15mm ECW Guns and Crews

Matt supplied the guns part painted but I took them all the way back and stated again as I would not be able to colour match his wood look.

One of the crews ramrod was cut short by a poor run of the lead at casting so I checked my box of bits and found a barrel to rest it on so it did not look too bad. Again these are Museum Miniatures and again have a mix of plus and negative points running along the same lines as the infantry.

However I really like the guns. Lots of detail and easy to paint. I painted up one gun as iron and the other as brass and am rather pleased with the result. Just hope Matt will like them. So all in all Matt is building up quite a collection of stuff to base up. Hopefully he will supply finished shots for me to show at a later date.

Well apart from varnishing and flagging I now have three battalions of Prussians finished and four guns and crews. The cavalry have been brought to the front of the desk and should be possibly started today. I plan to get the three reserve infantry battalions cleaned up as well fairly soon so I can get them primed and started. 

Triples is less than two weeks away so I should be picking up lots and lots of 6mm Napoleonic's for both Prussian and French. Not 100% sure what else will be added to my list between then and now but I weakened last night and ordered yet more Leven Miniatures buildings even though I have not yet painted up all the last lot, oh well they are really nice.

Oooh More Giveaway Magic

Bit like buses here is another Giveaway I have stumbled across. Three rather nice books including the one I have just bought and started to read 1815 The Waterloo Campaign, The German Victory.

So if you want any of the three books on offer head over to DCH Wargames Blog.

The blogs well worth taking a look at, especially if you like your wargames to be Historical.

Seb at Back to the Minis is celebrating his blogs second birthday with a week long giveaway and today is Bloodbowl day. here is a pic of just one of the figures he has up for grabs.

The figure is blister packed so you have to do the painting, but this gives you an idea. So if you want a slice of pie, follow the link above and get your name down. Pimping like this gets you another five chances so it's worthwhile.

Good luck to all that enter this giveaway, it's been too long since I last played Bloodbowl so no point entering for me.

Duke Of York's Regiment of Foote in 15mm

Here we have Matt's figures painted up as the same regiment. The figures are Museum Miniatures and have a few nice touches such as the detail on the muskets were you can see the serpentine that would hold the match. Shame no match though is present! The figures are a nice size and have quite a bit of detail throughout such as the faces but at the same time some of the detail is either unclear or plain wrong. The bandaliers are not well sculpted making them a real pain to paint. One figure clearly had a turnback on one sleeve but not the other and other such issues.

Overall they are not bad figures to work with but I think their are a few better choices before I would turn to these for increasing my own force.

At least the figures have character and whilst they are not my first choice they are reasonably fun to paint and did not take a major clean up before painting.

Only one figure has the Lobster Pot in this lot but none of the pike have the Morion which you would expect. Good job the musket are only wearing soft hats. I would certainly prefer Matchlock Miniatures for the better mix and look of the regiments you can put together.

Yesterdays pictures and these above are the first ones using the photo table we have at work. Overall I think it works rather well. Let's see what I try next.

Duke of York's regiment of Foote

Another Regiment of the Oxford Army was that of the Duke of York (Charles eldest Son James) though being only nine at the outbreak of the Civil Wars he was just a figurehead and never commanded the regiment. In fact the Regiment did not start life as a Royalist Regiment but was raised by Parliament and sent to Ireland to quell the revolts there. Somewhat ironic then that it would be shipped back to England to fight against the Parliament that raised it. Not ironic however was Parliaments propaganda that insisted that these were Irish Regiments, that is native Irish. Many of these men had taken Irish women as wives or simply camp followers who were Irish. Many of the fighting men of the regiments that had been called Irish were refused quarter as were the women camp followers. Many English and Welsh were killed under the suspicion of being Irish including such as Cornish troops who's accent was so far removed from normal English that all to often they were killed by mistake. Indeed not a small amount of real Irish troops killed were in fact Protestant and not the feared and loathed Catholic. 

The Regiment was raised in 1642 but was returned to England in 1643 via Bristol. Later it would have been brought south and incorporated into the Oxford Army where I suspect it was fleshed out with new recruits and as the regiment is known to have had red jackets had been re-clothed whilst in Oxford. Also stated is that the Regiment wore grey trousers though I suspect this would not have been throughout the whole regiment as replacing a whole regiment from head to foot would have been very costly and they would have required replacement footwear at least once since returning to England.

Originally the regiment was in Prince Maurice's force fighting in Herefordshire but on joining the King's army the regiment was given the name Duke of York's Foote though Lt. Col. William St Leger retained full control of the regiment. The regiment was thought to have been at Cropredy Bridge (which is why I painted them) as well as the Lostwithiel campaign. It was also at second Newbury where St Leger was killed and probably replaced as commander by Theodore Kyrton who's impressively named brother Posthumous had been killed at Marston Moor leading a Regiment of Whitecoats. 

In 1645 the regiment was part of the force that stormed Leicester where the regiment did well enough to capture Ireton and beating off his regiment before finally being overwhelmed and if not destroyed certainly reduced to a shadow of itself. It certainly did not survive the aftermath of the battle. So a colourful regiment that saw long and active service.

I have painted up the regiment both in 6mm and 15mm, today I will show off the 6mm and tomorrow will be the turn of the 15mm boys (allowing Matt to ignore the post if he wants to see them in the flesh first).

Only one decent shot of the brave lads, figures and flag by Baccus though the flag was not lined up well on printing so lots of white between the black and red sections so I ended up repainting most of it so you can't see where the original colour runs into my clean up. I always paint the edges anyway to get rid of the white edges and get well rewarded with a crisper finish. 

My ECW force is steadily growing and once I have all Matt's figures painted (yes the Zulu's) I will be starting work on the Army of Essex for Lee which I am rather looking forward to. This should mean that before the end of the year we will be seeing our first ECW battle in 6mm. I plan to rework my Napoleonic rules (actually only a form of the combat tables will be used) and write a pure ECW set of rules that should bring the special flavour of the period across. The ECW really suffers (like the ACW) from too few troop types and if you use normal rules can get boring quickly. Rules that give a feel of the ECW I hope will have longer legs. But that my friends is another day.

Good Grief is it May already?

The answer of course is yes it is, how's the Prussian's going? The answer to that is not bad but not good either. Knowing I won't get away with that answer let me elaborate. I don't have the three battalions completed for the month of April, nor any guns, commanders or cavalry. That I guess fits firmly in the not good section.

Not bad, well I nearly have the figures finished and if I was not so tired last night after pulling near on twelve hours after a poor nights sleep then I would have had them finished but not based. Gun's are started as are the crews and will be finished before the weekend is through which will put me well ahead with four complete. Cavalry I have two regiments all prepped waiting their turn and will be next up which when done will put me ahead of schedule and may be done before the bank holiday is through (depends on if it rains). Commanders though, don't ask, not that it will be an issue so no worries.

Once the cavalry are finished it's straight on to my first reserve regiment which I hope to clean up either over the weekend or early next week and get painted really quickly. After that I will move on to Matt's 15mm and my 6mm ECW and hopefully get them done before the end of the month. If they are done before Triples I will paint up the last of Matt's ECW and another of mine. If not then maybe it will be onto my French 6mm Napoleonic's as they will be the new Baccus if my luck is in. 

I also will get some of the Leven buildings painted up during May and hopefully finish the Spanish buildings I have almost finished as well as photograph the ones finished about a month ago!

Which leads me to............

The Osprey book is to help with the Roman Army I was given so long ago. I plan to start painting this up fairly soon but not till I have Matt's figures all sorted out. This I hope will be fairly soon as once the ECW is all finished I can move onto his Zulu's and get them painted up really quickly, even though it's more 6mm LOL. I was looking forward to doing the Romans but since having a brief flick though the Osprey I am really getting fired up, maybe just maybe some of these will creep in before I am finished, but please don't tell Matt ;-)

1815 is the second part of a two volume set that the author tries to counter the English speaking bias of not just the Battle but the whole campaign. Unfortunately he does this by portraying as much bias for the Germans as has been done by the Brits for Wellington and the redcoats. At least he is straight up and tells you right at the start. The truth he admits is somewhere between the two. I still want the first part but hope to pay less than the £35 I have seen it for. 

The bases were ordered to pick up at Triples but Warbases accidentally posted it out with the regular orders so I not only got the order early for a 10% discount but I was not charged postage. I had contacted them to let them know about the error hoping to catch them before dispatch but it had already gone and was told I owed no extra. Come Triples though I believe I will find a way of contributing to their takings just because.

It's worth pointing out again though, if you plan to buy from them at any show, let them know with a least a weeks notice and they knock 10% off the cost of the order. You pay on ordering but if for some reason you can't make it then you can pay the difference and postage and still get them. It's a cracking idea and I think other suppliers should also do the same and encourage pre-orders so having a better chance of not running out of items and us the punter getting what we want.

Anyway, the three items above have arrived in the last two days and should help keep me on track. Me? I'm off to paint some Prussians.

Project Waterloo, French Under Review.

I've been concentrating on the Prussian side of the project but the French will need a fair bit of attention. Both Lee and myself will be supplying the troops for this but I believe I will have the lions share given I have  a heads start on Lee, though he will be doing all the Guard.  The French are a mammoth task all on their own and even sharing with Lee and the fact I already have quite a few units based up I am expecting to have to paint up more French than Prussian. I am thinking Peter at Baccus will be very happy he is releasing his new French next month. 

The photo above is of all the French and allies I have at the moment, problem is that a big chunk of the infantry are for Spain and not the 100 days campaign and so should not be used in the big game. I will plan the number of units to paint per month based on not using these bases in expectation of keeping up with the required output.

With the boost from my Secret Santa I have been able to make up a commanding artillery park. A total of twenty guns and eight limbers gives me a good start in this field and whilst I will need more these are not a worry. A total of four wagons is not exactly a lot and yes I will get more but they are not a priority. Just behind the guns are eight bases of Italian's great for Spain but sure to miss Waterloo if I have my way.

At the front we have the cavalry, most of these will be seen on the fields of Waterloo, probably being broken up on British squares. Again I will need more but a manageable amount given the time frame I am working too.

Command bases, under my rules we will need quite a few so these six will need a lot of help, and that goes beyond the one I have ready for basing. Again though I believe one a month would be more than enough and should help to break up the constant line after line of infantry.

Opps just nine bases of Line infantry, that's not big or clever. I had convinced myself I had a much bigger stock of these guys but so many of them had been painted up as foreign help instead. Taking these pictures was a real wake up call. I really need to get the basic line units up, way up and as such need to start on them very soon, but first I need to buy the figures but that task hopefully is just a few weeks away.

The Neapolitan infantry to the front and twelve Light Infantry to the rear. This has a lot to do with the five Light Battalions painted up for the painting Challenge when I thought I was far behind on the Lights. In fact this sparked a frenzied search of my boxes for more Line before I accepted the sad truth that I am somewhat lacking in infantry. Still it's only right and proper that projects like this supply many challengers.

Side aspect, I have to admit I thought it would look like a lot more, still it's rather bigger than a army pack, especially as the cavalry also includes a couple of boosters. Though come the time to lay out the troops for the big battle it will look a little more impressive. 

So not only will you see an endless line of Prussians coming off my table but also a lot of French. Still to be finalised is just how many and the breakdown of who will be doing what. Lee is fortunate that most of the Brits are already painted and based though the allies still need to be added. I suspect these will be done for Lee, rather than by Lee. The French he plans to paint himself but of course sometime in the distant future Lee will have to swap over to making the terrain boards though it may be me painting the buildings to slot into place. 

Whilst I am confident that the Prussians will be finished on time I am a little concerned about the French. I just can't do all the French and I know Lee has a lot of work on for the next six months. At least he is home most of the time during this period but as to painting as well who knows. After that he will be away a lot so fitting in painting is a big ask. I know he will get a lot done but will we be able to do them all? Well time will tell.

The Adler Prussians are coming along nice, may not get them all the way finished but will base them up early next month and move onto the first of the Reserve Regiments. I also have two bases of Cavalry primed ready for painting and these should be quite quick. So overall I am still fairly happy with where we are at this stage but need to sit down with Lee over a cuppa and thrash out what, when and how of the French and then see if it can be done.