CUIRASSIERS FINISHED

Firstly, welcome to Kev, of Kev's Wargames cabin http://www.kevswargamescabin.blogspot.com/ my first Follower! Over on Kev's blog are all sorts of goodies including some superb painting, and a budding 54mm ECW project, just like this one.

I managed to play the Father's Day card and bu**er off to the Growlery for half an hour to take some pictures and post them up. I finished these bods last night (or early this morning to be precise).



That road is really getting busy with troops charging up and down it. Next month's project will to be make terrain.

These chaps are Sir Melchior Karswell's Troop of horse. The cornet is based on that of Tott's cavalry in the Swedish army of The Thirty Years War, and the motto reads 'et in Inferno ego' Sir Melchior being a man with a diabolical reputation.

As mentioned before the riders are from Irregular and the horses by A Call to Arms. I wasn't go to do any shading on my 54mm ECW figures, but the armour just didn't look right so I gave it a wash of Games Workshops Badab Black.

A ROMANTIC LIASON

A bit of a hectic week so far, so not much time for painting. Managed a couple of personality figures though which were quite fun to paint. The swaggering rakehell is a figure by Soldats de Ligne (now available from Barbican Antiques in Plymouth) and Bessy Bunting, barmaid of the Cockwell Inn is a plastic figure from Replicants available through Steve Weston http://www.plasticsoldiers.co.uk/

A LITTLE LIGHT READING...

Not much time in the Growlery today, as it was Thing 2's fifth birthday today, but having packed him and his brothers off to bed I thought I would post a few pics of my ECW inspirational reading and viewing. Having spent many happy years of my youth re-enacting the English Civil War it always amuses me now to hear the same old squabbles among re-enactors about the authentic sort of button they should have on their doublets and soldiers coats or what sort of hat musketeers should be wearing. The arguments now are the same as they were 20-25 years ago when I was an active musketeer (fighting for Parliament naturally).

So it is quite refreshing to get back to basics with this project and distinguish Roundheads from Cavaliers by the amount of feathers and lace they have, and if they have hats or helmets.  The ECW re-enactors bible in the mid 80's was this book

which given it's age is still surprisingly good. Most of the ECW figures manufactured by A Call to Arms seem to be based on plates from this book.

Another ECW icon to come out of the 1980's was the television series By the Sword Divided

This really did ham up the Romantic Royalists and Rotten Roundheads, but again given it's age the costumes were surprisingly good and the climatic siege of Arnescote Castle is excellent. The second series is shot in a much darker manner, no doubt to emphasise the gloom cast over the nation by the killjoy Puritans.

The next book was recently mentioned in Old Tidder's blog, For ye Kinge, but as it is so good I will give it another plug.

This features my local and favourite campaign in the ECW, The Battle of Lansdown and is rammed full of ideas and great illustrations (it takes the form of a cartoon strip).

Finally a teen novel which I re-read now and again which has a great plot and at the start an amusing description of a Sealed Knot battle. It's full of inaccuracies but captures the flavour of Seventeenth century England and has a wistful dreamlike quality about it.

DISMOUNTED CAVALRY

Quite a good day today on the toy soldier front. In between various household jobs I managed to find time to get ready for painting a unit of dismounted Parliamentarian cavalry, including a bit of conversion work. Also my Peco backdrops arrived from Gaugemaster so I will need to stick those to some mdf soon. Finally I was pleased to win an auction on ebay for some more 54mm ECW figures including a dismounted cuirassier and a siege engineer. Huzzah!!

The plastic figs are from Replicants and the 2 metal chaps are secondhand acquisitions. As usual my painting table is a complete tip.

FOR GOD AND THE KING

Just finished the first Royalist regiment for my 54mm ECW project, so here are a couple of shots with a wobbly sky backdrop. I am finding the speed at which I can bang these figures out quite exhilarating (perhaps I ought to get out more), but as I do most of my painting in the wee small hours with my eyes propped open with matchsticks waiting for the 1 year old (Thing 3) to wake up, a basic job is all I can manage at the moment.

The drummer and rank and file are A Call to Arms, with a bit of converting and head swapping (I also added milliput plumes to the musketeers hats) and the Officer and ensign are from the old New Line range I think, which I picked up secondhand on eBay.

I hope to concentrate on making some more terrain in the next month or so, so my figures can fight on a battlefield rather than marching up and down the road.

CUIRASSIERS ARMING UP

Quick post before dashing off to work (on a Sunday :-( ). I am starting to get a unit of cuirassiers ready for painting. These chaps are probably my favourite troop  type in history. They just look so menacing. The riders are by I rregular, and Ian Kay there kindly sold me them without the metal horses, whch made them much more affordable. I am mounting them on A Call to Arms horses which shoulf just be strong enough to bear the metal rider.

ROUNDHEADS-RIGHT BUT REPULSIVE

Galloping into view are by first unit of 54mm figures. They are by A Call to Arms who do 2 quite nice cavalry sets although some of the poses are a little odd. These fellows were shooting each other in the side of the head, but a little judicious bending of arms in hot water sorted them out. As my ECW project is 'old school'  the Roundheads are called Roundheads and are distinguishable by their helmets and disapproving expressions.

The cornet is suitably Puritanical to being based on Colonel Philip Twistleton's. The motto reads "Thus god will scatter the wicked". Depicted are plenty of sinners being transfixed by arrows raining down from clouds bearing the word 'Iehovah'.