Nova Orkneyjar is part of the alliance, so much the more as their traditional rivals of Hanovrian New Brunswick are Protestant (mainly of Presbyterian conviction); the Marquisat de Marron while semi-independant is faithful.
- The Reformed States of Continental Europen ascent: Vineland is xenophobic, but keeps privilegied links with Nya Scandige. The later is brotherly attached to the new Suedo-Balt settlement deep inland, and through it is in good relation with the Huguenots of Bon Mondiale. Now Vinland and Avallon are hereditary enemies, and the hatred between the Huguenots and the Irishs has far deeper roots than just colonists rivalry. Yet Ny Scandige had to fight the Britishs for its very survival, and did not forget it, so would not automatically behave as a satellite of British Canada. So much the more as, while still resenting the ‘desertion’ of the Mother Country, the Swedes still harbour stong anti-Russian memories and thus -alone in the New World- were not indifferent to rumours of a recent renewal of the alliance between France and the Turks.
....
Cavalry flags of the New World: exemples from l to r Nova Orkneyjar, Nya Scandige, Avallon, Vinland (basic designs) Legitime British Kingdom in Exile
.
A last point: what is the *name* of the Continent? Obviously NOT 'America'! Since in this 'time line' it was discovered by Britons at a time when Latin was the common tongue of the educated, probably a Latin form of a Briton name, but which one? Imprudently I already used Avallon (with 2 'l') and Brazil... For the time being I strongly support '
.
-= + = + = + =-
Africa
A Lace Wars interpretation of S.M. Stirling's Domination of Draka as a French Huguenot republic in SOUTH AFRICA: the Republique de Bonne-Esperance. Capital city Le Cap, a phoenix on the coat-of-arms.Historically the Huguenots emigrated to the Netherlands in the late 17°C, and some of them then to South Africa. While 'in our Time Line' only some 200 Huguenots settled in the "Franschhoek" to grow wine, I suppose that in ‘our’ world their immigration was massive ("Les laborieuses populations du Cap"), so that they totally absorbed the Dutch settlers.
.
Nonetheless, just for the ‘look’ of it, I give them bright ‘Orangist’ orange uniforms.
In the true tradition of Draka, all ranks wear proudly a huge machete across the back. You can use here:*Phil Barker’s Fusilliers de Fenris (!).
*I see the Volontaires du Cap as very similar to WAS French dragoons, but with tricorn.
*A very odd idea is to have Huguenot light infantry dressed like the Bulgarian reservists of early WW1, with their fur hat and typical legwear; add ‘native’ ape hair armbands, &c… for the ‘couleur locale’.
*GW IG Praetorian cavalry can provide the basis of some Elite Lancers, chiefly with the addition to the helmet of 'feathers' as currently worn on a similar one by the Guard of Monaco.
If the Huguenots have less prejudices than the Afrikanders, they can field native units of respectable status and quality, Africans may even provide some 'Guard' unit (anyway Elite Black slave-soldiers were not unknown e.g. the Ghulams). Nevertheless, they would wear ‘Masaï’ orange-red instead of orange, and if they carry a machete it would be at the waist. Michael Moorcock’s ‘Land Leviathan’ gives some interesting hints, e.g.&an elite unit similar to the WAS French Grenadiers a Cheval, but with a full lion pelt like the praetorian standard-bearers of Trajanic Rome (a form of Republican Guard Horse Grenadiers?);
&this book cover suggest a type of light infantry.
&Another possibilty would be to combine the 'coatee over a short jacket' of the half-breed 'Lapiots de Gorée' sergeants with late 19°C. Zulu ceremonial headdress and typical armbands &c... (OK, Zulus were far from here by Lace Wars times: but Zulu-like dancers feature in the 'Cleopatra' movie, so with such a *respectable* precedent...).
&I keep (since 1959!) fond memories of the 'semi-historical Ethiopian' dress, specially the headgear, of Gina Lollobrigida's guards in 'Solomon and Sheba': combined with the costume of late 19°C. wealthy / noble Ethiopian riders, a leopard skin elegantly slipped on the shoulder, here we have a pleasantly exotic type of light cavalry (from very far from Lace Wars South Africa, both in time and space? So what?).&Synthesis (/es) of the various types of very colorful Sudanese horsemen / ‘Black knights’ (mainly from Western Sudan) would provide 1 or 2 other outfits of light cavalry...
But you may bother to remember the 'rule of thumb': at least 2/3 of the army 'tricorned' and in 'normal' European Lace Wars uniforms, to keep your army 'looking right'!
The prudish Huguenots never cease to be shocked when they meet 'Zulu' Black Amazons...
Odd at it may sound, our our agent (s) at Catherin II's Court report a possible Russian interest to this area:?
Also, Saxe-Huack and possibly Herrschaden are obviously tempted by oversea endeavors, but on what precise locations did they to set their sights is as yet unknown. With the creation of the Africa Company, Saxe-Huack seems to have taken the lead. It appears that the first oversea expedition of the Duchy of Indur, while aiming at the Far East, went no further than Dark Africa and is settling a colony there. Ballyfoole funded a 'private' preliminary expedition in Eastern Dark Africa.
._._._._._._.
Further North, there are *rumours* of a rogue Jacobite exiles settlement (Hibernolesia / New Calolesia?) not far from the chefferies of Bongolesia and Khalisee. Wonder if they use Ruga Ruga -like or "Long Dane" armed Ashanti mercenaries?
These rumours appear to reflect a reality with the official emergence of Nova Caledonia
(on the East Coast of Africa, while reportedly the exiled Scots were sailing to America...) .
Further North, there are *rumours* of a rogue Jacobite exiles settlement (Hibernolesia / New Calolesia?) not far from the chefferies of Bongolesia and Khalisee. Wonder if they use Ruga Ruga -like or "Long Dane" armed Ashanti mercenaries?These rumours appear to reflect a reality with the official emergence of Nova Caledonia
(on the East Coast of Africa, while reportedly the exiled Scots were sailing to America...) .
. . .
Also of note: rumours still abund about what Europeans believe (wrongly) to be the Christian Royaume du Pretre Jean; generally said to have been founded by converted Meroeans (with a sprinkling of Sabeans, exiled when they converted from Judaism to Christianism) who moved... somewhere inland.Now some claim that later, following the raving sermons of one Abdul al-Azred, they rejected Christianity, and are now ruled by a white (immortal? At least very, very old and travelled) Witch-Queen 'Who Must Be Obeyed'?
. . .
Further rumours: - one Lord Robert Timurilank is to lead a British 'descent' on French Senegal;
.. . - boiling unrest is growing in Sudan;
. . .
Further rumours: - one Lord Robert Timurilank is to lead a British 'descent' on French Senegal;
.. . - boiling unrest is growing in Sudan;
- trouble brewing in Eastern Sudan?
. . .
.
Far closer to Europe, the Double Principality of Illyria-Carthage has a Province on the Tunisian shore (O1 23);
while Monte-Cristo can count on allies from Kabylia.
. . .
while Monte-Cristo can count on allies from Kabylia.
. . .
(Some are trying to stir the Ottoman Empire out of its slumber: Muslim Africa may be concerned).
._._._._._._.
All around Africa: for decades, Robert de Nard , 
a francophone adventurer (Monte-Cristan by birth, but an ex-non com of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine) and his Affreux ('Uglies') -never without Monte-Cristan nurses (among them most probably some 'Sisters' of the Order of St Jezebel [11.07 comment] and at least one member of the Service)- have been fighting battles and training 'modern' units ('G.P.': Garde Presidentielle, or Palatine, or Pretorienne, or Princiere, but always with a 'P') for potentates all around Africa -and even Turkey. As commented below on april 06."08, the general belief is he has *always* been doing so in the service of King Louis' 'unofficial diplomacy', as if a kind of unacknowledged 'land privateer' of the French Crown.
Note that, while local chiefs and princes at first want a Guard exclusively recruited from their own tribe, de Nard always convinces them to recruit from
all the ethnico-cultural groups under their rules, even the less trusted / most despised, claiming that it will make them all warriors of a *new* (French-speaking) tribe, the G.P., and thus independent from local policies / vendettas, and perfectly reliable. British agents believe this actually makes the G.P. devoted only to de Nard, to themselves as a proud warband with a fierce esprit de corps, and potentially inclined to obey French agents...
a francophone adventurer (Monte-Cristan by birth, but an ex-non com of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine) and his Affreux ('Uglies') -never without Monte-Cristan nurses (among them most probably some 'Sisters' of the Order of St Jezebel [11.07 comment] and at least one member of the Service)- have been fighting battles and training 'modern' units ('G.P.': Garde Presidentielle, or Palatine, or Pretorienne, or Princiere, but always with a 'P') for potentates all around Africa -and even Turkey. As commented below on april 06."08, the general belief is he has *always* been doing so in the service of King Louis' 'unofficial diplomacy', as if a kind of unacknowledged 'land privateer' of the French Crown.Note that, while local chiefs and princes at first want a Guard exclusively recruited from their own tribe, de Nard always convinces them to recruit from
all the ethnico-cultural groups under their rules, even the less trusted / most despised, claiming that it will make them all warriors of a *new* (French-speaking) tribe, the G.P., and thus independent from local policies / vendettas, and perfectly reliable. British agents believe this actually makes the G.P. devoted only to de Nard, to themselves as a proud warband with a fierce esprit de corps, and potentially inclined to obey French agents...
Among the French songs known by all G.P.: Oh la fille:
Oh la fille viens nous servir a boire,
Les Affreux sont la perce un tonneau :
Car la route est longue et la nuit noire
Et demain nous donnerons l'assaut.
Donne-moi la main,
Mets-la dans ma main :
Adieu la fille, adieu (bis)
Ton sourire, ton sourire,
Reste dans nos yeux,
Oui dans nos yeux.
Pretty girl come and pour us a drink,
The Uglies are here broach a barrel:
The rocky road is long and the night is black,
And to-morrow we launch our assault.
Give me your hand,
Leave it in my hand:
Goodbye pretty girl, goodbye (bis)
Your smile, your smile,
Stays in our eyes,
Yes in our eyes.
Les Affreux sont la perce un tonneau :
Car la route est longue et la nuit noire
Et demain nous donnerons l'assaut.
Donne-moi la main,
Mets-la dans ma main :
Adieu la fille, adieu (bis)
Ton sourire, ton sourire,
Reste dans nos yeux,
Oui dans nos yeux.
Pretty girl come and pour us a drink,
The Uglies are here broach a barrel:
The rocky road is long and the night is black,
And to-morrow we launch our assault.
Give me your hand,
Leave it in my hand:
Goodbye pretty girl, goodbye (bis)
Your smile, your smile,
Stays in our eyes,
Yes in our eyes.
-= + = + = + =-
.
In Madagascar pirates in search of 'fresh air' away from the Caribbean are developing the mini-Republique de Libertatia, under the leadership of one Pierre Lafitte, who greatly expanded the colony founded by his compatriot Jacques Misson. His troglodytic 'palace', bristling with heavy navy guns in several levels of natural casemates into the faces of a cliff, oversees and covers an excellent small harbour.Many pirates dream of a peaceful retirement, with a farm, inn or fisher boat of their own: indeed Queen Ranavalona of Antananarivo granted Lafitte lands and facilities to create for the whole of them an immense collective farm (the Kibbouz, so 'christianized' -well, actually not!- by Lafitte's second, the warrior-poet Avraham 'Yair' Stern).
The numerous young natives working there are even, for the time being, paid by the Crown, provided they receive part-time military and seafaring training: the Queen see them as the nucleus of a 'modern' navy and marine corps -later, army. The meat of the zebus is smoked on the boucane, according to the fashion of Saint-Domingue, the milk used to prepare Mozarelle de bufflone fresh cheese, and together with the lemons and fresh vegetables all rae eagerly bought by the ship crews of all nationalities, either here at French Fort Dauphin (to be sold to Arab sailors, the meat is said to be 'Halal' but actually the cattles are 'gently' killed with a pistol, and blooded afterwards by gravity) or from an agents in Saint-Denis in the Isle Bourbon and Port-Louis in the Isle de France (also, 
Libertatian ships -own as a common good by the Republique- always carry excess of food, to be sold everywhere they stop, to the benefit of the collectivity as a whole). Lafitte also developped the vanilla as potentially a major export; the Kibbouz devotes increasing areas to oil palm, sweet potato, manioc, sugarcane, coffee and tobacco. He also gathered most of the surviving giant ostriches (Aepyornis - far larger than the moa) and their population is steadily increasing, since provisionally they are bred for their eggs (weighting up to 25 pounds) more than their meat: encrusted in mud they remain edible for years, and are now a fashionable curiosity in the whole known world. Along the same lines, in agreement with the King's Jardin des Plantes he had collected half of he last surviving Dodos of the Ile de France (Mauricius) and, still they are unable to survive in the wild in the presence of Man and his commensals (dogs, cats and chiefly rats), he raised them in vast well protected henhouses: their population
is thriving and soon will be commercially profitable.
While developing agriculture, in order to fulfil all the needs of visiting ship crews, Lafitte recruited (through Monte-Cristan go-betweens, reportedly) 'converted' Ouled-Nail Marabouts led by one Arha Latouf to preach to the natives a syncretic version of Catholicism incorporating 'rite Lyonnais', local rituals -and for the teenage girls, belly dancing and Sacred Prostitution in the 'open monastery' of Sainte Inanna-Magdalene. Followers of this faith are known as Moulabites.
Yet Lafitte's men are only part-time farmers -they will spend more an more time on land when ageing. Currently they basically remain very active pirates, present from the Straits of Tiran to the Gulf of Tonkin and Bougainville (both the island in the Solomon Sea and the Straits - named 'here' from the father or uncle of 'our' Bougainville). Lafitte choose mainly Frenchs and Spaniards, and those originating from the British Islands are, if not Catholics, at least of 
Jacobite alignement: so they spare French and (generally) Spanish ships, concentrating against the British ones, though Danes, Dutchs and Portugueses are not 'ignored'. Thus they receive a warm welcome in the Laquedives (French), Isle Bourbon, Isle de France (Mauritius, where the Dodo survived -if barely- the Dutchs and is now strictly protected by an edict of Louis XV answering a supplique of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon), the numerous Isles de Seychelles, and Pondichery, Mahe and Yanaon.
Yet Lafitte's men are only part-time farmers -they will spend more an more time on land when ageing. Currently they basically remain very active pirates, present from the Straits of Tiran to the Gulf of Tonkin and Bougainville (both the island in the Solomon Sea and the Straits - named 'here' from the father or uncle of 'our' Bougainville). Lafitte choose mainly Frenchs and Spaniards, and those originating from the British Islands are, if not Catholics, at least of 
Jacobite alignement: so they spare French and (generally) Spanish ships, concentrating against the British ones, though Danes, Dutchs and Portugueses are not 'ignored'. Thus they receive a warm welcome in the Laquedives (French), Isle Bourbon, Isle de France (Mauritius, where the Dodo survived -if barely- the Dutchs and is now strictly protected by an edict of Louis XV answering a supplique of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon), the numerous Isles de Seychelles, and Pondichery, Mahe and Yanaon.. . .
Further East to Africa, please notice that the
owns several islands off India, Ceylon and Indo-China, and raised there various interesting types of ‘native’ troops.
With a suitable (‘Indonesian’) skin color, and perhaps with shoes and low puttees added (paint conversion) very ‘exotic’ minis can be used as *Human* Sepoys from this area.
While Tradgarland bought the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean from the Danish East Indies Company.
. . .
In the Indian subcontinent,
. . .
In the Indian subcontinent,
in parallel with their ongoing competition with the Frenchs over Indian Empires, the Britishs are suspected to prepare an expedition in Indostan. There also, Indur plans to create a colony (though the first large expedition went no further than Dark Africa; yet emissaries had already visited the Sunahra Raj), daring exiles from Wittenberg, and 
(in Belchistan / Fhukistan / Pukistan?) from Batrachia and the Soweiter League -specially from Grand Thidwick- lured by the treasures and ignoring the dangers, are coming to gain fame and fortune -French "gentlemen-of-fortune" are far more attracted by fair Khukistan.
(in Belchistan / Fhukistan / Pukistan?) from Batrachia and the Soweiter League -specially from Grand Thidwick- lured by the treasures and ignoring the dangers, are coming to gain fame and fortune -French "gentlemen-of-fortune" are far more attracted by fair Khukistan.Specimens of the dreadful rabid Sumatran Rat-Monkey (a recently discovered species allegedly born from the gang rape of an unfortunate guenon [female monkey] by a swarm of plagued rats) are just reported from the main land, but very few in number so far.
. . .
Further North the R.F.
. . . 
Worrying words of a great 'Yellow Empire' based 'at the junction of Kashmir, Kara Khitai and Tibet' stirring and preparing for a 'Long March' westwards. Will the long-dread 'Yellow Peril' turn out as a reality?
. . .
In the Far East, according to jesuits there,
la Chine se dresse face aux Nippons.
la Chine se dresse face aux Nippons.
. ..._._._... .
The Republic of Neues Sudland covers part of what we know as 'Australia'. His creator writes: "RNS is on the Indian ocean, in the NW corner of New Holland (on a map of Australia, from about Broome around to the Kakadu- see the map I'll put on the site), with enclaves in the east (SE NSW). Settled originally by the Dutch it has since been traded between "great powers", before the people got sick of being pawns and broke away from their colonial masters. So the influences are German, British and Russian, with the language spoken being a mix of English, German and various Asian languages, due to the mix of people living there. As I see it, RNS is basically a mercenary-for-hire nation, too far from Europe to get involved directly but making money by hiring out the regiments." A world-wide known source of good mercenary units, and a striking exemple of 'colorful' politics: enjoy!
.Its close neighbor is the HOLY MORMOAN KINGDOM Of NEW WALES, a theocracy founded in 1676 as "Gods Kingdom on Earth" in the promised "Great Southern Land" by the members of a deviant Church fleeing persecutions - they *should* have settled down on the shore of a Great Salt Lake! Relationships between the RNS and the HMKNW are in a state of flux, and the Continent may soon live 'interesting times'.
... . ._._._. . ...
Several 'new lands' added here to the map as we know it.
New Jerusalem -now divided in rival countries- was founded ca. 1150 AD on the (large) island of Lentulia.
Somewhere South-East of l'Ile Bourbon, a large island was recently discovered...
Hawai'i having already be touched by 'white' ships, Kamehameha 'the very first', a quite energetic chief, recently unified the the Hawaiian Islands under his rule and managed to be acknowledged as the king of an independent country by several regional (Neue Sudland, the Holy Mormoan Kingdom of New Wales, Brazil) and major (France, Great Britain, Spain) powers .
Somewhere South-East of l'Ile Bourbon, a large island was recently discovered...
Hawai'i having already be touched by 'white' ships, Kamehameha 'the very first', a quite energetic chief, recently unified the the Hawaiian Islands under his rule and managed to be acknowledged as the king of an independent country by several regional (Neue Sudland, the Holy Mormoan Kingdom of New Wales, Brazil) and major (France, Great Britain, Spain) powers . 
The French-controlled island of Pulau-Pulau is a seething 'Nest of Spies'.On the island of Pacifica the colons -descendants of Royalist Exiles from the ECW- face very odd Natives.
Maybe nations from that mysterious 7th Continent will emerge from their current secrecy and interact with the RNS and NW, while France, Great Britain, Russia and Spain (actually New Spain from 'Brazil') are likely candidates for colonial expeditions in the area - VSF-like colonial wars by the mid-18th C.?
Maybe nations from that mysterious 7th Continent will emerge from their current secrecy and interact with the RNS and NW, while France, Great Britain, Russia and Spain (actually New Spain from 'Brazil') are likely candidates for colonial expeditions in the area - VSF-like colonial wars by the mid-18th C.?
._._._._._._.
Somewhere off North America: Ameri-go - While almost a small continent, this large archipelago 
was only recently discovered (by Spaniards from the Philippines and then Brazil): a bizarre combination of currents, fog and dead calms becalming ships for weeks (think of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ") and glimpses of 'slimy things crawling with legs upon the slimy sea' and other unknown sea creatures delayed (deterred?) exploration of that part of North Pacific for centuries. The Major Powers are just beginning to contact the natives, and this very cautiously: no attempt of blitzkrieg colonization there! Preliminary observations suggest that what can be seen is, literally, 'the tip of the iceberg'. While parts of the archipelago are inhabited by rather primitive tribes, the 'Melnibonean' dominant culture, while 'exotic', is obviously at least as advanced as that of Western Europe, -its army if stronger in light troops 
seemingly equal in quality to that of any European country and more than a challenge for a mere expeditionary force- and masters some surprising abilities: most, by superstition, talk of sorcery, while the rationalists prefer to speak of 'advanced science'. A very disturbing discovery is that, while the archipelago was still unknown a few years ago, some natives appear knowledgeable of the history, languages and current situation -even military techniques and civilian fashion- of the whole world, as if for centuries able to observe it unseen...
was only recently discovered (by Spaniards from the Philippines and then Brazil): a bizarre combination of currents, fog and dead calms becalming ships for weeks (think of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ") and glimpses of 'slimy things crawling with legs upon the slimy sea' and other unknown sea creatures delayed (deterred?) exploration of that part of North Pacific for centuries. The Major Powers are just beginning to contact the natives, and this very cautiously: no attempt of blitzkrieg colonization there! Preliminary observations suggest that what can be seen is, literally, 'the tip of the iceberg'. While parts of the archipelago are inhabited by rather primitive tribes, the 'Melnibonean' dominant culture, while 'exotic', is obviously at least as advanced as that of Western Europe, -its army if stronger in light troops 
seemingly equal in quality to that of any European country and more than a challenge for a mere expeditionary force- and masters some surprising abilities: most, by superstition, talk of sorcery, while the rationalists prefer to speak of 'advanced science'. A very disturbing discovery is that, while the archipelago was still unknown a few years ago, some natives appear knowledgeable of the history, languages and current situation -even military techniques and civilian fashion- of the whole world, as if for centuries able to observe it unseen...
By the mid-18th C. exploration of the Pacific Ocean by Cook and La Perouse is still in some uncertain future. Thus, the existence there of an immense 7th Continent (called by most of its inhabitants by the justified and ancient name of Mu, often rendered as Lemuria by European explorers -'Lemurian' meaning 'inhabitant of Mu' in the dominant local tongue) is still a likely possibility.Probably, the inhabitants of these Terres Australes are less weird then is sometimes reported!
If you wish so, for some reason a few Laws of Physics may seem a little relaxed there and e.g. dirigibles may be more or less functional in its sky, but there only: comment. Maybe even peculiar rocks can fly over leylines? Its inhabitants are fully humans, but at least a large ethnical group may be obviously different from all other races on Earth (being ±orange-skinned, for a start?), its various ethno-cultural subgroups displaying striking similarities with some cultures traditionally described under other skies… But the fauna would be mundane (with perhaps local variants -one slightly diminutive, the other larger than the 'big' African- of the Asian elephant, a camel hybrid between the better known African and Bactrian ones...).Such an ‘Antipodial’ setting offers all the potentialities of any
‘more far fetched’ one (Mars, to put it bluntly), without the corresponding storytelling ‘complications’ - and what a happy opportunity to field women warriors: Bronze Age Warrior Women, Maidenhead Babes that time forgot & (converted) Ferals, Shadowforge Tribals and even simply some ‘Black Amazons’ but with an orange skin? Some areas could be entirely controlled by fierce Amazons.
That £and where boats fly
Another part of this Continent could harbor a
‘White, quasi-European’ (Aïnu?) civilisation with a somewhat deviant clothing fashion (and other odd peculiarities).For the 'wildnerness' the WarStore ‘Zardoz’ Exterminators, after conversion of the weapons and ammunition pouchs to a less ‘modern’ look, could become ‘feral’ natives – the costume is exotic enough, and fitting to the hot climate.
Occasional shipwrecks (their frequency steadily increasing in proportion with the Spanish presence along the Pacific coast of South America) provided the knowledge and technologies of the ‘White Man’. This also explains why the 'civilized' dress, with local variations (at least 4 'advanced' cultural groups of kingdoms are known, with provincial subcultures), now looks like a clumsy and superficial copy of outdated Western European fashion (and thus, coincidentally, often not dissimilar to that of the (male, specially) Centauri of Babylon 5 –hope the women don’t shave their head!).
Some fashionable upper-class young ladies wear partial copies of European military uniforms. 
Local costume also for a part corresponds to the fashion in the Stardust movie (with de Niro). Other costumes could correspond (but with copies of -’odd’?, though less than this semi-Pirotess' one- tricorns) to the Privateer Press Hordes / Warmachine, Rackham Akkylanians and Dark Age Games Forsaken types endvisaged as ‘odd’ light troops (see also some of these 18th C. pirates converted from LOTR minis). Then, the Aberrant Games Vatacina Guard (with tricorn) could fit here; and if some Highlanders’ 
journey to Australia prematurely ended here, you can even use Chiltren's (with
converted weapons?) 'Galactic Highlanders'! Locally costumes look like some in the video game Fable but with...*tricornes*! Now, the uniforms 'daydreamed' by de Saxe are so... weird they would not be out of place here!
Even the newly 'fashionable' carriages look like very *approximate* copies of Western European ones.
Who would compete with France and Great Britain for the ‘exploration’ (read: ‘attempt of colonization’) of this new continent? Attempt of conquest of the 'barbarian parts' at most, actually: the 'civilized' nations are too powerful, at least some of them incredibly advanced in the fields of biology and (al)chemistry, and nothing can compare with their monstruous unsailed warships.
Some prospective writers claim that in the future (in what for some reason they call ‘Victorian times’) Prussia and a North American country will be major players in the game. But in ‘our’ mid-18th C. neither feels such inclination. Instead one has to look for Russia (here a major power in the North Pacific area), perhaps Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands – the later two may be in association with the Britishs and the former with the Frenchs? Now -any idea of conquest discarded- one may wonder about the destination of La Petillante, the exploration goelette that recently sailed from Monte-Cristo (04."08 entry)…
._._.
Note that the Harn Continent, with basically the same civilisation as Western Europe, would be different from the Mu / Lemuria described above.
-= + = + = + =-
Troops and uniforms for new colonial expeditions and conquests ?
= For more 'classical' locally recruited troops, remember that the local costumes changed less than in Europe, thus Zouaves with turban (can be painted as 'Senegaleses'), Algerian Spahis, Berbers, Tuaregs cavalry, Arabs and pseudo-such, Bashi-Bazouks, Nizam~Cedit, mounted and foot ‘Balkanics’, Borderers and Albanian Turks (with turban), pseudo-Janissaries, Azabs, Tufecis, various Levantines, Abyssinians, Somalis, Zanzibaris, Ansars, Turkomans, Circassians, Turcomen, Bokharans, Pathans, W/India Reg't (w. turban), Pathans, North-West Mountaineers, Hillmen and Tribesmen, Moghul foot, 19th C. Sikhs, various Indian Sepoys, warriors & cavalrymen and Indochinese -even regular or irregular Chinese- fighters, Tirailleurs Annamites, Boxers with musket and Chinese militia and even (why not?) Tibetan nomad horsemen and matchlockmen, Filipinos, Apaches (with headband), Seminoles and Maori scouts -perhaps painted as other ethnical groups, can be used as Tirailleurs. In the Far East you can even use as mercenaries Japanese musketeers and mounted ashigarus- in Colonies you are no longer constrained by the limited allowance of light troops in a standard Army List for the European theatre, of course; troops from a 'different' ethnical group are propitious to the use of minis of slightly different scale (25 or 30 mm vs your 'normal 28 mm, e.g.);
-that Napoleonic Black fighters from the West Indies are rather generic, provided they are moulded with short breeches (would look more ‘18th C.’ with the top of the hat rounded by filing out - or even better with a straw tricorn): applies also to 'Black' pirates, Maroons...
-that Europeans can 'slide' an 'exotic' dress they like to other 'Natives': in the late 19th C. Natives of the West Indies in British service, Indian Sepoys and Senegalese 'Tirailleurs' in French service all received a 'Zuave' uniform;
-that, in the same way as 'Turkeries' were extremely fashionable, (so Black
pages and musicians were 'enturbaned' in pseudo-Turkish to Indian costumes), Eastern European dress had its partizans (who raised imitation Haiduks, e.g.): so you can add without scruple, as mercenaries recruited 'en route' on different 'free markets', then dressed 'exotically' rather than 'accurately, Evzones (as ‘Balkanics’), Ukrainians, Slavonians, Croats, Cossacks (even 20th C. ones, if mounted e.g. on 18th C. Hussar horses), Drabants, Haiduks, Moloitsy, Streltzi, Wallachians and even Tatars and Siberian_rifles….
-that Natives can also be dressed European-fashion with short coats.
Thus the color of the skin is the main indication (occasionally reinforced by a 'typical' mustache / beard) of the real area of recruitment.
.
To highlight the 'exoticism' of the troops in 'extra-European' costume (and possibly make less immediatly identifiable as minis 'from another century'), you can clothe them in light, even pastel, colors and / or of 'unconventional' hues: mauve, violet, lavender, lilac, indigo, turquoise, cyan, sea green, 'fluo' / acid yellow, apricot, orange, pumpkin, salmon, murrey, purple...
'European’ minis with short coat and tricorn can be used as 'White cadre', dressed European-fashion but with the peculiar colors pattern of the 'Native' unit (ever dreamed of painting a Marine pink and light turquoise?).
.
= For 'Allochton' troops fielded in a colonial expedition:
- for the 'European' outfits: °several types of minis proposed as 'alternative' light infantry in a mythical Europe actually depict European soldiers in oversea theatres, and thus are directly, and specially, suitable for troops sent from Europe or locally recruited from European settlers; infantrymen in waistcoat (Russians in summer dress...) are fitting for regular Line Infantry under a hot climate. Bussy’s Frenchs (= ?) are an obvious choice, but don't hesitate to change the continent, e.g. to use in Indochina soldiers in 'field dress' and 'Provincials in short coats' (or even some of so-called ‘militia’ / 'irregulars') from a FIW range: even the Native American legwears ('mitasses') are not too conspicuous and with a little filing and adequate painting can pass for locally-made gaiters on troops operating in Africa or Asia. °The proposals include a possible sailors landing party - give them Navy blue coats; in hot weather, those with cap, handkerchief... would keep it rather than wear a tricorn. °Troops in old-fashioned uniforms with karpus / kabuds / pokalems look quite like de Bussy's Frenchs.
°Old-fashioned Dragoons, still trained and ready to fight on foot, would be a welcome troop type in colonial operations.
°Then widen your choice, specially to other light troops: oversea expeditions generally met 'difficult' terrain, thus it makes sense to send preferentially light troops, to ship Hussars, Jägers zu Pferde, Jinetes or Stadiotii rather than Cuirassiers. Additionally, by the mid-18th C., light troops were often of the 'expendable' Frei Korps type. Also, units recruited from colonists of European ascent were often the first used in other oversea theatres, e.g. French Chasseurs d'Afrique and Zouaves in Mexico and Crimea.
.
- for the 'Native' troops from other colonies: once an European Power had 'Native' troops, it often used them preferentially in new oversea /colonial ventures, e.g. most of the French troops in Mexico came from Algeria, Senegaleses were fielded in Madagascar... °Often those troops were under the same authority as the Marines and Colonial troops. °'Natives' were deemed naturally adapted to other 'exotic' climates. °They were seen as 'expendable' -more so than European troops, anyway: to put it less bluntly, casualties among them would not appear in the butcher bill as read by the population of the Mother Country.
And of course, in such exotic environments you can, not only meet, but raise 'biological weapon systems' such as (ultimately) Jingal elephants and Zambereck camels which would be Munchausenian in an European battlefield.
.......
N
..
Note that the Harn Continent, with basically the same civilisation as Western Europe, would be different from the Mu / Lemuria described above.
.
= For more 'classical' locally recruited troops, remember that the local costumes changed less than in Europe, thus Zouaves with turban (can be painted as 'Senegaleses'), Algerian Spahis, Berbers, Tuaregs cavalry, Arabs and pseudo-such, Bashi-Bazouks, Nizam~Cedit, mounted and foot ‘Balkanics’, Borderers and Albanian Turks (with turban), pseudo-Janissaries, Azabs, Tufecis, various Levantines, Abyssinians, Somalis, Zanzibaris, Ansars, Turkomans, Circassians, Turcomen, Bokharans, Pathans, W/India Reg't (w. turban), Pathans, North-West Mountaineers, Hillmen and Tribesmen, Moghul foot, 19th C. Sikhs, various Indian Sepoys, warriors & cavalrymen and Indochinese -even regular or irregular Chinese- fighters, Tirailleurs Annamites, Boxers with musket and Chinese militia and even (why not?) Tibetan nomad horsemen and matchlockmen, Filipinos, Apaches (with headband), Seminoles and Maori scouts -perhaps painted as other ethnical groups, can be used as Tirailleurs. In the Far East you can even use as mercenaries Japanese musketeers and mounted ashigarus- in Colonies you are no longer constrained by the limited allowance of light troops in a standard Army List for the European theatre, of course; troops from a 'different' ethnical group are propitious to the use of minis of slightly different scale (25 or 30 mm vs your 'normal 28 mm, e.g.);-that Napoleonic Black fighters from the West Indies are rather generic, provided they are moulded with short breeches (would look more ‘18th C.’ with the top of the hat rounded by filing out - or even better with a straw tricorn): applies also to 'Black' pirates, Maroons...
-that Europeans can 'slide' an 'exotic' dress they like to other 'Natives': in the late 19th C. Natives of the West Indies in British service, Indian Sepoys and Senegalese 'Tirailleurs' in French service all received a 'Zuave' uniform;
-that, in the same way as 'Turkeries' were extremely fashionable, (so Black
pages and musicians were 'enturbaned' in pseudo-Turkish to Indian costumes), Eastern European dress had its partizans (who raised imitation Haiduks, e.g.): so you can add without scruple, as mercenaries recruited 'en route' on different 'free markets', then dressed 'exotically' rather than 'accurately, Evzones (as ‘Balkanics’), Ukrainians, Slavonians, Croats, Cossacks (even 20th C. ones, if mounted e.g. on 18th C. Hussar horses), Drabants, Haiduks, Moloitsy, Streltzi, Wallachians and even Tatars and Siberian_rifles….
Thus the color of the skin is the main indication (occasionally reinforced by a 'typical' mustache / beard) of the real area of recruitment.
.
To highlight the 'exoticism' of the troops in 'extra-European' costume (and possibly make less immediatly identifiable as minis 'from another century'), you can clothe them in light, even pastel, colors and / or of 'unconventional' hues: mauve, violet, lavender, lilac, indigo, turquoise, cyan, sea green, 'fluo' / acid yellow, apricot, orange, pumpkin, salmon, murrey, purple...
'European’ minis with short coat and tricorn can be used as 'White cadre', dressed European-fashion but with the peculiar colors pattern of the 'Native' unit (ever dreamed of painting a Marine pink and light turquoise?).
.
= For 'Allochton' troops fielded in a colonial expedition:
- for the 'European' outfits: °several types of minis proposed as 'alternative' light infantry in a mythical Europe actually depict European soldiers in oversea theatres, and thus are directly, and specially, suitable for troops sent from Europe or locally recruited from European settlers; infantrymen in waistcoat (Russians in summer dress...) are fitting for regular Line Infantry under a hot climate. Bussy’s Frenchs (= ?) are an obvious choice, but don't hesitate to change the continent, e.g. to use in Indochina soldiers in 'field dress' and 'Provincials in short coats' (or even some of so-called ‘militia’ / 'irregulars') from a FIW range: even the Native American legwears ('mitasses') are not too conspicuous and with a little filing and adequate painting can pass for locally-made gaiters on troops operating in Africa or Asia. °The proposals include a possible sailors landing party - give them Navy blue coats; in hot weather, those with cap, handkerchief... would keep it rather than wear a tricorn. °Troops in old-fashioned uniforms with karpus / kabuds / pokalems look quite like de Bussy's Frenchs. 
°Old-fashioned Dragoons, still trained and ready to fight on foot, would be a welcome troop type in colonial operations.
.
- for the 'Native' troops from other colonies: once an European Power had 'Native' troops, it often used them preferentially in new oversea /colonial ventures, e.g. most of the French troops in Mexico came from Algeria, Senegaleses were fielded in Madagascar... °Often those troops were under the same authority as the Marines and Colonial troops. °'Natives' were deemed naturally adapted to other 'exotic' climates. °They were seen as 'expendable' -more so than European troops, anyway: to put it less bluntly, casualties among them would not appear in the butcher bill as read by the population of the Mother Country.
Thus, if as the Ruler of a 'White' country you attempt to built a new colony in Indochina -or further away!- you are justified -expected- to field there your Chasseurs Antillais, Maghrebin Spahis, African Askaris and Indian Sepoys. This colorful diversity alone would motivate a colonial adventure!
..
13 comments:
SPANISH TROOPS IN FICTITIOUS AMERICA
I endeed with two quite different types, corresponding to different locations; both mostly in red and yellow (Sangre y Oro).
I - «TRADITIONAL» SPANIARDS (ANTIGLIA)
Inspiration: those comics (& movies) where Pirates in (early) tricorns face Spaniards in morion.
Thus this type fits for the Islands of the Carribean.
‘Traditionalist’ units -Guards, Grenadiers…- in old-fashioned (WSS) unifoms, sometimes with breastplate under the coat or even full cuirass above it; associated with red & yellow ‘Late Renaissance’ shoulder pads. If morion, always of the Vatican-Swiss Guard type with yellow & red feathers. Types (either units, subunits or ranks) wearing the full cuirass + morion traditionally have a ‘3 Musketeers’ mustache + small beard (in the same way as hussars wore mustache + ‘cadenettes’!). Corresponding musician mainly in Late Renaissance dress, at least from the waist up.
-INFANTRY
-°Line: ‘nucleus’ of 16 Tercios:
_Deep gold-yellow coat without lapels,with abundant (magenta-)red buttonhole lace including on (deep gold-yellow) cuffs and waistcoat, (magenta-)red turnbacks ; white gaiters.
Breeches: 4 different differing shades of yellow, from straw to Napoleonic ‘Chamois’, Conde ‘Ventre de biche’) and abricot;
X 2 ‘metals’ (brass for ‘senior’ regiments, tin for ‘junior’ ones), X2 pockets (horizontal / vertical)
-> 16 regiments.
_Centre companies (‘Arcabuceros’) in WAS dress, tricorn, cartridge box on shoulder strap.
_ Piqueros actually with rifle, a larger sword-bayonet in addition to a hanger, and a ‘belly’ cartridge box; full breast & backplate above the WSS coat, stripped shoulder pads, red lace above all sewings of the coat. Morion. Sergeants with ‘real’, old-fashioned halberds. 16 coys potentially converged into 2 ‘Elite’ regiments (1 ‘gold’, 1 ‘silver’), detachments ‘on duty’ acting as Foot Guard of the Vice-Rey.
_ Mosqueteros actually corresponding to grenadiers, with the corresponding peculiarities of equipment & armement; their bayonet is specially larger and each wears a small hatchet. WSS dress including tricorn, ‘Renaissance’ stripped shoulder pads, breastplate under the coat; sergeants with full cuirass over the coat, morion, red lace above all sewings of the coat. 16 coys potentially converged into 2 «Corps» ‘Veteran’ regiments (1 ‘gold’, 1 ‘silver’).
-°Line: «Army » ‘Veteran’ regiment:
standing regiment of ‘Musqueteros’, ‘gold’ metal, red breeches, gaiters of natural buff deerskin, vertically stripped ‘Sangre y Oro’ for sergeants. All rank wear the early 17th C. mustache & small beard.
-°Raw Line: Militia-pioneers-garrison infantry:
Unanormented WAS cut; coat or rather drab yellow, lined deep / drab crimsom (visible on cuffs & turnbacks); buttonholes lace on that same red, only on the breast of the coat. White cotton waistcoat & breeches. Cartridge bow at the belt but worn rather on the side, French ‘Compagnies de la Marine’ style. Metal: tin. While keeping the same general colors, sergeants and chiefly officers look more like those of ‘Arcabuceros’.
Drivers in similar uniform, with black riding boots or leather gaiters.
-°Light infantry:
_ Cacadores: 2 regiments (Veteran regular light infantry)
Uniform cut: Napoleonic Spanish guerillas, ‘alpargatas’ (no gaiters!), ‘panuelo’ on the head ‘Pirate fashion’ red for 1 regiment yellow for the other. Straw tricorn worn above for corporals, sergeants ‘normal’ tricorn above a ‘red’ gathering the hair and protecting it from dust. Red ‘waist’, breeches vertically stripped red & yellow for troops, plain red or yellow for sergeants, white for officers. ‘Escopeta’ as French ‘Chasseurs de Montagne’, sergeants blunderbuss + 1/2pike. Officers in more ‘European’ dress, with ‘mule’s ear’ boots. Musician with large Spanish red beret, with a hanging pompom either red or yellow. Metal: tin.
_ Ardientes: 1 regiment (Fanatic Irregular Charging infantry)
Uniform cut: ‘torero’, ‘alpargatas’ (no gaiters!), red traditional Spanish ‘cap’, sergeants ‘normal’ tricorn above a ‘red’ gathering the hair and protecting it from dust. Uniform yellow , with ± abundant red lace according to rank, yellow (gold for officers) embroideries above the lace; red stockings. Metal: brass / gold. Officers in more ‘European’ dress, with black leather buckled Dragoon ‘bottines’. Musicians with very small tricorn and large yellow & red oestrich feathers, false sleeves, &c… Basically blunderbuss, pistols and *large* boarding sabre.
_ Atiradores: 1 regiment (Warrior Irregular Skirmishing infantry)
Uniform cut: 18th C. Spanish ‘Miquelets’ / ‘Chasseurs des Pyrenees’. Rather similar to the ‘Cacadores’, but with the special leather flap at the belt to hold the bayonet and 2 pistols. Bandana stripped ‘Sangre y Oro’ for troops.
-CAVALRY
-°Guard: the very classic ‘Governor’s Guard’ of Pirate ranges, WSS cut, large tricon overfeathered. Red coat overabundantly decorated with gold lace incl. over all sewings, breastplate worn over a gold-yellow waistcoat edged with gold lace, gold-yellow breeches. Very decorated carbine bandolier and cartridges box.
Musicians in ‘Alguazil de corrida’ dress, in gold yellow lined red, abundant livery lace, red & yellow feathers.
-°Line (‘Horse’):
Early WAS cut, breastplate under the coat. Color pattern as for the Line Infantry, metal always brass. Trumpeter &c. with Late Renaissance Spanish cavalry hat (abundant red & yellow plumes), tabard with false sleeves &c..
-°Coraceros: periodically converged elite companies of the 8 regiments of cavalry. Full cuirass above the coat, morion, lance with sangre / oro / sangre flame, very short rifle instead of carbine.
-°Light cavalry:
Look rather like modern ‘picadores’ (unprotected horse!), ‘moorish’ shield, lance;
The 2 ‘warrior’ regiments wear a ‘panuelo’ on the head ‘Pirate fashion’ red for 1 regiment yellow for the other (rather like the foot ‘Cacadores’, but sergeants wear a ‘picador’ hat), and minor details of the uniform look ‘Gypsy’, color pattern like the Militia, red & yellow shoulder ‘wings’; ‘mule’s ear’ Mexican boots. Metal: tin. Saddle of the ‘vaquero’ type, + pistol holsters. Short carbine, no bayonet.
The ‘veteran regular’ regiment wears turned down Mexican boots (and peculiar stirrups), leather gaiters for officers. Saddlery more ‘Arab’. Metal: brass. Modern ‘picador’ hat, above a ‘red’ gathering the hair and protecting it from dust. ‘Dragoon’ musket and bayonet, larger sword. Red ‘waist’ and sash, yellow & gold shoulder ‘wings’, yellow breeches. Abundant yellow lacing for sergeants. Officers in full ‘European’ dress, abundantly laced in gold..
-ARTILLERY
-°Batallion guns:
Crew with same uniform as the corresponding infantrymen, but with (magenta-)red waistcoat, laced gold yellow in those units with a laced waistcoat.
-°Position / Heavy artillery:
same uniform as the «Army » ‘Veteran’ Line infantry regiment, but with (magenta-)red waistcoat; yellow gaiters (stockings for officers); sergeants with breastplate, officers with full cuirass above the coat but yet tricorn.
-°Elite / Guard Heavy artillery: same as above, but rankings & sergeants with white gaiters, officers black buckled leather riding gaiters; privates with breastplate under the coat but tricorn; sergeants full cuirass & morion, lacing on all sewings of the coat.
-°Bombarderos (siege howitzers): same as above, but all ranks with full cuirass and morion, lacing on all sewings of the coat; red gaiters.
-°Artilleria de galope:
like the Ardientes, crew red ‘subwaist’ with yellow braiding, ‘picador’ hat and ‘mule’s ear’ Mexican boots, drivers red ‘cap’, natural buckskin breeches and high, hard riding boots. Officers in more ‘European’ dress, with black leather buckled Dragoon ‘bottines’.
SPANISH TROOPS IN FICTITIOUS AMERICA
II- «MODERN» SPANIARDS (BRAZIL)
Brazil: geographically, whole ‘America’ south of Belize; politically the same (British Surinam and French Guyana excepted), all Spanish under a single Vice-Rey.
Uniforms of ‘modern’ Spanish cut for the WAS.
To conquer & control so large a ‘half-Continent’, soon the Spanish practice was to field mixed ‘Legiones’ / ‘Batallas’ -actually complete, self-sufficient mini armies.
They were modelled on the Ancient Roman legions, around a ‘Bandera’ mainly of close-order infantry but with integral cavalry (here seen as ‘true’ Horse), artillery, and light infantry on the model of Republican Roman ‘velites’. To it were attached ‘non-legionary’ troops, corresponding to the Republican Roman ‘Allies’ and Imperial Roman ‘Auxiliaries’. With time the difference between ‘Bandera’ and ‘not-Bandera’ troops became purely cosmetical –e.g. only the ‘Bandera’ cavalry has the rectangular standard of true ‘Horse’. To-day ‘Bandera’ corresponds to the mixed ‘reinforced mixed brigade’ as a whole.
A major consequence is that the uniform is basically set at ‘Bandera’ level. The various sub-units / specialities differ by characterictic details standardized across the ‘Banderas’, keeping a satisfaying ‘homogeneous look’ to «provisional units» of converged outfits with the same specificity (grenadiers, light troops) from various ‘Banderas’.
Actually the main uniform pattern is set at an even higher level, that of 4 ‘Tetrádicas’, initially corresponding to the 4 major administrative divisions of ‘Brazil’.
_Universal base: gold-yellow coat, (orange-) buff waistcoat, (blood) red breeches.
Note that, according to Spanish practice, all types of infantrymen wear a ‘belly’ cartridge box.
The color of coat lacing is independant of regimental'metal'; similarly the tricorn lace is as indicated, regardless of ‘metal’.
Drummers, trumpeters, all musicians : coat in ‘reversed’ colors, false sleeves, livery lace; subunits with bearskin or helmet: musicians with white bearskin or red horsehair.
The 4 ‘Tetrádicas’ are so characterized:
-facings: lemon yellow, no lapels, coat buttons by 3; white (mixed with sky blue for contrast) buttonholes lace on coat;
-facings: black, incl.lapels with white ‘bastion / diamond’ buttonhole pipping (Bavarian ?), coat buttons by 4;
-facings: red, incl lapels ending in a peak (British pattern, short ‘half-lapels’ for troops, full British lapels from sergeants up) with yellow lacing, coat buttons by 2;
-facings: white, ‘French’ lapels, coat buttons by 1; no buttonhole lacing on the coat, but the waistcoat is abundantly braided bright yellow, Hungarian-fashion.
Then the 4 ‘Banderas’ of each ‘Tetrádica’ are distinguished by a combination of ‘metal’, orientation of the pockets, and very thin pipping of the coat buttonhole (invisible on 30mm minis! But the same color is mixed with thread of ‘metal’ color –gold or silver for officers– in the ‘sword knot’ of sergeants and officers):
-brass / gold , horizontal pockets, dark blue pipping of the buttonhole,
-brass / gold, vertical, burgundy,
-tin / silver, horizontal, black,
-tin / silver, vertical, lavander.
_Each of the 16 ‘BANDERAS’ has basically the same composition:
-a ‘Cohorte’ of infantry:
°Fusileros: ‘Trained Regular’, tricorn with yellow lace: 8 companies,
°Veteranos de tradición: ‘Elite Regular’ equiped as grenadiers, bearskin not dissimilar current one of Danish guard (officers with gold lace on tricorn), additional lace on coat: 1 company, ‘turning’ as Foot Guards of the Vice-Rey when not converged.
°Granaderos: ‘Veteran Regular’ equiped as grenadiers, bearskin: almost French Napoleonic (without plate) + ‘bag’ of the facing color cf. French Volunteers of Bussy in India, but shorter (officers with gold lace on tricorn), 1 company,
°Alabarderos: ‘Veteran Regular’ equiped as grenadiers, bearskin: Spanish but with a *red* flat (oblique) rear instead of a hanging bag [thus the hat, from 3/4 or full rear, looks rather like that of a British / Prussian / later Russian mitre edged with fur] (officers with gold lace on tricorn), additional lace on coat: 1/2 company,
°Cacadores: ‘Veteran Regular light foot’, busby with bag of the facing color (officers with gold lace on tricorn) ): 1 company,
°Atiradores: ‘Warrior Irregular skirmishing infantry’, helmet of the ‘British light troops in the AWI’ type (low fontal plate, low crest, black horsehair) incl. officers (white horsehair for them): 1/2 company,
°Ardientes: ‘Fanatic Irregular charging infantry’, helmet of the Spanish ‘Militias Urbanas’ type: 1/2 company,
°Trabajadores : (pioneers / garrison): ‘Raw Regular’, tricorn with white lace, lace on coat (or waistcoat) only from sergeants up, buskskin gaiters for troop: 1/2 company ; Drivers dressed similarly, with black riding boots or natural leather gaiters; red ‘Quecha’ (Peruvian Indian ) gorro, except for those of staff coaches & horse artillery who wear a tricorn with *white* lace.
-an ‘‘Ala’ of cavalry:
°Caballeros: ‘Trained Regular’, tricorn with yellow lace, carbine: 4 companies, with a single rectangular standard (when converged in 4 ‘media brigadas’, 4 of the 8 standards are used for the ‘Trained’ provisional units, 1 for the converged ‘Coraceros’, 3 remain in barracks –or 2 and 1 staying with the Vice-Rey if not present on the field),
°Coraceros: ‘Elite Regular’, feathered tricorn with gold lace, coat overabundantly decorated with gold lace incl. over all sewings, full cuirass, very decorated carbine bandolier and cartridges box: 1/2 company, ‘turning’ as ‘Guardias of the Vice-Rey’ with 1 of the 8 standards.
°Granaderos a caballo: ‘Veteran Regular’, equiped as grenadiers, breastplate worn over a gold-yellow waistcoat, bearskin (incl. officers): Spanish but with a *red* flat (oblique) rear instead of a hanging bag [thus the hat, from 3/4 or full rear, looks rather like that of a British / Prussian / later Russian mitre edged with fur], black buckled boots of the French ‘Grenadiers à cheval’ type, dragoon musket with long bayonet: 1/2 company.
°Jinetes: ‘Veteran Regular light horse’, equiped as Dragoons but with soft boot, ‘semi-Tarleton’ helmet of the Napoleonic Spanish light infantry: 1/2 company.
°Cacadores a caballo: ‘Warrior Irregular light horse’, light boots, coat & waistcoat shorter & tighter, ‘Hungarian’ braiding instead of lace on the coat, black round ‘Britton’ hat with one side vertical: 2 companies with a single ‘swallowtail’ flag standard (when converged in 2 ‘media brigadas’, only 4 of the 8 flags are used, as provisional ‘media brigada’ banner: 2 for the ‘Cacadores’, 1 for the converged ‘Granaderos a caballo’, 1 for the converged ‘Jinetes’),
-Artillería :
Each ‘’Bandera’ own a full range of pieces, with the required Train.
All tricorns with yellow lace.
When the 16 ‘Banderas’ are gathered in an ‘Ejercito’:
. ° the 8 ‘half-batteries’ of ‘Trained’ battalion guns come from the 8 ‘tin / silver’ Banderas
. ° the 0.5 battery of Elite (light-medium) battalion guns comes from the ‘Yellow facings * brass / gold * vertical pockets’ Bandera
. ° the 0.5 battery of Veteran (very light) battalion guns comes from the ‘White facings * brass / gold * vertical pockets’ Bandera
. ° the single ‘medium’ Trained position battery comes from the ‘Red facings * brass / gold * vertical pockets’ Bandera
. °the 4 Trained 4 Heavy batteries come from the 4 ‘brass / gold * horizontal pockets’ Banderas
. ° the single ‘Very Heavy’ Elite position battery comes from the ‘Red facings * brass / gold * horizontal pockets’ Bandera; additional lace on the coat
. ° the single ‘Bombarderos’ (Veteran serving siege howitzers) battery comes from the ‘Black facings * brass / gold * horizontal pockets’ Bandera; additional lace on the coat, equipment as grenadiers, bearskin as Alabarderos
. ° the single ‘Artillería volante’ (Veteran light Horse artillery, Soldier drivers) battery comes from the ‘Black facings * brass / gold * vertical pockets’ Bandera; crew with same helmets as ‘Jinetes’.
FICTITIOUS CATHOLIC ARMIES IN NORTH AMERICA
At first, as described in the post, I followed the ‘historical precedent’ and kept the armed forces of both the Acadian ‘Legitime British Kingdom in Exile’ and the ‘New Ireland’ ‘likely’: mainly infantry with a rather high proportion of militia and light foot, few artillery pieces, almost no cavalry.
Then, I could not refrain to endvisage a force fitting in my ‘standardized Army List’ – a single, mixed, one initially (these 2 countries are rather small and with limited resources). But both countries provide interesting minority troop types; and ‘minority types’ have to remain so (my ‘rule of thumb’: at least 8/13 of the units in fully ‘normal’ Western European uniforms). Thus in the end I have 2 full armies – probably it would be ‘realistic’, in campaign terms, to see them with a different representational scale, i.e. 1 ‘batallion’ corresponding only to 1 actual company, 1 mini = 2 men instead of = 14.
Below, a very sketchy description of the uniforms, following the format of my ‘standardized Army List’.
One common feature: exceptionally, the ‘very light’ batallion gun is attached, *not* to the ‘Irregular Skirmishing Infantry’ unit (Indians, here), but to one of the ‘Veteran Regular Light Foot’ regiments; keeps its special mobility ability (crosses most terrains and evades as the infantry it is attached to).
I - ARMY OF THE «TRUE CROWN PROVINCE»
Drummers, trumpeters, musicians… follow the *British* rule, adapted to the details of the uniform.
INFANTRY
_° Line:
-2 battalions of ‘Elite Regular Line Foot’: as British Foot Guards but ‘French’ cuffs (see ‘Trained Line’ batallions); equiped as grenadiers, but tricorn and no mustach, hair worn as Line sergeants; metal: gold, facing color: 1 as British Foot Guards, 1 blueish-purple.
-3 battalions of ‘Veteran Regular Line’:
Loyal Scottish Brigade: 1 batallion as ‘Royal Ecossais’ (grenadier with ‘French’ bearskin with red bag, to increase ‘characterization’) but blue and red reversed, 1 as ‘Highland complement of Royal Ecossais’ (same colors, blue bonnet, short ‘Highlands’ coat & waistcoat, ‘British’ gaiters, grenadiers in plaid –and, yes, with targe, 1 with fully ‘British Foot’ cut of the uniform (grenadiers with British mitre) but cuffs as 1st batallion and same color pattern. To differenciate them from the corresponding brigade in one of the ‘Post-Culloden victorious Jacobites’ armies, the red and blue are ‘British’ and metal = gold (thus, yellow lace).
-16 battalions of ‘Trained Regular Line Foot’:
Uniform of French cut (tricorn type, cuffs –no V on sleeves– gaiters) but British lapels, British cartridge box, way of wearing the sword & bayonet, &c. Uniform entirely of ‘British’ red (varying with rank). Grenadiers (never converged) with usual characteristics, British mitre displaying the Stuart lion. Metal = tin, thus white / silver lace.
Regimental colors (on cuffs, lapels & turnbacks, and as zigzag pipping on the lace): lemon yellow, yellow-pumpkin, deep orange/tawny, light vermilion red, cranberry, cherry, raspberry, dark raspberry-blackcurrant, salmon, cinnamon, murray, purple, light sky blue, medium /cornflower blue, lime green, emerald green (colors used by Strelsti in the 17th C., so technically available).
-1 battalion of Militia / Garrison troops / Army Pioneers: uniform a synthesis of the various ‘Scottish’ dress of FIW rangers, natural buckskin Indian legwear, blue bonnet, any blue or green in the uniform substituted with deep British crimsom / burgundy; sergeants with ‘sailor' shoes, ‘European’ natural deerskin gaiters, short ‘sailor’ (‘Marbleheaders’?) waistcoat and overcoat, some feathers on the bonnet, Indian belt & ‘jewelry’; officers tricorn, uniform of same cut as 1st veteran regular light foot below, crimsom coat with scarlet facings, adrk crimsom / burgundy smallclothes, French dragoon ‘bottines’; metal = tin, but for troops buttons are generally of wood or horn.
Drivers dressed basically the same, but with a dark red ‘sailor’ homespun bonnet / cap; a ‘peasant’ smock often worn as upper garnment; ‘Confederate grey’ breeches and black Indian legwear for pack drivers, bucskin breeches and black buckled ‘bottines’ for the ‘riding’ ones; additionally those of the Horse Artillery, of full military, ‘professional’, status, wear hard, high riding boots, the same upper garnments as militia sergeants and a tricorn.
_° Light infantry:
-1 battalion of Veteran Regular Light Foot: converged Light Demi-companies from the 16 ‘Trained Line’ battalions; shortened coat & waistcoat, a tomahawk in addition to strandard weapons, a very *large* ‘navel’ cartridge box in addition to the normal’ one; buckskin breeches, reinforced ‘Grassin’ light grey gaiters; helmet: as de Saxe’s ‘Pacolets’ in their earliest form (turban: jaguar for sergeants), black horse hair (red for musicians), for officers as de Saxe’s Uhlans , medium blue turban with red crisscrossed strings, white horsehair.
-1 battalion of Veteran Regular Light Foot: Welsh from Gwynedd Newydd: odd black tricorn with high top (cf. Peruvian women ‘bowler hat’) and relatively low sides, the lace edging anormally narrow; that of sergeants is fully intermediate with a GNW Russian tricorn, that of officers is identical to a British infantry officer’s; cut of the uniform: ‘Victorian’ interpretation of 18th C. male Welsh costume, rather short coat & waistcoat of very dark red (darker than late 17th C. British crimsom), short dark (yet lighter) red cape, trews-like trousers gathered under the knee to look like breeches + stockings, of ‘celtic’ chequered pattern of light maroon and buff; officers in ‘European’ dress, coat the same color as other ranks’ cape lined vermilion, waistcoat the same dark red as other ranks’ coat, light buff breeches, black buckled ‘bottines’. Sergeants with musket, officers with rifle or carbine and bayonet. The ‘very light’ battalion gun is attached to this unit.
-1 battalion of Fanatic Irregular Charging Infantry: basically Jacobite Lowlanders of the "45, but with Highlander dagger, pistol(s) and broadsword, tomahawk, sergeants with Lochaber ax doubling as musket rest, officers with targe and blunderbuss or short multibarrelled ‘Navy’ carbine.
Coat & waistcoat British red (varying with rank) with medium blue facings, dark blue trews or breeches, black Indian legwear, european gaiters and dragoon ‘bottines’ for troops, sergeants and officers respectively; metal = tin.
-1 battalion of Warrior Irregular Skirmishing Infantry: Mohawks auxiliaries, see ‘The Oumpah-pah case above.
CAVALRY
_° Line:
-1 regiment of ‘Elite Regular Heavy Horse’: historical Jacobite Prince’s Lifeguards, with a breastplate under the coat.
-1 regiment of ‘Veteran Regular Heavy Horse’: French ‘Gardes du Corps’, substitute blue with British (officer’s) scarlet and red with English ‘royal blue’, black buckled boots of French ‘Grenadiers à cheval’, metal: gold.
-2 regiments of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Horse type 1: French Horse, British Horse lacing and lapels but no V on sleeves, complemented by Fritzjames Horse lacing on coat & waistcoat; metal: brass; British red (varying with rank) coat, buckskin breeches, facing & saddlecloth :
° 1: royal blue (waistcoat as facings)
° 1 scottish blue (waistcoat as coat)
-1 regiment of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Horse type 2: from Harris’ book on model soldiers, ‘Irish in French service’ looking quite like ‘Royal Allemand’ with a red coat, black facings, bearskin; metal: brass.
-1 regiment of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’
Horse type 3: British Dragoon Guards but cuffs & sleeves as > type 1, metal: brass.
-4 regiments of Dragoons (Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry): as British ‘ordinary’ Dragoons but French Dragoons cuffs & sleeves, all smallclothes same red as coat, black French dragoon ‘bottines’, metal: tin; facings & saddlecloth
° 1: sky blue
° 1: moss green
° 1: buff
° 1: lemon yellow
(the ‘buff + yellow’ brigade can dismount).
_° Light cavalry:
-1 regiment of Chevau-Legers (Veteran Regular Light Horse): as historical British *light* dragoons of the "45, without the (green) plume, substitute green with cornflower blue; short carbine, but bayonet.
-1 regiment of Light Horse (Warrior Irregular Light cavalry): converged light squadrons of the 4 regiments of Horse; genral cut of the uniform as Horse type 1, but shortened / tighter coat & waistcoat, keeping the lapels, lace &c… of the parent unit; helmet as French post-SYW mixed Legions of light troops, horsehair black (white for officers, red for musicians).
-1 regiment of Light Dragoons (Warrior Irregular Light cavalry): converged light squadrons of the 4 regiments of Dragoons; shortened / tighter coat & waistcoat, keeping the lapels, lace &c… of the parent unit; French dragoon ‘bottines’, light ‘Hussar’ carbine, ‘Hussar’ saddlery &c; headgear: sky blue Highlander bonnet for the 1st squadron, Prussian-type fatigue cap derived from the coat for the other 3.
ARTILLERY
_° Line: French ‘Royal artillery’ but exact blue and red hues and all coat decorations, lapels & lacings except the V on sleeves as British Royal Artlllery; metal : silver.
_° Veteran Line battalion gun, Elite Heavy: metal : gold, waistcoat as British Royal Artillery.
_° Veteran Light battalion gun: as ‘Trained’ but waistcoat as British Royal Artillery (double buttonning....) and black gaiters.
_° Bombardiers (Veterans crewing Siege Howitzers): as ‘Trained’ but equiped as Grenadiers (no mustache), mitre of the British Royal Marines type.
_° Galloping guns (Veterans crewing light Horse Artillery): metal, colors of uniform and decoration of waistcoat as Elite Heavy crew, black French dragoon buckled ‘bottines’, coat & waistcoat same general cut as Light Horse (above), helmet : La Morliere Dragoons, ‘artillery blue’ turban with red crisscrossed strings, horsehair black (white for officers, red for musicians).
II « NEO-IRISH» ARMY
A very sketchy description of the uniforms, following the format of my ‘standardized Army List’.
Drummers, trumpeters, musicians… follow the *FRENCH* pattern of the Late Napoleonic ‘Imperial Livery’ but ‘Eirin Green’, gold harps instead of eagles, ‘Irish saffron’ instead of red, adapted to the details of the uniform.
No dismounting Dragoons brigade, instead the «Army» regiment of Veteran Line Infantry is able to fight in loose order.
Most of the Army wears coats of the same ‘Eirin’ rather bright green.
INFANTRY
_° Line:
Uniform basically deried from mythical ‘Irish at Fontenoy’; generally white gaiters for Foot.
-2 battalions of ‘Elite Regular Line Foot’: as image, metal: brass, all peculiarities of Grenadiers except mustache; the ‘belly’ cartridge bow is larger and wider than average, tricorn:
°1: Gold yellow waistcoat and facings, no lapels, buttonholes lacing on coat ‘Gardes Francaise fashion’ but evenly spaced;
°1: white waistcoat and facings, black cuffs, white ‘British’ lapels.
-2 battalions of ‘Veteran Regular Line Foot able to fight in loose order’: converged Grenadiers from the 16 ‘Trained’ regiments; all Grenadiers peculiarities including mustache:
°1: ⇔ 8 ‘type 1’ regiments, (dark) brown bearskin of de Bussy type, bag of facing color,
°1: ⇔ 8 ‘type 2’ regiments, black bearskin of ‘Grenadiers Royaux’ type, bag of facing color.
-1 battalion of ‘Veteran Regular Line Foot able to fight in loose order’: standing unit of Fusiliers: as Elite foot, no buttonhole lacing on coat, no lapels, Irish saffron facings, dark ‘forester’ green waistcoat, light-medium maroon breeches (‘Fenian Regulars’); ‘Hungarian’ braiding of the facing color on waistcoat, metal: silver, French fatigue cap with dark green bag, Eirin green edged yellow turban, officers turban of grizzly fur.
-16 battalions of ‘Trained Regular Line Foot’:
°8 ‘Type 1’: as image, no lapels, Irish saffron waistcoat, facings and cuffs: madder (lie de vin), curdled blood, ‘ox blood’, English scarlet, ‘dawn’, ‘nasturtium’, ‘jonquil’, (greenish) lemon yellow;
°4 ‘Type 2’: basically from Irish regiments in French service, Eirin green instead of red: 2 ‘cuts’ (1 type 77th / 83rd : no lapels, horizontal pockets, narrow buttonhole lacing on coat, none on waistcoat, waistcoat of facing color, metal: brass ; 1 type 84th: lapels, no buttonhole lacing & different cuffs on coat, vertical pockets, narrow buttonhole lacing on waistcoat, waistcoat of coat color, metal: tin) x 4 facing colors: black, bright yellow, cornflower blue, white.
-1 battalion of Militia / Garrison (Raw Regular Line Foot): metal = tin; rather like French Canadian militia, short Eirin green ‘capot’ lined the same with ‘round’ cuffs, dark green sash, knitted dark green cap, very dark brown breeches, natural deerskin Indian ‘mitasses’, mocassins; large cartridge box at the waistbelt worn on the side, Ny Tradgarlander militia fashion; corporals Eirin green old-fashioned greatcoat of civilian cut with ‘round’ cuffs lined with same color worn without turnbacks, dark green waistcoat, breeches as troop, light maroon stocks, ‘sailor’ shoes, Eirin & dark greens fatigue cap; sergeants Eirin green ‘sailor’ longcoat over dark green ‘Navy’ short jacket, breeches as troop, natural deerskin ‘European’ gaiters, laced tricorn; officers ‘European’ justaucorps Eirin green lined ‘Confederate chesnut’, dark green smallclothes, black leather buckled dragoon ‘bottines’
Drivers dressed basically the same, pack drivers ‘Confederate chesnut’ breeches and black European gaiters, bucskin breeches, black hard, high boots and light cavalry sword for the ‘riding’ ones; additionally those of the Horse Artillery, of full military, ‘professional’, status, wear the same upper garnments as militia sergeants and a laced tricorn.
_° Light infantry:
-1 battalion of Veteran Regular Light Foot: converged Light Demi-companies from the 16 ‘Trained Line’ batallions; a tomahawk in addition to strandard weapons, a very *large* ‘navel’ cartridge box in addition to the normal’ one; buckskin breeches, very dark green Indian legwear; bearskin as French Canadian ‘Corps de Cavalerie’.
-1 battalion of Veteran Regular Light Foot: Sidhe Kerns ECW Irish dark green bonnet / knitted cap for troops, perhaps dark green 1798 bonnet / cap for sergeants; cut of the uniform: troop «1798 Irish» ‘Leprechaun’ upper garnments, Eirin green over dark green, sergeant Eirin green short coat over dark green shorter waiscoat (‘Laptots de Gorée’ junior officers pattern), officers ‘normal’ justaucorps & waistcoat, feathered and laced tricorn, dark green ‘traditional’ cloak; metal = tin; all long, tight trews coming under the feet (for officers, gathered under the knee to look like breeches + stockings) of chequered ‘Fenian Zuave’ pattern; troop ‘belly’ cartridge box, tomahawk in addition to hanger and bayonet, sergeants 1798 Irish 1/2pike doubling as rest (cf. WBS Grenze sharpshooters) for a ‘Kentucky’ long rifle, no bayonet, ‘Bowie knife’ in addition to sword; officers short rifle with long bayonet, pistols. The ‘very light’ battalion gun is attached to this unit.
-1 battalion of Fanatic Irregular Charging Infantry: Gallowglass: upper garnments as Kerns, dark forester green waist /undercoat, buttercup yellow facings, metal = tin, officers dark green cloak worn rolled across the breast; buttercup yellow edged Eirin green (bear fur for officers) French fatigue cap with dark forester green bag, light (blueish?-)grey breeches (Zouaves Pontificaux / Volontaires de l’Ouest –may vary with rank); black shoes and black Indian ‘mitasses’ (black French ‘bottines’, Dragoon pattern for junior officers, Grenadier a cheval pattern for senior ones). Troop huge ‘boarding’ sabre, tomahawk, musket, bayonet; corporals add a 1798 Irish 1/2pike doubling as musket rest, sergeants 1798 Irish 1/2pike, huge ‘boarding’ sabre, pistols, blunderbuss, no bayonet but ‘butchery’ knife, officer Highlands broadsword + hunting dagger & pistols.
-1 battalion of Warrior Irregular Skirmishing Infantry: Indian auxiliaries, no mohawk but braids, fur cap, light greyish-green short ‘capot’ with ‘round’ cuffs, Eirin green waist sash (chieftains: European –civilian, even ‘sailor’? – light greyish-green lined Eirin green coat & ‘forester green’ waistcoat, 1 or 3 gorgets according to seniority, dark buskskin ‘hose’, black ‘mitasses’ (dark gren for chieftains), troop trade musket, no bayonet, knife, tomahawk, 1-hand mace, ‘veterans’ (= sergeants) Kentucky longrifle, ‘chieftains’ (= officers) carbine without bayonet [short rifled one of French ‘Carabiniers’ for senior Chief] and *huge* 2-handed mace / ‘skull crusher’.
CAVALRY
_° Line:
-1 regiment of ‘Eirin Horse Guards’ (Elite Regular Heavy Horse) {still undecided: ‘Republican’ or ‘HighKing’s’?}: French Dragoons WSS cut but WAS lacing), whole uniform Irish saffron, Eirin green facings and saddlecloth, metal: silver (in coat & waistcoat lace, mixed with sky blue silk, for contrast against the yellow cloth), ‘bottines’ of 1730 French Grenadiers a cheval pattern.
-1 regiment of Horse Grenadiers (Veteran Regular Heavy Horse): as troopers of French Canadian ‘Corps de Cavalrie’, bearskin with saffron bag, on coat & saddlecloth substitute blue with Eirin green and red with saffron, waistcoat unchanged, dark blue breeches (white for officers).
-2 regiments of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Horse type 1: French Horse, Eirin green coat, buckskin smallclothes, metal = silver, facing & saddlecloth:
° 1: lime green
° 1: Irish saffron.
-2 regiment of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Horse type 2: Austrian Dragoon for equipment and uniform cut, color pattern of ‘Fenian Dragoons’ (main green = Eirin green), metal = silver, facing & saddlecloth:
° 1: malachite (emerald) blueish green
° 1: lewon yellow
-2 regiments of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Dragoons type 1: French Dragoons, whole uniform Eirin green, 1 company (never detached) of Horse Grenadiers with all traditional characteristics, bearskin as Veteran HC above with bag of the facing color, metal = silver, facing & saddlecloth:
° 1: moss green
° 1: anise yellow
-2 regiments of ‘Trained Regular Heavy Cavalry’ Dragoons type 2: Swedish Horse for equipment and uniform cut, Austrian Carabinier ‘bottines’, historical Fenian uniform color pattern, main color Eirin green, 1 company (never detached) of Horse Grenadiers with all traditional characteristics, GNW Swedish cap Eirin green & the facing color, metal = silver, facing & saddlecloth:
° 1: spinach green
° 1: ‘ventre de biche’
_° Light cavalry:
-1 regiment of ‘Chasseurs’ (Veteran Regular Light Horse): general cut as de Saxe’s ‘daydreamed’ Legion , coat Eirin green with saffron pipping on all edges and sewings, saffron smallclothes, metal = brass, French dragoons ‘bottines’, light equipment; helmet (and shoulder ‘wings’) as AA Elfish Dragoons , greenish black crest, helmets of trumpeters (saffron feathers) & officers (Eirin green feathers) as AA EoA Dragoon Command.
-1 regiment of Light Horse (Warrior Irregular Light cavalry): converged light squadrons of the 4 regiments of Horse; general cut of the uniform as de Saxe’s ‘daydreamed’ Legion, keeping the lapels, lace &c… of the parent unit but smaller cuffs; high soft riding boots; lightened equipment, light ‘hussar’ carbine (blunderbuss for officers); helmet as early Dragoons of the Volontaires de Clermont-Prince, saffron turban with ‘Napoleonic Imperial green’ crisscrossed strings, horsehair black (white for officers, yellow for musicians).
-1 regiment of Light Dragoons (Warrior Irregular Light cavalry): converged light squadrons of the 4 regiments of Dragoons; general cut of the uniform as de Saxe’s ‘daydreamed’ Legion, keeping the lapels, lace &c… of the parent unit but smaller cuffs; French dragoon ‘bottines’, light ‘Hussar’ carbine (blunderbuss for officers);, ‘Hussar’ saddlery &c; helmet as early Fusiliers of the Volontaires de Clermont-Prince, Eirin green turban with saffron crisscrossed strings, horsehair black (white for officers, yellow for musicians).
ARTILLERY
_° Trained ‘position’ batteries: French ‘Royal artillery’ but very dark ‘fir tree’ green smallclothes; metal : silver.
_° Trained batttalion guns: id° but waistcoat and breeches as ‘Fusiliers’ («Army» Veteran Line Foot) above.
_° Veteran Line battalion gun, Elite Heavy: metal : gold, waistcoat with double buttoning & different cuffs (‘Dutch’ Austrian artillery).
_° Veteran Light battalion gun: as ‘Trained’ but cut of the uniform as de Saxe’s ‘daydreamed’ Legion.
_° Bombardiers (Veterans crewing Siege Howitzers): as ‘Trained’ but equiped as Grenadiers –including mustache, Austrian grenadiers bearskin with ‘fire red’ bag.
_° Galloping guns (Veterans crewing light Horse Artillery): metal = brass, cut of the uniform as de Saxe’s ‘daydreamed’ Legion, Eirin green coat with red facings, buckskin waistcoat with red ‘Hungarian’ braiding, buckskin breeches, black French dragoon buckled ‘bottines’, helmet as Regular ‘Chasseurs à cheval’ above, all ranks red crest or feathers (yellow for trumpeters)
III – ANNEX: ADDITIONAL REGIMENTS IN NOUVELLE FRANCE
* LINE INFANTRY
2 ‘French’ and 2 ‘Foreign’ regiments. Contrary to the ‘Compagnies Franches de la Marine’ the former 2 are recruited from settlers in the New World.
Each battalion counts 9 Fusiliers companies (including a ‘depot’ one also manning the garrison guns), 1 Grenadiers and 1 Chasseurs companies.
Routinely each battalion fields 8 companies (6 fusiliers, 1 grenadiers, 1 chasseurs): ‘flank’ companies then behave –except at skirmish level– as ordinary line infantry.
If a further effort is required, each battalion fields its 8 ‘centre’ companies and the converged flank companies provide a 5th full-strength battalion of ‘Veteran Regular Infantry able to fight in loose order’.
*The 2 ‘French’ regiments field battalion guns.
LOYAL ECOSSAIS
(*Royal* Ecossais has been transfered to Stuart service in Acadia)
Colonel McDuck (McDonalds being ™)
Actually counts also Irish, Welsh and English recruits and Hanovrian deserters.
°British ‘royal blue’ coat & waistcoat, red facings.
°Except bagpipers always in great kilt, long, tight trews (gathered under the knee to look like breeches + stockings); of tartan similar to the Victorian Murray of Athol but with sky blue instead of olive green, the dark large lines basically dark blue and the thin pipping blueish (ancient cheap) purple instead of red.
°Metal: tin.
‘Centre’ companies: the coat & waistcoat have features of Victorian Highlander uniforms. ‘Normal’ Highlander blue bonnet, no tourie for troops, black one for sergeants, red & larger one for officers; a few short straight feathers, longer for sergeants, larger & soft (oestrich?) for officers.
Troop with French musket, bayonet, infantry sword and leathers (cartridge box on a shoulder belt), corporals add a Highland all-metal pistol on the breast and a lochaber ax doubling as musket rest, sergeants without musket but blunderbuss, 2 additional pistols and the old two-hands ‘true’ claymore, officers (‘European’ coat but rest of uniform as troops) carbine (except senior ones), pistols, basket-hilted boadsword and targe.
Grenadier company: the coat & waistcoat have additional features of Victorian Scottish Light Infantry, and larger ‘wings’; low mitre –British pattern but not higher than a Prussian fusilier’s (bagpipers still with bonnet); ‘normal’ grenadier features –large ‘grenades’ bag on large shoulder belt with fuse holder, ‘belly’ cartridge box– but no mustache; all ranks with musket (oddly of the light .68 ‘carbin’ pattern), bayonet, dagger, all-steel pistol and basket-hilted boadsword.
Light company: the coat & waistcoat are of the historical 1745 Highlander type, + British grenadier ‘wings’; privates often substitute mocassins to their official issue shoes; headgear (again, except bagpipers) similar to the WWI ‘Glengarrry’, with a few feathers on the side, following the same pattern as on ‘Fusiliers’’ bonnet. Cartridge box at the waist belt, over the navel; rifle + large hunting dagger-bayonet, tomahawk, ‘butcher’ knife and all-steel pistol for all ranks.
Drummers and musicians, including bagpipers: gold yellow coat with light-medium blue facings, livery lace basically red and gold; waistcoat and (except for bagpipers) trews as troop.
Common features to the next 3 regiments
(inspirated, as suggested by the Colonels’ names, by ‘Oumpa-pah)
°Uniform: basis
-‘French’ cut; officers coat (‘justaucorps’) always without lapels nor buttonhole lace but with silver lace / embroideries along all edges and over all sewings.
- White breeches and gaiters, waistcoat edged with white lace.
- Metal: tin
°Drummers and musicians: coat (mainly)
-Drummers: ‘small’ Royal livery (‘swallownests’ &‘great livery’ for the drum major).
-Bass drummer: (huge tom-tom): Indian: brownish-red (Swiss) or dark blue (French) indian legwear (‘mitasses’), off-white (cream) breeches, short medium blue (bleu de Roi) ‘capot’ with ‘round’ cuffs of the troop’s coat main color edged (over the buttons) with a large ribbon of the waistcoat color, leather (&pearls) ‘fringes’ as on hunting shirts ± imitating the King’s lace; red-dyed ‘Mohawk’ hair with red feathers (Swiss), buffalo war bonnet & wolf scalp respectively for the 2 French units.
-Musicians: coat: ‘reversed’ (Swiss) or ‘normal’ (French) colors, swallownests, narrow livery lace / pipping on all sewings.
°Grenadiers:‘normal’ grenadier features –large ‘grenades’ bag on large shoulder belt with fuse holder, ‘belly’ cartridge box, sabre, mustache; large ‘knot /flood’ of scalet ribbons on the right shoulder; tricorn.
°Chasseurs:‘the cartridge box is worn at navel level on the waistbelt; hanger + tomahawk + ‘Bowie knife’ instead of infantry sword, except for officers; privates in the field often wear mocassins, natural buckskin ‘mitasses’ and their fatigue cap.
°Battalion guns crew –French regiments only: cuffs of the facing color, the cartridge box is larger and worn at the waistbelt, but rather on the side, Ny Tradgarland militia fashion; hanger doubling as saw instead of infantry sword, as ‘elite’ specialists; double buttoning (Austrian artillery fashion) of the waistcoat.
°Regimental drivers: substitute a ‘peasant smock’ with round cuff to the coat; bucksin breeches and black dragoon ‘bottines’ if having to ride team horses.
°Sergeants and officers: no halberd or spontoon, always musket + bayonet or short carbine without respectively –most senior (mounted) officers only a twin-barrelled pistol at the waist.
REGIMENT DU VALAIS
Colonel de Millefeuilles
Deemed ‘Swiss’, but soldiers are recruited in the French-speaking Catholic Cantons on an individual basis, outside normal ‘Capitulations’; also includes many French-speaking Savoyards, and Catholic Germans, even a few Croats, Hungarians and Poles.
Garance-red coat lined the same, cornflower bue waistcoat,
‘open’ (almost ‘Prussian’, but without slap or pipping) cuffs, no lapels, buttonholes lace on the coat (‘Gardes Francaises’ fashion –but regularly spaced) but not on the waistcoat; sergeants buttonholes lace more important and mixed silver, narrower garance edged silver buttonholes lace on the waistcoat.
REGIMENT DE MONTREAL
Colonel de Goscinny
Light-medium (lighter than light‘royal’) blue coat, round (‘boot’) cuffs closed’ and with cuff flap, lapels, scarlet facings (but not cuffs, except for the battalion guns crew) and cuff flaps; scarlet waistcoat;
sergeants coat buttonholes lace more important and mixed silver, shorter and narrower sky blue edged silver buttonholes lace on the waistcoat.
REGIMENT DE QUEBEC
Colonel d’Uderzo
Light-medium (lighter than light‘royal’) blue coat, round (‘boot’) cuffs closed’ and with cuff flap, lapels, scarlet facings (but not cuffs, except for the battalion guns crew) and cuff flaps; sky blue waistcoat;
sergeants coat buttonholes lace more important and mixed silver, shorter narrower light scarlet edged silver buttonholes lace on the waistcoat.
* LIGHT INFANTRY
° 2 ‘Veteran Regular Light Foot’ units; no ‘light’ company, but 1 of the 8 companies has higher status as ‘Carabiniers’ with all ‘classical’ grenadiers specific features and large lapels on the coat.
BATAILLON FRANC DE FUNCKEN
From an illustration on L&F Funcken’s ‘All Ages’ vol.2: ‘normal’ French infantry uniform all (blueish) green lined the same (actually they forgot to draw the cuffs!), no lapels, black mirliton with white ‘flame’, white gaiters (of course!).
BATAILLON FRANC DE LAROUSSE
From an illustration in an early 20th C. 6 volumes dictionnary: basically Grassin, but by confusion with the 19th C. all the uniform is (rather dark) blue, darker blue cuffs, none (or very narrow? -the book is 360 km from here) fur edging.
° 1 ‘Irregular Light infantry’ unit:
FUSILIERS DU CORPS FRANC D’ALZHEIM
No ‘light’ company, but 1 of the 8 companies has higher status as ‘Grenadiers’.
helmet: from the 5 helmets of: de Saxe Pacolets, de Saxe Uhlans, Clermont-Prince Fusiliers, Clermont-Prince Dragoons, La Morliere Dragoons (but all without plume on the side), choose: 1 ‘Fusiliers & Dragoons other ranks’, 1 ‘Fusiliers & Dragoons officers’, 1 ‘Grenadiers & Carabiniers other ranks’, 1 ‘Grenadiers & Carabiniers officers’, 1 ‘Senior officers’ (+white larger horsehair, french 1772 pattern) helmets; helmet ‘steel’ for troops, bright polished ‘nickel-plated steel’ for sergeants, id° with brass crest for most officers, entirely golden / gilded for senior officers; black horsehair (except senior officers and drummers).
cut of the uniform: ‘normal’ French infantry; only Grenadiers and Carabiniers have lapels, other types have modest buttonholes lacing instead.
color pattern:
Inspiration: a «Germanic Warband» on the Duchy of Alzheim site!
-‘Tender green’ coat, ‘murray’ facings
- metal: tin /silver
- smallclothes and stockings:
. _ troop (‘natural leather’): light maroon-brown
. _sergeants (‘reddish natural leather’): more reddish maroon-brown
. _officers (‘ruby leather’ Irish Army of the "30): (brownish) ruby red
saddlecloth: ‘Tender green’
musicians:
- drummers: swallownests + false sleeves &c.. English pattern, but excessively wide and long and ‘knotted’ between the scapulas; + ‘large ‘knot /flood’ of livery lace ribbons on the both shoulders; livery lace on all edges and sewings of the coat; colors pattern as troop ; helmet with red horsehair.
- drum major: doubled and wider livery lace.
- bass drummer: as WAS Pandour / Croat with baggy trousers (Knötel); wide ‘murray’ false sleeves lined ‘Tender green’, tight ‘Tender green’‘true’ sleeves with ‘murray’ pointed cuffs and narrow livery lace on sewings.
- musicians: coat with ‘reversed’ colors, livery lace less wide than for drummers but same ‘cut’ with extravagant false sleeves; cap: combines features of the caps of Austrian artillery musicians and Saxe-Poland ‘Janissaries’ bagpiper, full fox tail behind, feathers (small dark green ‘casoar’) on the right side.
- fifers: as drummers but (narrow) lace as musicians.
Grenadiers: all ‘classical’ distinguishing features, + lapels & peculiar helmet.
* HEAVY CAVALRY
CUIRASSIERS D’OUTREMER
(as the next unit, from the ‘Napoleonic steampunk’ Comic Empire)
Basically similar to Prussian ‘Gardes du Corps’: all in white, short ‘kollet’, sabretache;
Metal: gold
Sky blue facings (and main color of sabretache, saddlecloth..);
Copper-plated cuirass, Napoleonic French Carabiniers-fashion, with bright silver ‘Musketeer’s’ cross + flames on the breastplate;
Helmet: basically of Napoleonic French Cuirassiers type, but without peak or neckpiece, horizontal lower edge as on Alternative Armies Avalonian Elves ‘Esprit du Garde’, and without plume; the extremity of the crest figures a Pegasus front part (head, shoulder + wings along the crest, upper part of the front leg); copper-plated with ‘gold’ (brass) crest, but entirely golden / gilded for officers; fur turban: officers jaguar, sergeants sea cow (discretly spotted), troop maroon cow pelt.
* VETERAN REGULAR LIGHT CAVALRY
CHASSEURS DES INDES
Clothes:
- Very short coat (and waistcoat, but almost invisible as the coat is worn closed): Highlander fashion (but reversing the lengths of coat & waistcoat) / Grenzer fashion (but with ‘straight’ ending of the waistcoat and no ‘Hussar’ sash-belt), *no* sabretache nonetheless;
°with very large lapels, going down to the waist, and round ‘boot’ cuffs edged with lace;
° (orange-)vermilion, lined the same;
°metal: gold ;
-sergeants: lapels edged with gold lace;
-officers: lapels totally concealed under golden buttonholes lace.
- Buckskin breeches (white for officers).
- Black leather buckled ‘bottines’, French Dragoons fashion (French Grenadiers à cheval for officers).
Helmet:
-: officers: identical to that of ‘Cuirassiers d’Outremer’ officers,
-: sergeants: all copper-plated, slightly smaller; lower, less adorned crest, less abundant horsehair, fur turban: sea cow (discretly spotted),
-: troop: all brass, even slightly smaller; even lower & even less adorned crest, even less abundant horsehair, fur turban: maroon cow pelt.
Weapons: huge heavy cavalry sabre, pistols in saddle holsters;
-: officers: + 1 (twin barrelled) pistol in a holster at the waistbelt, worn on the right;
-: sergeants: id° but two (single-barrelled) pistols (1 on each hip) + light cavalry carbine, bayonet;
-: troop: no waistbelt pistol, dragoon musket, bayonet.
* IRREGULAR LIGHT CAVALRY
DRAGONS DU CORPS FRANC D’ALZHEIM
Identical to their foot counterparts (Carabiniers ⇔ Grenadiers) except:
-a dragoon sword instead of infantry one (Cuirassiers forte epee for Carabiniers),
-dragoon musket (rifled carbine for Carabiniers: thus no bayonet, but a 1-shot grenade-thrower can be fixed under the barrel of the rifle)
-black ‘Austrian Carabinier’ leather gaiters–boots instead of white cloth gaiters
-‘murray’ saddlecloth.
Treat trumpeters as drummers, kettledrummer as bass drummer; the dragoons have hornists instead the fusiliers’ fifers (treat similarly) in addition to ‘other’ musicians.
IV – ANNEX 2: ADDITIONAL MILITIA IN BRITISH CANADA
Initially inspired by the "Aleister I, King of England, Scotland, Ireland and R'lyeh..." VSF thread
on the TMP.
British infantry in ‘simple, sober’ (American Regiment?) uniform, relatively little lace. Actually the decoration / ornamentation of the upper garnments, and the luxury of the officers’ ones, decrease regularly (together with the status, ‘quality’ and ‘professionalism) from the 1st to the 3rd type.
Metal always = tin / silver.
- Black coat & waistcoat, very pale (almost white with a slight hint of) bile green facings, very dark grey breeches;
- Very *deep* violet coat & waistcoat, bile green facings, black breeches;
- Dark ‘dried blood’ coat & waistcoat, bile green facings, dark blue breeches.
- Battalion guns / Militia artillery: as 1st or 2nd type, very dark blue coat & waistcoat (the later maybe be with ‘Royal artillery’ peculiarities of cut / buttonning), dark ‘ox blood’ facings, very dark blue breeches.
May have ‘Dragoons’ companies (the lower the status, the less likely), with:
_cavalry sword instead of infantry one (the higher the status the larger / longer the sword),
_musket of ‘Dragoon’ type (the lower the status the smaller the bore and the shorter the bayonet),
_French Dragoon black leather buckled ‘bottines’ (Household ‘Grenadiers a cheval’-type for the higher status outfit &/or officers).
Since it’s Militia, uniform, professionalism and status may vary between different companies within a single, locally recruited, battalion, so what about having the 1st type as Grenadiers (with all traditional characteristics, including the parochial British ones: shoulder ‘wings’… except probably mustache; yet in tricorn), the 2nd type as Fusiliers (elite light company, actually) with ‘belly’ cartridge box, shoulder wings, lighter ‘carbine’ musket, hanger instead of sword, and the 3rd type as ‘ordinary’ musketeers / ‘Centre’ companies (cartridge box on the side, from shoulder belt) ? Would provide a more colorful battalion…
Or, perhaps, a ‘provincial’ regiment with several mixed battalions of identical -heterogenous- composition and uniform(s); then the mounted part could be ‘converged’ in a provisional ‘half-brigade’ with, just like each initial Foot battalion, 1 (Horse) Grenadiers company, 1 Light (Dragoons) company & several -6, basically- ‘ordinary’ ones, and the Foot ‘flank’ converged into homogeneous provisional battalions: just a matter of scale.
IVb – ANNEX2bis: STANDING UNIT OF BRITISH CANADIAN CAVALRY
CANADIAN HUSSARS
Modelled on the French ‘Corps de Cavalerie’: a fully professional corps of (Light, given the terrain) Horse, able to skirmish dismounted. Tabletop-wise, at ‘large’ battle scale, would be brigaded with a Militia Dragoons (above) unit to provide a mixed dismounted battalion (‘Trained Regular Line Infantry loose-order capable, matchlock) of 4 companies of Hussars (8 paired 1/2companies), 1 company of converged Horse Grenadiers + Light Dragoons, 3 companies of Dragoons (6 paired 1/2companies).
As with other high-quality light troops in British North America, the uniform displays some Scottish features.
Other ranks as on this picture, but the short coat is crimsom with medium blue cuffs (crimsom of lighter hue for sergeants, with a medium blue waistcoat and a different fur cap). Officers wear a longer, more ‘classical’ scarlet coat (dark blue lining visible mainly on cuffs) and scarlet waistcoat. Boots vary slightly with rank in quality and ‘militar normality’.
The trumpeters’s coat is of troop cut, but medium blue with crimsom facings, wings and false sleeves and a few narrow livery lace on the sewings (medium blue waistcoat; dark blue with livery buttonholes lacing for the Trumpet Major); the fur of the cap is light grey, fully white (and of sergeant pattern) for the Trumpet Major.
The bagpipers’ coat (Yes! Mounted bagpipers instead of oboeists: was to be expected…) and waistcoat are of fully traditional Highlands cut, and rather adormanted but NO livery lace); same dark blue as the officers’ cuffs, lined scarlet. Blue bonnet, plaid (Black Watch tartan) partly rolled across the breat partly worn as a cape, trousers of the same tartan. Metal = tin / silver, white lace.
«RUSSINOVGOROD»: possible SECOND ARMY in ‘NOVAJAUL'TRAMARINA’
If the fictitious Russinovgorodian army is used as the ‘Colonization Corps’ (with reference to the historical ‘Observation Corps’) as (part of the?) garrison of Russian Alaska-Yukon, not only the standardized green of the infantry greatcoat has to be (closer to) the ‘historical’ one, but a 2nd army can be devised to ‘absorb’ the local troop types.
(Anyway I like to design fictitious armies by pairs, potentially belonging to the same Imagi-Nation or at least coalition, complementary at the level of the Army / Siege Trains)
‘Trained’ & ‘Elite’ types, most veterans, most Artillery… unchanged; ‘local’ types substituted to some (already ‘atypical’, generally) types:
- ‘Field Army Regular Raw: -> local ‘Town’ Militia: ‘a mixture of sailors and civilian Russians dresses, standard green uppergarments.
-‘1 battalion of Veteran Regular Light Foot: ‘Tirailleurs-Grenadiers’: ->‘Countryside Militia’: ‘a mixture of trappers, Natives and civilian Russians dresses, standard green uppergarments. Deserves the classification at ‘large battle’ level, with integral company (/ies ?) of Rangers-Grenadiers.
-‘1 battalion of Fanatic Irregular Charging Infantry’: -> Chuchchis imitation Cossacks infantry: perhaps, from corporals up, use Vostroyan Firstborns? Uppergarnments of ‘standard’ green.
-‘1 battalion of Warrior Irregular Skirmishing Infantry’: -> Seal hunters, trappers (and Natives); maybe a few Cossack-like types among the corporals and sergeants; uppergarnments variable in cut and fashion but always ‘standard’ green.
-‘1 regiment of ‘Light Dragoons’ (Veteran Regular Light Horse): -> Locally recruited Light Dragoons: basically as Trained infantry –at first Volunteer mounted infantry Militia, turned ‘professional Light Horse’- shorter musket, huge heavy ‘palach’, buckled French Dragoon ‘bottines’; fur cap late 19th C. US Army pattern.
-‘1 regiment of ‘Warrior Irregular Light cavalry’: -> Cossacks: in ‘exotic’ situation, so don’t hesitate to add late-19th C. features (fur hat, breast cartridges ‘pockets’, boots…) to late Renaissance Cossacks! Officers with Napoleonic Cossacks long open sleeves and bashlick (hooded shoulder sash).
-‘1 regiment of ‘Warrior Irregular Light cavalry’: -> Yakuts: maybe for corporals and sergeants use Attila Rough Riders?
If you use the optional 3 additional ‘Home Defense’ regiments of infantry, they would combine in varying proportions (also varying with rank) ‘Civilian Westerners’, ‘Sailors & whale hunters’, ‘Civilian Russians’, ‘Seal hunters’, ‘Trappers’ and ‘Native’ costumes, with in the later types partial standardization with an uniform ‘capot’, ± French Canadian-like. Upper garnments always of ‘standard’ green.
-‘Non professional Raw Regulars’ with mainly ‘Civilian Westerners’, ‘Sailors & whale hunters’ dress,
-‘Militia Regular, matchlock’ mainly from ‘Civilian Russians’, ‘Seal hunters’,
- ‘'Timid' Levy Irregular Skirmishing Infantry, carbine’ mainly from ‘Trappers’, (Samoyedes) and ‘Native’ costumes.
This ‘Home Defense’ would be identical in both‘NOVAJAUL'TRAMARINA’ armies.
FRENCH TROOPS IN N. AMERICA: ADDITIONAL LIGHT CAVALRY UNIT
HUSSARDS DE LA MARINE
As I reported earlier, my taste for old uniforms came at first, in my very childhood, from colored plates in 4-5 series (late 19th C. – early 20th C.) of Larousse illustrated dictionnaries (in 2 {* 2 ≠}, 6, 8, 10 volumes). Each fully-colored plate showed the evolution of the uniforms (or military costume) from the earliest relevant days to the IIIrd Republic. In the 6 vol. series, on the plate ‘Marine’ (Navy) at the end of the 17th-18th C. strip appeared a ‘Hussard de la Marine’ -clearly a misinterpretation of de Lauzun’s Hussars, his ‘Legion’ bearing officially the title of ‘Volontaires Etrangers de la Marine’.
As with many uniform in those plates, this one is totally fictitious but too good to be forgotten.
Typical French Hussar (with ‘simple’ tight trousers, without the large ribbon ‘cockade): whole uniform medium blue (close to Savoy blue), yellow braiding, black mirliton with medium blue ‘flamme’; large golden anchor on the sabretache (thus, also on the pistols holsters and saddlecloth).
‘Alternate’ North America is the natural place for an imaginary French regiment with such a name.
THE WAR HOUND AND THE UGLIES
The recent aggressivenes of Ottoman diplomacy is generally judged to reflect the ascencion of a new counsellor with a military background. Most European ‘specialists’ of the Diwan suggest a former member of the Jannisaries, but the Presipapal Services know better.
Actually the man is a pure-blood Turk of ancient nobility: the very commander of the 'G.P.', the Garde de la Porte. The French (± secret) name of this rather discreet (almost concealed) inner Guard comes from its odd origin: this battalion-strength Corps has been raised and trained by a Franco - Monte-Cristan mercenary, one Robert de Nard. This, seemingly, as part of the (never denounced) ‘Capitulations’ of 1536 between France and Turkey (remember how shocked was the whole Christiandom when an Ottoman fleet -200 ships, 30000 men- did its 1533-1534 wintering in Toulon).
The secrecy surrounding the 'G.P.' is actually aimed at the most traditionalist part of the Turkish Military, fanatically allergic to any kind of Nizam-1 Cedit. In the Palace the Guards masquerade as the fancy creation of a ruler with a taste for ancient mores, wearing an archaic costume and obsolete weapons; only in the field do they dress in their modern uniforms (reversed colors, to obviously appear ‘not-British’) and train with their French ‘Marine - Tulle mod. 1734’ muskets.
Robert 'Bob' de Nard (aka Said Mustapha Mahdjub) and his cadre of (mainly French, or at least with a military past in French service) 'war hounds' created and trained a *lot* of other 'G.P.' (most 'exotic' rulers seemingly love the sound of the French 'Presidentielle' qualificative for their Guard). On his official record during the twenty-so previous years appear at least 7 'G.P.' in Black Africa around the Gulf of Guinea; 3 around the entrance of the Red Sea (1 in Djibouti, 1 in Yemen, 1 for a local Governor in the Persian shore) with probably a 4th in Ethiopia; 2 in the Indian Ocean (1 in ‘La Grande Ile’ -Madagascar- for a an exiled Merina prince actively supporting the (thrieving) French trading post and garrison of Fort-Dauphin (Móritz Benyovszky is just born!), 1 in La Grande-Comore).
De Nard’s 'G.P.' are not parade troops: except for the Turskish one, he personally led each of them in battle –at the very least for their ‘first blood’ test– gathering an impressive collection of wounds in the process.
Always officially acting as a 'free lance', Robert de Nard (who left the Compagnies Franches de la Marine as a sergeant, now a self-appointed colonel) is said to have the support of at least an influent part of the French Admiralty and Departement of the Navy & Colonies. A kind of King's corsair in oversea lands deemed 'of interest' by France? For sure in at least two cases the French Navy actively protected his sea travel from any ‘interference’.
The current saying is that Robert de Nard and his bunch of ‘military advisors’ are on their way to Indochina. It may be more than coincidental that a poweful merchant family of Bordeaux, with strong ties with the Admiralty, recently disclosed an ‘intellectual curiosty’ about the commerce of opium in South-East Asia.
Oddly (?) de Nard’s cadre of drill masters and 'specialists', the ‘Uglies’ as they call themselves, is never without a few Monte-Cristans. And, while is relationships with the Clergy can only be depicted as execrable, several Holy Sisters of the Monte-Cristan order of St-Jezebel are always present as nurses.
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THE ‘AMAZONS’ OF THE NEW CONTINENT
(be it located in the Pacific Ocean or on Mars!)
One of the most surprising discoveries there has certainly be (after the disappointment in Brazil) the existence of ‘Amazons-like’, all-female, tribes.
These ‘social oddities’ can be divided into 3 cultural sub-groups: while the ‘Tribals’ haunt deep jungles, the ‘Ferals’ prefer light woods and the ‘Barbarians’ open savanna.
All 3 types share a common practice, of religious origin: as worshippers of a (jealous) Goddess, they exclude any males from their communities (and thus all are ‘tribades’ as well as ‘tribal’ in a wide sense). To maintain their population, they ritually capture male hunters from the nomad tribes, keeping them prisoners until the pregancy of several of them is ascertained. New-born babies are selected in tests that the Spartans of old would have judged ‘excessive’. The surviving male babies, as soon as weaned are given to a ‘spoiled’ / ‘mixed’ (i.e. ‘normal’) tribe, different from their fathers’ to avoid inbreeding; the surviving daughters are ± collectively raised in the tribe.
With centuries the process had turned into a peaceful ritual – as the male Nomads dropped the idea to enslave these beautiful ‘Wild Women’ (according the Amazon tradition, it took millenia for the males to merely undestand that some of them my be their sisters… such is the power of Goddess Testosterone, the embodiment male lust). Male Nomads are generally more than willing prisoners, even if loudly denying it in front of the women of their tribe – suspicious wives whisper their men perfectly know where and when a hunting party has most chances to be ambushed! The male babies are welcomed and cherished, always growing in strong and nimble men, great hunters and great warriors.
Nowadays, of course, all these ‘Amazons’ have (except for traditional dances) discarded their shields and substituted their bows ans spears with trade muskets with bayonets.
On Earth, in the Pacific Ocean, they would only ride horses – mainly Prjewalski and Konik Polski –like poneys, actually (and may be a few elephants?). On Mars, all their mammal-like mounts would be either 6- or 8-limbed.
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Toying with UNIFORMS ideas for the Huguenots of BON MONDIALE and their NEO-BALTICOSCANDIAN neighbours.
Ron 'rivieraunord' began developing these 2 countries on the OSW group (e.g. message #23936); seemingly the project is currently on hold but I could not refrain toying with uniforms ideas…
BON MONDIALE
Uniforms of Russian cut (the authors intended to use Russian and Swedes bought for wargaming the GNW).
Basic coat color: with (off-)white (Frenchs), red (Britishs), blue (neo-Swedes) and green (Irishs) already in use in the area I suggested a yellow coat for at least the (bulk of the) infantry and for the artillery. Not a light, bright one as for the Bandera de la Reina in Todos Santos or the ‘national’ regiments of Lichtengrein but a more subdued one tending to yellow ochre.
Even more widespread would be the white waistcoat in rememberance of the white shirt of the ‘millers’ / ‘camisards’ - the waistcoat being more direcly equivalent to a frock.... Only the artillery would be the exception (black powder is so dirty) with *black* waistcoats –so much the more as they often discard the coat when servicing the pieces.
Thus :
RUSSIAN cut with some ‘Dutch’ additional details and English mitre.
Elite HC as Russian Cuirassiers with (Dutch?) mitre? Voltigeurs –light coys of trained Line Infantry– in Russian pokalem, as at least one Light Horse type.
Yellow coat (at least infantry & artillery ; maybe straw for Elite HC, more orange for «Horses»; as above for most including Dragoons; slighly darker and ‘dirty’ pour pioneers & ≠ militia)
White waistcoat (artillery: black)
Breeches:
°artillery: black (horse arty: natural deerskin)
°cavalry:
-white Elite
-deerskin
-brown (at least some Light Horse)
°infantry:
-yellow Elite
-buff cloth
-grey
-reddish maroon (charging infantry)
-brown corduroy (pioneers/ drivers except Horse Arty: deerskin)
-buckskin (at least one Light type)
-various dark greyish blue, browns (≠ home militias)…
Facings:
°artillery: dark crimsom
°others:
-Elite / Guard: black OR main color of flag OR orange in rememberance of their pause in the Netherlands.
-others: 1 ‘color’ for each arm / arm subdivision, with 4 to 19 (foot: 16 trained + Arm.Vet + Charging + Sk) ‘shades’ / ‘hues’
* 4 ≠ blue for ‘Horse’
* 4 ≠ green for Dragoons
*19 ≠red (from reddish aurore to almost violet) for infantry
* 4 ≠ greyish maroons / browns for pioneers, drivers, ≠ militias…
metal / lace: gold / yellow for Elite / Guards, silver / white otherwise.
NEO-BALTICOSCANDIAN SETTLEMENT
Swedish cut
Blue: with the Vinlander blue so slightly greenish and that of Nya Scandige with a hint of indigo / violet, the blue here has to be ‘pure’. But maybe not always of the same ‘darkness’…
Uniforms:
-° enough ‘Swedish’ uniforms depicted in plates, illustrations, movies, TV series, model soldiers… are now deemed ‘wrong / erroneous’ on one detail or another (e.g. grenadier with the bag of the mitre ‘hanging’ rather than ‘straight’) to provide a diversity of ± original uniforms.
-° GNW Swedish types are generally depicted with buff / yellow breeches but sometimes with blue stockings ; now my rule of thumb for ‘translating’ late 17th C.-early 18th C. uniforms with stockings (no gaiters) and the waistcoat concealed (no turnback) is ‘stockings -> breeches, breeches -> waistcoat’: applied here it gives (white gaiters for foot types) blue breeches yellow/buff waistcoat –which indeed corresponds to historical precedents but would make the infantry of this inland colony different from that of Nya Scandige whose generally all smallclothes are blue.
Light types may wear Norwegian kabuds for a change.
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IN DEFENSE OF 'CHEESECAKE' ON TABLE-TOP IN 'ALTERNATE' &/OR 'OVERSEA' LACE WARS GAMES
Regulars of TMP and the Royaumes de l'Imagination are well aware of my long-lasting interest with female soldiers and 'characters'. Hence I could not resist to join, after a not very pleasant controversy about 'Why female troops?', far more friendly debates about 'busty female adventurers' and 18th C. 'cheesecake' figurines. It was a development from comments about the Eureka 'Sandras' and the 3D Models 18th C. female infantry & artillery, and the unveiling of a possible WSS 'kickstarter' (rumor is that another -WAS, this one- could be maturing in Australia). [I even managed to drift from a 'Need more Boobies' thread to the trifunctional goddess of ancient Indo-European worldview!]
In any case I hope these ventures will come to fruition and be commercially successful.
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