Down among the hedge men ...

The newly raised regiment of dragoons on horse ..

And practising deployment .....

The next regiment of dragoons is awaiting priming on the paint desk; I'm working on some civilian figs at the moment ..

[figs: All Irregular Miniatures, some of the dismounted dragoons are converted musketeers]

Artillery Train Additions ...

I've been thinking of buying some of the Herek & Goros 1/48th scale 30yrs war figs for some time. They are a tad expensive, so I needed a reason to have them and also the money to buy them as well. The reason to have them was to provide a limber and figures to go with my large cannon. So just after Xmas I ordered up the ones I was interested in from Historex Agents (UK); it's nice to give oneself an Xmas present.

1. Artillery Limber and horses

The picture below shows the limber (GHG20), draught horse (KSHG55), artilleryman seated on draught horse (KSHG58).


If you are going to buy any of this range then the limber and draught horses are worth it (each code item is ~£9.00 each. ouch !)

2. The foot figures
Below we have on the left an Irregular Miniatures 40mm for comparison of size and from left to right ..
Dismounted cavalryman and blacksmith (KSHG63)
Artillery Soldier (KSHG54)
Artillery Officer and Soldier (KSHG59)


A picture of my large cannon (Call at Arms 1/32nd scale, ECW range - War Cannon No 13 ), with the new figs ...

I'm looking forward to getting these painted. By the way the first of my two regiments of dragoons is nearly finished so I'll post some piccies of them next.

Dragoons - ready for their uniforms

Both regiments of dragoons, mounted and dismounted now ready to paint.

All figures are Irregular Miniatures; with a couple of spare Sash & Sabre heads finding their way onto a couple of figs. I had a small head swapping session to ensure the mounted troopers of each regiment had the same heads as the dismounted ones - bit mad but worth the effort. I've also converted some musketeers to be dismounted dragoons by adding rolled down boots with green stuff.

Dragoon Command Stands

While waiting for a couple of figs orders to complete the rest of the dragoons, I forged on by doing the command stands and token horse holders for when they dismount. All figs in the pictures are from Irregular Miniatures (with a couple of heads replaced with some from Sash and Sabre).

The figs orders arrived yesterday so I'm now ready to start work on both regiments mounted and dismounted.

Civilians ? (various figures)

A bit expensive, but for variety, some figures from the Eureka 40mm Musketeers range to be used for civilians or conversions to regimental officers. (Athos, Planchet, Rochefort, Constance+elderly Husband) I also got some accessories which include table, 2 chairs and food/plates/bottle/mugs).

To provide some scenic additions for a campsite or siege, some bits from Irregular Miniatures renaissance range (Woman with spoon; cauldron over fire and roasting spit).

The Irregular Miniatures soldier with flaming torch (with pistol/sword) and engineer. I've bought a couple more of each of these for possible conversions.

A Pastoral Scene ?

Want something to drink boys ?

The Parliamentrain trained band ignore the solicitations and other attractions offered by a local tavern as they march through a small village.

[figs: Soldiers - Irregular Minaiatures; Ladies - Black Cat]

Dragoons - Officer anh Horse Holders

I bought some more Irregular Miniatures musketeers to convert into dismounted dragoons, plus some sample figures for conversions; not having some green stuff I've ordered that as well. While waiting for delivery I thought I'd try out some conversion techniques with blue-tak sealed with super glue as a 'modelling putty'.

Firstly a converted soldier holding flaming torch, I cut off the torch and replaced it with a halberd, modelling a replacement hand.

For my dragoons I wanted at least one man dismounted holding a horse; so a marching musketeer and an engineer were converted; added cuffs, boots rolled down, belts with apostles, plus a musket. I put a Sash&Sabre head on the marching musketeer. Front and back view below ...

Lastly one of the horse holders with a horse, just to see how it looks ..

Looks Ok, I'll be interested to see how they come up painted.

Eye Candy ...

Drabant Miniatures, have some swedish cavalry in their WARS OF MOSCOW STATE, 40MM range (DM1133/34/35) . They are really nice figures, however at £10 a pop there are a bit expensive (possibly use for commanders).

Link to pic at UK Old Glory Website
http://www.oldgloryuk.com/disp_item.php?c=355&oc=5037&pic=3

The Dragoons arrive

Just unpacked these from a nice little box containing my last order from Irregular Miniatures. I ordered 11 mounted figs and 9 dismounted, I've got a spare officer for them. On dismount the officer and cornet (with flag) will remain mounted, representing the horse holders. The dismounted dragoons come in 2 'random' variants, soft hat or monmouth cap.

Campaign Overview Map

For my slightly 'imaginary' ECW campaign I've taken my map of Wiltshire and changed the name of two places
- Malmesbury has been renamed Wallingborough, held by the royalists
- Salisbury has been renamed Sarisbury, held by the parliamentarians.

List of my ECW Reference Books

General History of the Period:

• The English Civil War, by Maurice Ashley

Military History:

• The English Civil War - by Peter Young and Richard Holmes
• Beef, Bacon and Bag Pudding; Berkshire in the Civil War - by David Disbury
• Travellers Guide to the Battlefields of the English Civil War - by Martyn Bennett

Uniforms etc:

• The English Civil War 1642-1651, an Illustrated Military History - by Philip Haythornthwaite[Good book with plenty of uniform info]
• The English Civil War Armies, Osprey Men-at-Arms series
• Soldiers of the English Civil War (1) Infantry, Osprey 'Elite' 25
• Soldiers of the English Civil War (2) Cavalry, Osprey 'Elite' 27
• Matchlock Musketeer 1588-1688, Osprey 'Warrior' 43
• Ironsides, English Cavalry 1588-1688, Osprey 'Warrior' 44
• English Civil War Artillery 1642-51, Osprey 'New Vanguard' 108
• English Civil War Fortifications 1642-51, Osprey 'Fortress' 9

Also a film worth watching to get the flavour of the times - Cromwell

Haselrig's Lobsters - Standard

This is shown in one of my reference books as being carried by Haselrig's Lobsters at Edgehill and indicates it may have been different later on (?).

Setting up a Campaign Map

To try and give some structure to my ECW gaming I decided to use a map of the imaginary county I've invented. But to save me some time I'll use the county of Wiltshire in southern england, changing the names of some of the main places to match my imaginary ones (eg Wallingborough).


Since I can get detailed maps of the area I'll use these for terrain info. I'll have to generate a map for movements. Wiltshire in the period had a number of castles/manor houses so opportunities for sieges etc. The roylalists will hold the north of the county and parliament the south.

Dragoons ?

I've been mulling over the size of a possible unit dragoons. Nominally the same size as an infantry regiment with a paper strength of ~1000, this was rarely achieved in the field however - so I've decided to make it the same size as the number of musketeers I use in a foot regiment. Initially I'll have one regiment of dragoons and may be add another later.

I've decided on;
Mounted - Officer, Ensign and 9 troopers (11 figs total)
Dismounted - 9 foot figures, the Officer and Ensign remain mounted and represent the horse holders.

Figures to be used will be from Irregular Miniatures 42mm renaissance range:
LRE5 Dismounted Dragoon.
LRE10 Dragoon

Better go and see how much is in the warchest before I place an order for the metal.

Battle at Hoveton

After their defeat at Wrinkleham the parliamentarians continued to recruit men to their standard. Sir Warwick Hunt, having the county trained bands under his control decided to try and give battle again to the Royalists.

Meanwhile Sir William de Willoughby royalist army had received some reinforcements so he moved down the valley from Wrinkleham and was on his way to Chipping Creaseton. Near the river crossing at Hoveton the two armies met ....

Using the river as a secure flank both sides deployed ready to do battle. Two views of the initial deployment - royalists at the back of the table, parliamentarians at the front.

The parliamentarian left flank was the focus of the battle, where the bulk of the cavlary was deployed. Firstly the two royalist horse regiments.

Their initial oppositions - Cuirassiers

The cavalry moved forwards and the infantry did so as well ...

The cavalry melee is joined, the Cuirassier smash into the royalist horse ..

the Royalist horse recoiled, but manage to do so in reasonable order.

The nearby royalist foot regiment rout after a stiff volley by the parliamentarian foot and the presence of the cuirassiers on their flank.

The front royalist horse regiment charges and routs the cuirassiers and the royalist foot regiment rallies. The middle royalist foot regiment was shot up badly by artillery and musket fire, and has withdrawn.

The battle hangs in the balance but both commanders decide to withdraw, the royalists as their foot regiments have had enough fighting for one day, the parliamentarians concerned about the larger number of royalist horse remaining.

Making the ECW Unit Cards

One of the comments to my previous post asked how I made the unit cards.

1. I wanted some cards which were reasonably robust and larger than the size of a business card. I decided on using those from a standard pack of playing cards (rather than buying special blank cards).
2. Next thing I did was to identify a standard inkjet sticky label size that would fit over the playing card. [Avery J8173 - 10 labels]
3. The playing cards then had blank sticky labels put on them; these were then trimmed off.

4. I set up a single page document with 5 columns; two blank cards to each column. Making sure when printed that each 'card' would come out on a label.
5. A picture of each unit is added to the card; the picture size is then adjusted till the card layout is correct again - this can be a bit fiddly. I do a batch of 10 cards in each print; each unit having one 'for Parliament' and one 'for ye Kinge' card. A batch of 10 cards is printed onto a page of sticky labels, labels are then placed onto the cards.
6. If I just want to do one card, I just print the page; cut out the 'card' and stick it onto a playing card covered with a sticky label.

Unit Cards

All ready for the next battle. The rules we use have a movement mechanism, where for each move the next unit to move is selected from a set of shuffled cards in turn.

All units have a 'For Ye Kinge' or 'For Parliament' card, this allows units to be on either side in different scenarios.

Storage

Having gathered up quite a collection of ECW troops, the tricky problem of how and where to store them now arises. I wanted to have the pikemen standing and enough room for the standards of the horse regiments.

I've indulged in a couple of 9 litre 'really useful boxes' (available from http://www.reallyusefulboxes.com/ and other suppliers), these are just right. Made of clear material you can see whats in them and I can get about 5 regiments of horse or foot into one box.


The boxes can be stored in the cupboards under my gaming table.

New Regiment of Foot - Bluecoats

Finished these a couple of days ago. This addition brings my ECW collection too:

6 Regiments of Foot
4 Regiments of Horse
4 Artillery pieces

Looks like it's time for another battle..

Additions to the Artillerie

Firstly the 54mm Call-to-Arms ECW cannon painted and shown with my 40mm crew; this looks really good and easily represents a culverin; may buy some more of these.

Next two more field guns from Irregular Miniatures; the crew are mostly Sash & Sabre with a couple of Irregular Miniatures with Sash & Sabre heads.

Pokesay Castle and it's garrison

Finally finished building the castle; I'm very pleased with the result.

The royalist commander Sir William de Willoughby arrives back home at Pokesay Castle with an escort of horse.

Meanwhile the garrison is carrying out some exercises from the drill book ...

Pokesay Castle 7 - the base

The base for Pokesay castle shown on my gaming table.

Its made up of a 3mm MDF base with a raised up centre section for the castle made of foam board and cardboard; with the edges covered in stone paper. The moat was done by painting it brown with green bits and then spraying it with a few coats of varnish.

The ramp to the bridge has yet to be finished. Some small pieces of foam board have been stuck on to keep the buildings in place.

Next job is to build the walls and assemble all the bits together.

Pokesay Castle 6 - the Keep

The courtyard facing view (that man with the bucket gets around a bit !)

The outside facing view -

Pokesay Castle 5 - main range of buildings

Hoorah the main range of buildings done. A good while spent will foam board; cardboard; thick paper and printed paper sheets; I really enjoyed the challenge of making this range of buildings.

Firstly a view of the outfacing side -

And the side facing the courtyard ...

Now to get on and finish the castle's keep.

Artillery - big guns

Comparison of the Sash and Sabre 40mm Saker (40ECWE2) and the Call-to-Arms 54mm ECW cannon. I had thought the Call-to-Arms cannon would be too big for my 40mm figs, while I was on holiday I found one in a model shop and bought it for comparison purposes.

Side view:

Front View:

As you can see compared to the Sash and Sabre saker it is larger but not too big. It could easily be used as a culverin or for a siege gun.

Artillerie on the move

Finished the limbers, a couple of guns on the move. The horses are little to tall; but otherwise OK.
For Pokesay Castle I've nearly finished the main range of buildings, theres a door and some steps to add - photo to follow later when completed. The Keep is ready for finishing, but it needs some changes to make it look a bit chunkier.

Pokesay Castle - 4, Gatehouse completed

What do I do with this left over paint ?

Throw it in the moat, nobody will notice ..

Having got the shade of my roof tile paper right, I painted the timber beams. For windows I used a dark grey and put 'leaded' widnow lines on. The overall effect has captured the look I wanted. I made the gates so they could be removed and replaced with two open ones.

The gatehouse done I then stuck tile paper onto the roofs of the other buildings. Having finished that I realised I hadn't added the chimneys, a minor modification for later.

Limbers for Guns

A lucky day while out shopping provided me with what I needed to make up limbers for my guns. A Brum coach model, for £4.00 in a charity shop, with 4 horses in harness; plus a bag of 30 Lego wheels (but only 4 axle peices) for £1.50 at a car boot sale.

As you can see the small Lego wheels and a single horse look just right pulling a gun.

Ideally should be a team of horses but what the heck, modeller's licence !