A Pike And Shotte Review

I decided to dig out my pike and shot troops after watching Cromwell half a dozen times. Well, at least the parts from Edgehill to Naseby anyway. The film had a colourful cast of thousands led by Richard Harris and Alec Guiness. The battles had little to do with history, but they certainly are inspiring to a wargamer.

 These are some of my lobsters with very colourful trumpets and drums. The heavily armoured cavalry are later Knights from Giant Plastics (I have scads of them as shown in an earlier blog entry). The musicians are converted from those Thailand cowboys and indians I ordered a while back. The shooting cowboy aiming off into the blue makes a great trumpeter with the addition of plasticine and paint.

 A Minifig 25mm General accompanied by one of my cowboy standard bearers. I have a dozen Minifig commanders and I wish I could claim that I painted them, but they were an ebay purchase some time ago. They fit in nicely and do look the part.

 Part of the "English" Royalist army shown previously. I set up a vaguely English vs French battle, but truth be told it's a mix up of almost all my units.

 Some of the "French". I like the barrel barrow. I did that with an Airfix 8th Army lying soldier and some odds and ends. The big wagon is from an ebay win from an English man named Coombs. He made wonderful conversions, and they are sprinkled throughout my armies.

 My French commander at the left.

 The bare headed commander is the Airfix Sherriff of Nottingham on a Giant Knight's horse.

 These are some conversions I did to try and emulate some soldiers I saw in the Cromwell film. They are dragoons that are seen at Edgehill, when Timothy Dalton first rides up to the King. You see them also at Naseby, but only briefly. They have black fur hats and a red bag, and a red uniform. The movie shows them with white stripes, but for the life of me, I can't find a uniform reference in any of my books. Perhaps a fancy by the film makers, but too colourful for me to ignore.

 The English side again. A home made gun from Mr. Coombs, a multi barrel piece of ordnance. A good mix of my toys, Little Lead Soldiers, Giant, Warrior Miniatures, Airfix and Hong Kong, and Minifigs.

 Overall, I have nearly 800 figures on the table. It took me an evening to dig them out of their boxes and set them up on a table to photograph.

(Edit) I found more pix. Plus my sister shed her old laptop that I've been using to post with Chrome. Luckily I ended up with it (Thanks Kathryn!) and now can post more readily. 

Hand In The Cookie Jar

I received this notice from Google Blogger:
"European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities."

So that being said, I have no idea what they are talking about.

So assume that viewing this blog will result in cookies, diabetes, weight gain, and a crumby moustache, as well as directly lead to the end of the world as we know it.

It's been fun.

Sorry for ruining everything man has accomplished.

We now return you to our regular programing.

English Civil War

First up are some of my Little Lead Soldier company figures. I painted these up as Royalists. I also made a version of Peter Gilder's Gentleman Pensioners, but I did err in the numbers and in the banner. I blame my watching Family Guy while painting. A Minifigs Charles the First is in attendance.

Next are a mix of figures from the Parliamentary side, Warrior Miniatures 20mm and some more Dollar  Store conversions.

These last three images are of some game pieces from Sid Meier's Civilization Board game. I picked them up in a bagful of toys from ebay. While they aren't especially accurate, they do look the part. I added pikemen from World War 2 Dollar Store soldiers.

Airfix Cuirassier And Giant Horses

I had a large number of Airfix Waterloo French Cuirassier about, and many spare horses. As a lot of you know, the plastic can get brittle with age. Typically, I use a pin vice drill and some florist wire to help mount the Airfix horses onto a wooden base, in this case a domino. But brittleness can mean actually splitting a horse in two with drilling. So I cast about for a solution and decided upon the Giant horses from Thailand. That left the sheepskins and shebraques. So I made them with plasticine. I chose a common pose, not a really nice one, but I used them up in this way.  I made a regiment of 24 with 6 extras, a trumpeter, an elite company trumpeter in a white bearskin, 2 officers, and 2 special officers, a senior in bicorne and a fanciful one with an animal skin shebraque.

I also made some earlier figures and terrain. This is a Vauban gateway based on a model of Ian Weekly, featured in Miniature Wargames.

This is a small Napoleonic unit of Chasseurs A Cheval. They are the Thailand cowboys with plasticine additions.

Dollar Store Marlburians

I ordered some bags of these:

In the center is a bag of over 200 US and British 1/72 soldiers with some tanks, jeeps and a plane. On either side are some of those cowboys and indians I mentioned before with Giant style horses.

I made some units in Charles Grant Style, that is 48 ranks with 5 officer/extras plus 2 bases of 3 grenadiers for a total of 59 miniatures. I guess I'll group the grenadiers into a converged unit once I have enough made. All are plasticine conversions painted with acrylics and with a double coat of Future Floor Polish.

I was really taken with the home cast armies I saw on the Westerhope Wargames Group Blog:

http://westerhopewargames.blogspot.ca/

Basically I made a few units like their Spanish Marlburians:

I used the cowboys and indians for the mounted officers, and for the cavalry.  I really like the Lombardi poplar trees, which I've culled from toy farm sets and second hand shops.
I  also did a unit of dragoons. Twenty four other ranks and four officer types. I used Funcken's Lace Wars book for the uniform of Spanish Dragoons, but I'm at a loss for a flag.

I started a unit of Danish cavalry, again a copy of some of the soldiers I saw in the Westerhope blog. I really like these guys. The swords are toothpicks.

I also started a few other units, like this artillery piece. I guess I'm lurching towards Almansa on cardboard and plaster roads.