1st Parlaimentarian horse

After re-calculating the required numbers of cavalry for Marston Moor, I set to work on adding some more Parlaimentarians. As Mitch and myself were planning a game and he was short of cavalry, it made sense to start on the Northern Association horse. So the first regiment is done. The figures are a mix of Warlord, Peter Pig and one of the new Alternative Armies figures. They all mix in well together.

One area in which I lacked figures for this collection is for the mounted brigadiers and various leaders of the armies. I do have the figures from Peter Pig, Alternative armies and the plastic Warlord figures. None of which stand out above the others so I ordered the resin packs from Warlord games. 

These are handy as they provide Rupert, Cromwell and Fairfax. The others will get painted up as other prominent commanders for the game. First thoughts are they are very nice but I'll get a better look at them over the coming days as they had just arrived in the post.

I've also completed another infantry regiment for Parlaiment, bringing me up to 3 of the 4 I need. Hopefully get their bases done tomorrow.

Commanded Shotte and more hedges

Following yesterdays post, I managed to get the bases completed on a unit of commanded shotte for my slowly growing parliamentarians. The figures are a mix of the plastic Warlord figures and Steelfist. They mix in well in the same unit.

I also managed to complete another 4 sections of hedges. These are some old pieces that have been re-purposed for this project. These are designated as type 4 and have clump foliage as the basis of their construction. I even managed to locate a full bag of clump foliage so I can make more if I wish.

Now it will be back to painting some more cavalry.

More Royalist horse

Despite a bit of a delay as I was away camping at the weekend. I finally completed another 2 regiments of Royalist horse. This brings me up to 12 completed regiments. The figures for these are all the plastics from Warlord games. I did also complete another brigadier, this time from Peter Pig.

There was a bit of discussion around the Marston Moor project and the amount of cavalry we need as well as the size of table to accommodate this. Currently each regiment in game terms is 2 bases approximately representing 200 horse. We need 66 regiments or 132 bases which is quite an undertaking. One solution is to increase the base to represent 200 horse. This brings the number of regiments down to 38 (rounding some of the actual regimental strength up), That is still 76 bases, but much more achievable. It also looks better against the infantry units which represent between 600 and 1000 men.

What this does mean is that Newcastle's Northern Royalist army is complete and I can use the 4 addtional regiments I painted as part of Ruperts' force (useful as no-one had yet agreed to paint Ruperts' horse). A double bonus is that I can also make a start on Fairfax's Northern Association horse which also get me nearer to a game.

On another note I did eventually get around to basing the second unit of Parlaimentarion foot. I've also got some commanded shotte done that just needs basing.

Hopefully get some more figures done for the weekend

More progress and new figures

Lucky for me one of the club members pointed out that Alternative armies had just released 40 new ECW codes in their 15mm range. They also had 20% off so I decided to pick up some of the new cavalry to see if they matched the other ranges I have. I ordered enough for 2 regiments and a couple of brigadiers to lead them. The figures just took a week to arrive. The horses are exactly the same as the original range, the only issue is there is only a single pose and a separate one for the brigadiers.

The bundle

L to R horses - trooper and officer

The riders come in 3 different poses which is handy for a little variety and will mix in well with the Warlord and Peter Pig cavalry I have left to paint. The Brigadiers are designated as Royalist and Parlaimentarian, though easily mixed between both sides.

The troopers

Brigadiers

I'll need to do a count but think I should have enough cavalry now for another 10 or 11 regiments. Just another 10 to purchase when these are painted up.

On the painting front I experimented with a brown undercoat on a regiment of infantry, just finished them today. They still need basing. I'm not totally convinced yet. Great for saving time on the pikes and muskets, but may not cover well for coat colours. Luckily I went for a Tawny orange for this regiment so it looks fine. I'll try another regiment but go for a different coat colour, possibly a blue.

The officers still need their sashes done. Hopefully get these based up over the coming days and then crack on with some cavalry. I've got 3 regiments ready for a bit of paint. We have a game planned for a couple of weeks time to give the rules a run out.

More hedges

 As I alluded to in the last post, I've been working on adding more hedges to my collection. First up is another 4 pieces of what I've earmarked as type 2 hedges, i.e. they are a mix of hedge and fencing. Type 1 being all hedge.

These were made in exactly the same way as the first 2 batches. The second lot of hedges are my type 3. These are made using scouring pads, soaked in pva before being flocked, sealed and painted. So far I've done 7 of these. I see these hedges as more maintained and will ideally be used close to towns and villages.

I also took a couple of photos to show how the Epic scale figures match up against the hedges. Bear in mind I've mounted mine on 3mm MDF.

I think they look a good match up size wise. I do have 4 more pieces in production, these are some old   hedges I made years ago that have been rescued and restored. They'll add a little more variety when finished.

Sir Charles Fairfax regiment of foote

After a little break from painting, well 2 weeks. I decided to crack on with the ECW project. This time the first of my Parlaimentarian infantry. I went for Sir Charles Fairfax's regiment, simply because I had the flag. For the uniform I went with a blue grey, simple choice following a grey undercoat.

Happy to make a start on the Parlaimenatarians. Luckily just 3 more infantry regiments to go. I've also come to hate painting pikes. These have been undercoated brown to save a little time, hopefully. I've also been making some more progress on hedges, adding another 5 and half feet to the collection. I did some of these using a scouring pad to make them look like maintained hedges around villages.

Show loot, more hedges and bitten off more than I can chew

So on Saturday I did manage to pop into my local wargames show - Border Reiver in Gateshead. It was good to catch up with a number of local gamers who I missed last year as I couldn't attend when my wife had covid. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for more than a couple of hours as duty called on a visit to the in-laws. There were a few empty tables, impacted by the Rail strike, but the games that were there all looked rather nice. I somehow forgot to take any photos as I was too busy chatting. As for show loot, not much was purchased, just some of the essentials required.

The only figures of note were some sheep from Pendraken, to help build up the flock for future 15mm games. I did pick up a couple of packs of dismounted US cavalry troopers from Galloping Major to add to my collection. They do look very nice and I even got a nice free figure. Other than that some coarse flock, a couple of paints and some brushes.

As I was waiting for some of my extra ECW stuff to arrive I decided to put together a few more pieces of hedge. I went for a little variety on this batch with the addition of a few different colours to break up all that green as well as adding some fencing I already had (some old metal pieces I've had for years). I also put a little camp piece together.

While I have been working on the ECW collection, I did have the goal in mind of re-fighting Marston Moor next year at Border Reiver. However a little reality check has set in and the timeline will need revising. One of the issues is Warlord does not yet produce any epic scale Covenanters, not much of an issue for the horse as we can use other manufacturers, the musketeers we can 3d print. It's the pike, they are too brittle for printing, so we would need to use alternative ranges which increases cost and painting time. (Strips of figures paint up a lot quicker than 10 individual figures). Another issue is no-one at the club has committed yet for Ruperts' horse, I do not mind doing them but need to finish Newcastles' 16 regiments and 15 for Fairfax. I also don't particularly want to be left with nearly 30 regiments of Royalist horse that I'll probably never use unless fighting Marston Moor.

So a revised goal is to work towards Adwalton Moor for Border Revier as we don't need the Covenanters, also both sides also fought at Marston Moor, so in effect we are only delaying Marston Moor by a year, hopefully gives Warlord time to produce the Scottish infantry,