More Bits and Pieces

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Whilst I’m still waiting to find inspiration for my next major project, I thought I’d finish up a few bits and pieces from the lead mountain.

First up are a couple of Gallant Gentlemen for my Scots Covenantor ECW army:

Wallace-sized. The real one, not the shorty Gibson effort.

These are 18mm figures from Blue Moon’s new Scottish ECW range, and lovely figures they are too.

I bought these as a test to see how well they fitted in with my existing collection as I still can’t get the hang of whether 18mm figures are actually large 15’s, small 20’s or a scale all of their own!

With these, however, there is no doubt: they are too big to fit in with the Hallmark (via Magister Militum), Peter Pig and Khurasan models that form the main part of my 15mm ECW forces.

That said, a couple of comparative giants as Gallant Gentlemen fit right in with the concept of the GG, so I am very happy to have these two fearsome warriors on board!

As I said: lovely figures, but 18mm, so highly recommended if you want to field an 18mm ECW Covenantor army, but not if you want to field one in 15mm.

Next up was another general for my Classical Indians:

May the Fourth be with you!

These are more figures from Museum Miniatures excellent CAD-designed “Z” range of Classical Indians.

I’m always being told that I should field four generals when playing To The Strongest at 130 points. Now, with these, I can…and I actually needed a more cavalry-orientated commander for the later Indian armies anyway: by the time you get into the ADs, chariot-mounted generals are so yesterday!

Finally, I’ve had these undercoated on my painting table for, like, forever (as Daughter #2 would say).

Thundercats are go!

These are more of Khurasan’s excellent Felids mounted on jetbikes. I already have a couple of squads worth, so can now field a platoon.

These new versions are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and it’s interesting to contrast them (did you see what I did there?) with how I painted their predecessors:

Both look really good, but the old-platoon were painted with the base coat/wash/highlight method (i.e. each figures was picked up three times per colour) whereas the new ones, with the Contrast Paints, are only one coat per colour i.e. each figures was picked up only once per colour.

You can decide which is better!

Filling the Gaps

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Whilst it’s nice to have a project to work on, it’s also nice to paint a whole load of itty-bitty things just to fill the gaps in a collection, or to take advantage of a new release…and that’s what this post covers.

First up, we have yet another Russian Orthodox church. Yes, after my last post, someone (kindly!) pointed out that I didn’t have the Hovels version in my collection. One quick order later, a couple of weeks wait and, low and behold, here’s my tenth Russian Orthodox church, and very nice it is too.

So now I’m fairly confidently stating that I have every single 15mm Russian Orthodox church available but, on the off-chance you know of any others, do feel free to let me know.

Oh, the others I have can be found here.

Next up is another command stand for my ECW armies. These chaps are from Matchlock Miniatures, available via the Caliver Books-run Minifigs website. I was ordering some of their 15mm ECW personalities for my Rabble bases (preaching puritan, ratcatcher, lady with long gun etc) when I suddenly remembered that I was short a Colonel command stand. These are two of their Generals, and very nice figures they are too, and perfectly compatible with my existing Peter Pig, Hallmark and Khurasan troops.

Although it’s quite hard to see in the picture, the chap behind (with the hat) is actually holding a dog! Anyway, highly recommended as a source of character figures if nothing else.

Finally in today’s random selection of bits and bobs from the painting table are more Ursids from Khurasan. For those of you unfamiliar with the range, these are giant 15mm sci-fi bears, seven feet tall, wearing sunglasses, smoking cigars and armed with bear-portable fusion guns or BPFGs!

The original release was four different infantry types, but now Jon has added a Big Man equivalent and an “Ur-Cannon” weapons team to the range. Loving these bears, and added to Stan Johansen’s Blareds (smaller bears) they make a great fun sci-fi force. My painting doesn’t really do these justice!

So all in all a bit of fun from the painting table. Next up are some more Romans and some Druid types to work their opponents up into a frenzy!

ECW: The Mob!

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Finally managed to actually finish some painting: four bases of Rabble for my ECW armies and a coach & horses model to provide an objective or battlefield colour.

Let’s start with the coach:

This an Essex Miniatures model, with outriders from Peter Pig. It is a lovely, chunky bit of kit, and not too complicated to build.

That’s not to say it was easy (it wasn’t, and there was a lot of Superglue involved, most of which ended up on my fingers) but it was easier than the Magister Militum version that I bought at the same time. That arrived with no wheels, and had so many teeny-tiny fiddly bits that I eventually gave up trying to build it at all!

The problem for both is the way that the coach part is supposed to “float” above the carriage bit, hanging from the suspension springs that attach to uprights from the carriage. If you look at the picture above, that odd bit of blue above the rear wheels (don’t understand how that ended up there: there’s no blue on the model!) is where the suspension spring attaches to the upright. On this model, the suspension springs are very cleverly part of the main coach body, bending out from it at whatever angle you need them to. On the MM version, you had to build each part bit by bit i.e. tiny bit attached to tiny bit attached to tiny bit. I’m sure a better modeler than I would have coped, but it was too much for me.

As you’ll see, I based the model to fit with how I’m going to use it when playing the grid-based For King & Parliament rules. The team is separate from the coach, so when the coach is in a square on its own or with nothing in front of it, I shall put the team on the table; and if there’s no room, I won’t. It seems a bit odd, but works without having to use one of my double-deep bases to fit the coach and team on in one, which would then prevent me putting another unit into the same square.

The Mob

You need some Rabble bases for three of the scenarios in my newly published Marlowe to Maidenhead ECW scenario book, so I thought that I’d better finish the ones that I’ve had part-finished for some time.

The figures are a real mixture. There are all the civilian figures I could find from Magister Militum’s Hallmark range; there are the Peter Pig clubmen and peasants; there are the Peter Pig plague doctors (I had to find a use for them somehow!) and then there are a few carefully chosen “specials” from Minifigs’ ECW range. All in all, a wide variety of poses that look properly mob-like.

I always think that it’s difficult to get a good looking Rabble base, and I’m still sure of that now. These are okay, and will do, but they don’t look at good as, say, the equally-mob-like Highlanders that I painted for my Scottish ECW army. On reflection, rather than going for a wide variety of colours, I should have decided on a very simple colour scheme and used that for all the figures, making allowances only for what they are wearing.

Well, looking at them again in the picture above, maybe they don’t look as bad as I thought. Let me know what you think via the comments.

Oh, and that is a single Minifigs Highlander out front: a Gallant Gentleman for the Scots.

New Scenario Pack Now Available!

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Exciting news: my new English Civil War scenario pack for the For King & Parliament set of rules is now available!

In the UK:

Buy it from BigRedBat

In Europe/the USA:

Buy it from Wargames Vault

Here’s the marketing blurb:

Marlowe to Maidenhythe is a supplement for TtS! For King & Parliament that contains twelve free-standing, fictional scenarios: nine in a loose chronological order and three bonus scenarios following the fortunes of the main participants after the campaign ends.

The pack is deliberately designed to give players who don’t have enough time to write their own scenarios a number of games that they can play with little or no preparation at all. All you have to do is print out the game and player briefings, set up the table according to the map, break out the figures and cards, and start the first turn. You don’t even need to print the pack out in full: just the pages you need for the scenario you’re going to play.

Marlowe to Maidenhythe tells the story of the clash between Sir John Boulters (for the Royalists) and Sir Christopher Grey (Parliamentarian): erstwhile friends now separated by their different loyalties. The same officers and units are used throughout the campaign, and it is hoped that the players will come to adopt and recognise them as their own or the enemy.

The games can be played either as a series of linked games or as a collection of one-off battles. To emphasise: each scenario is free standing and they do not have to be played in any particular order…but it is anticipated that players will play them in order as a campaign, keeping a running total of each sides’ score as they go along. The pack provides a Campaign Record Sheet as an easy way of doing so.

Finally, although specifically designed for FK&P, with a little work the scenarios can be adapted for any set of English Civil War/Renaissance rules: the basic elements of why, where and with what each side is fighting being largely common to all systems.

So whether you’re for the King or for Parliament, Marlowe to Maidenhythe gives you everything you need for many hours of joyful gaming!

ECW Limbers

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After playing quite a few games of For King & Parliament, I realised that I could really do with a couple of bases to represent limbered, and therefore still capable of moving, artillery bases.

For my 19thC and WW2 armies, I don’t usually bother with anything fancy: just a limber and team that I can place behind the deployed gun model, but the way that I have based my ECW troops in elements required a little more…especially as limbered guns are long as opposed to wide.

As you can see from the picture, above, I decided to use my special Warbases double-deep vehicle bases and create mini vignettes: each of the two artillery pieces that will deploy supported by a couple of ammo wagons.

The guns, ammo wagons, carters and teams all came from the Hallmark range via Magister Militum, with a few spare Peter Pig artillerymen scattered around the base to dress it up a bit. The command figures are from Hallmark as well.

The size of the base makes a really substantial feature for the table, and suits how slow artillery in FK&P is to get into position and deploy.

Can’t wait to try them out, but that will have to wait until after lockdown…!

GW Contrast Paints & my ECW Collection/More Deliveries

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Squadpainter, in his kind comment yesterday, asked which GW Contrast paints I used when painting my 15mm ECW collection. That sounds like a good excuse for a post, so here’s a list of what I used…

Undercoat: I favour the Grey Seer over the Wraithbone only because I don’t think you get as much show-through on the weaker colours, but I use either dependent on supplies! It’s expensive compared to the car primers from Halfords that I used to use, but does take the Contrast Paints superbly. Pay the extra: it’s worth it.

Note that Contrast Paints are not actually paints, but more glazes. This means that they are comparatively fragile and painted figures really do need a coat of varnish before hitting the table.

Skintones: There are three fleshtones in the range, I use Darkoath Flesh for caucasian skin.

Uniforms & Hats

I used colours from across the entire range. Some of my units are in bright, fancy uniforms; some use more muted colours.

The buttons at the back are not separately painted: it’s how the Contrast Paint works.

I found the best red to use was Fleshtearers Red; I found the worst green was Militarum Green. Creed Camo is a nice green; and all the greys and blues are lovely. Nazdreg Yellow is a surprising choice, but works very well.

I never really got on with Apothecary White: I generally ended up having to drybrush a standard acrylic white over an Apothecary White to get the effect I wanted. I do know that Apothecary White works really well for larger figures, so maybe it’s just the way I paint 15s that is the problem.

Hodder Grey: the uniform coats of my Scots Covenantors are nearly all Space Wolves Grey, with Ultramarine Blue bonnets. Trousers etc differ.

Note the jerkins

Note the jerkins

Jerkins: Aggaros Dunes makes a great colour for the ubiquitous, sleeveless leather jerkin.

Smocks & Leggings: Skeleton Horde makes a good off-white colour for faded linens.

Boots & Shoes: all are Wyldwood.

Equipment

All wood: I use Goregrunta Fur for anything wooden. Pike handles, muskets, limbers etc.

All leather: Snakebite Leather.

Horses

I have two types of standard brown horse. Both use Cygor Brown diluted 50/50 with Technical Contrast Medium. One type of standard brown horse then gets the legs up to the knee, mane and tail painted black; the other just has the mane and tail painted black, with an odd number of standard acrylic white socks and a standard acrylic white star or blaze on the forehead.

DSCN1203.jpg

Black horses use Black Templar, with a standard acrylic black mane and tail, and then an uneven number of standard acrylic white socks and a standard acrylic white star or blaze on the forehead. Be warned, Black Templar is fairly fragile, and will easily be scraped off, so a little care when handling painted-but-not-yet-varnished horses is required.

Dun horses can be achieved with Aggaras Dunes, with legs up to the knee, mane and tail painted black.

Just make sure they aren’t wearing jerkins!

Just make sure they aren’t wearing jerkins!

Hopefully that will give you a head start on which colours to use.

More Deliveries

The story so far: a load of lockdown loot ordered from eight different manufacturers/suppliers last Sunday. On Wednesday, Boontown won the race to be the first to deliver, and on Thursday the ever-reliable Warbases came in second.

Today we can add three more to the list. Yesterday Magister Militum delivered me some more ECW figures from their Hallmark range; and today we have a tie for 4th place with a re-stock in paints from Games Workshop, and the raw lead for my new Classical Indian army from Museum Miniatures.

Not mine: picture from the Museum Miniatures website. Now that I have seen them in the lead, I can confirm that they are truly lovely figures.

So far, therefore, we have:

1. Boontown (3 days)

2. Warbases (4 days)

3. Magister Militum (5 days)

4= Games Workshop (6 days)

4= Museum Miniatures (6 days)

Still pretty impressive stuff!

More Scottish Pike/Warbases Deliver!

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Here’s another unit for my 15mm ECW Scots Covenanter army: a second pike-only battalia.

The fine-looking pikemen are from the Hallmark range via Magister Militum; and the command figures are Peter Pig. These are painted mainly with GW Contrast Paints, with just the metalwork being normal acrylics.

As regards everything else, the flag is a custom order from Maverick, the pikes are from Northstar, the heather is from Boontown (see yesterday’s post for more) , the base is from Warbases (see below for more), and the flock is from Hobby Round.

Warbases Deliver!

The story so far: a load of lockdown loot ordered from eight different manufacturers/suppliers last Sunday. On Wednesday, Boontown won the race to be the first to deliver, and yesterday the ever-reliable Warbases came in second with my order of vehicle bases (which I use for 15mm elements such as the pike, above) and a packet of command bases.

So far, therefore, we have:

  1. Boontown (3 days)

  2. Warbases (4 days)

Pretty impressive stuff!

Scottish Lancers

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I’ve finally had a chance to finish a unit that’s been sitting on the painting table for almost a week: a unit of Scottish Lancers for my ECW Covenantor army.

The main body figures are from Khurasan’s ECW Scots & Irish range, painted mainly with GW Contrast Paints. The two command figures are Peter Pig. The flag is a custom design from Maverick. As I didn’t have a command figure holding a flag, and wrapping it around one of the lancers looked weird, I decided to have the chap on the left waving a cut-down version!

The unit is based for For King & Parliament on a Warbases vehicle base. The purple heather is from Boontown.

I also managed to paint up a Colonel’s command base for the troops: a couple of figures from Peter Pig:

These were painted in the same way as the Lancers, above.

Pike Only Battalia

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To round out my ECW forces, I thought I’d better have some pike-only battalia and, as my Scots need a bit of a boost, I thought I’d make them Scottish.

scot1.JPG

The main body of the unit is pikemen from Hallmark Figures via Magister Militum. The three command chaps are from Peter Pig. They are painted mostly with GW Contrast paints, and mounted as a For King & Parliament element on a “vehicle base” from Warbases. The pikes are from North Star, the flag is a custom order from Maverick, and the heather is from Boontown.

scot2.JPG

More Dutch Horse

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This weekend I finally had the chance to get back to the painting table and polish off another unit of “Dutch” horse for my 15mm ECW collection.

The figures are Hallmark from Magister Militum, painted with GW Contrast Paints.

As with all my ECW figures, I mounted them as a For King & Parliament element on a Warbases Vehicle Base. They are lovely and chunky to move around the tabletop, but I am somewhat terrified of dropping one!

Whilst I was waiting for the paint to dry between colours on the above, I also managed to paint a command base for my Scots Covenantor force. Here I used the Peter Pig special Scots pack of ensign, preacher and dog and a Hallmark gentleman command figure.

I must remember to brush off the spider’s web before photographing!

These came out quite well, and I do love the preacher. One thing I must remember to do, however, is to brush off the bits of errant spider’s web that the varnish picks up when I’m spraying in the garage before photographing the figures. It comes off easily, but you can barely see it in normal light…or at least that’s my excuse.

Onto some pike-only units now.

Scots Covenantor Artillery

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Another unit for my ECW Scots Covenantor army: this time it’s the artillery.

These are figures from Khurasan Miniatures’ 15mm Scots & Irish range, with one man per crew coming from Peter Pig.

They are painted with GW Contrast Paints, and mounted on a vehicle base from Warbases. The “heather” comes from Boontown.

DSCN1999.JPG

More Scots

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A very productive weekend with another two units of Scots for my ECW collection rolling off the production line. All the below are 15mm figures from Khurasan’s Scots & Irish for the ECW range, painted with GW Contrast Paints and mounted on Warbases vehicle bases to give a nice chunky element for For King & Parliament.

First up was the third unit of Highlanders:

High2.JPG

Following the Highlanders was a suitably manky unit of mounted Scottish Pistoliers. In FK&P , Scottish horse are nearly always downgraded due to the poor quality of their steeds.

My name is Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacCleod...

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Now that the three battalia of Scottish pikemen are done, it’s time to start adding the Highlanders

These are, again, 15mm Khurasan Miniatures mostly painted with GW Contrast paints and mounted on my chosen element bases from Warbases.

I used 16 figures to represent the Highlander unit equivalent of a pike ‘n’ shot battalia. That might be a little light, but with the dynamic poses you can see in the pic above, any more would have had them on top of each other. It looks about right on the tabletop though.

Note that the chaps with the polearms and yellow shirts are “humblies”: called that because they are the poorer sort of Highlander!

Scottish Pikes

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Here’s another battalia of lowland Scottish pikemen for my English Civil War collection:

The figures are from Khurasan’s Irish/Scottish ECW range. They are 15mm and size nicely with the Peter Pig and Hallmark (from Magister Militum) ranges that I am already using. They are very cleanly sculpted and an absolute pleasure to paint. Those of you in the UK might be interested to note that they arrived with me only five days after ordering them from the US: the GZG teleport device is obviously now working in both directions!

They are painted mainly with GW Contrast paints and are mounted on a Warbases vehicle base, giving a very nicely sized element for use with the For King & Parliament ruleset. The flowers/heather is from Boontown.

I’ve taken a pragmatic approach to painting tartan. Rather than spend hours and hours trying to actually reproduce a genuine tartan pattern, I’ve made do with something that doesn’t take too long and looks good at a wargames distance of three feet or so. In effect, all I did was add stripes of a different colour to a heavily shaded sash. This worked for these guys, but the highlanders that I’m currently painting need a little more work as they have a lot more tartan, but more on that in a later post.

Another Scots Battalia

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Enthused by how the first Scots battalia came out, I leapt into painting the second one and polished it off in no time at all.

As a reminder, these are Khurasan Miniatures’ 15mm English Civil War Scots infantry: a mixture of their pikemen, musketeers and infantry command packs. They were painted using GW Contrast Paints, and mounted on a Warbases Vehicle base. The purple heather is from Boontown.

When I first started the Scots, I was a bit worried about painting tartan, but I seem to have found a way of getting the various sashes looking at least tartan-esque, certainly from usual wargaming distance. To be honest, all I did was paint each sash a basecoat red, then drew lines of various different colours (mainly green) against the grain of the sash. I think they have come out quite well, but the real test will be when I move on to the Highlanders!

DSCN1858.JPG

There will now be a short interval whilst I paint the one remaining legionary unit I need to actually field the Marian Romans…

The First of the ECW Scots

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I still needed some more foot for my ECW armies, but was a little bored of painting up another straight pike and shot battalia (I have seven units of about 26 figures each, or 182 foot figures) so decided I’d add a Scots element.

Most of my ECW figures so far have been Peter Pig or Hallmark (via Magister Militum), so I decided to look elsewhere for the Scots: two changes presumably being as good as two rests!

The figures I settled on in the end were Khurasan’s fairly new range of ECW Scots and Irish. I must admit I was strongly influenced by how good the painted up examples on the website looked (other manufacturers take note!) and the fact that I could send a message via FB to check if the pikemen were open handed (they are) and get a response within a couple of hours.

Even more impressive was that after I’d ordered my usual fairly large amount (three foot battalia, three horse units, two units of Highlanders, and a couple of artillery pieces) the figures arrived from the US only five days later. Five days!

This meant they headed straight to the front of the painting queue, so here’s the first battalia finished:

What I like about these figures is the obvious contrast with the English battalia: all dressed very plainly as compared to the bright colours down South…but with several of the figures having tartan sashes just to liven things up a little.

These paint up very easily (as usual, I mostly used Contrast Paints) and are highly recommended.

A Few Odds & Ends from the Painting Table

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Very busy at work this last week, so only time to complete a few odds and ends for the two projects I’m currently working on: English Civil War and Marian Romans.

I always find that having two projects on the go at any one time is better than having just one. If, like I do, you only collect in one scale (15mm for me) I also find that it’s best to use different manufacturers as well: alleviates the boredom factor.

First up, a couple of command stands for my English Civil War armies. Here I’ve used a couple of gentleman officers from Hallmark (via Magister Militum) as a random Colonel-type, and then a couple of spare figures from Peter Pig - one command, one artilleryman - as a Colonel of artillery. The mini-gabions are Hama beads filled with basing material!

The Hallmark figures are really exquisite and, if you use Contrast Paints like I do, really easy to paint.

On top of the above, I’ve now painted up the five Hero figures I need for my Marian Roman army. Representing Heroes is always difficult, as you need a figure that stands out a bit and yet is not being used for the rest of the army.

What I chose to do was to add a set of Peter Pig Centurion figures to my Baueda Marian Roman army.

One of the great things about Peter Pig (in addition to the huge range and lovely, very paintable sculpts that they do) is that you can ask them to give you a custom built pack of just one sculpt. So here I looked at one of their mixed command packs, chose one figure, and had a pack of eight of just that figure sent to me. Very handy indeed.

Siege Guns

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Having equipped my ECW armies with light guns and field artillery, it was time to add the big boys: a couple of Siege Gun elements.

The guns themselves were no problem: many years ago I was at an English Heritage site (or similar) and came across a tub of artillery models that have, over the years, proved ideal for siege gun-sized artillery pieces. I still have a handful left, so two of them would form the centrepiece of the elements.

I wanted the siege gun elements to look immobile, so rather than having the guns “naked” on a base, I bought a couple of resin gabion pieces from Peter Pig to serve as dressing. This also meant I didn’t have to have any sort of limber and team in the vicinity: they always take ages to do!

The crews initially came from Peter Pig, who do six different poses. Six men per gun didn’t seem enough, however, so I added a couple of Hallmark officer/sergeant types to each to bulk things out. Hallmark (available through Magister Militum) and Peter Pig size very well together.

I then discovered that the guns, gabions and crews didn’t really fit depth-wise on the standard element bases I’m using for my ECW troops. My standard bases are Warbases Vehicle Bases that fit up to about thirty foot or half as many horse figures without difficulty, and sit very nicely on my FK&P grided battlemat…but the combination of crew, gun and gabion stuck out over the end. Fortunately Warbases were able to supply customised “double depth” vehicle bases that exactly did the trick. I can even use the spares I ordered for TTS camps.

So that’s two siege gun elements now completed. More Romans on the way…

More ECW Dutch Horse

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Having painted up three units of Republican Romans, I needed a break from things Latin, so dipped into one of the more recent outcrops from the lead mountain: another unit of Dutch horse for my English Civil War collection.

These are more from the excellent 15mm Hallmark range, available from Magister Militum. They are painted with GW Contrast Paints, with the flag from Maverick. The base is a large vehicle base from Warbases.