King's Lifeguard of Foot command

I spent a couple of sessions basing up the command stand for the King's Lifeguard of Foot. The minis are Bicornes superbly painted by Chris Meacham. I did the flags- this time by GMB - lovely designs! Starved of banners during my long sojourn in the ancient period, I couldn't resist gorging by using all four. Reminds me of the palio in Siena!

My first tertio

The (clickable) army is forming up; I'm two command stands (and some grout and flock) short of four battalia. Some lovely baggage arrived yesterday, from a certain Mr, Imrie, and I'm currently working on the standards for the Royal Lifeguard Regiment of Foot. Once these are based, I shall put everything away until after Partizan. 

What I've managed, so far, is to prove the concept of the bases and get a feel for how long it takes to base a regiment where most of the minis are fully painted. This turns out to be around a week, assuming a little snagging and the time needed to drape the standards. This means I'll need 20 weeks to base all the foot I have planned, perhaps 15 to base the horse and guns, and at least 5 for terrain. It'll be a busy winter (and spring!) preparing for a Salute game...

First ECW artillery

Here are the first guns for my ECW army; I'll have two to a battery. These are field guns originally painted by David Imrie. I decided to re-base them onto larger bases, to give them a bit more room to "breathe", and so I could add extra crew, a budge barrel and some buckets of water for sponging. 

The guns are mounted on the same bases as I'll use for the horse- they take six cavalry in two ranks. You can see where the magnets fit, and the directional arrow that reminds me which way the minis need to face so that the bases can fit together. Later I have some larger siege guns to base, and a small frame gun that will be attached to a battalia. 

New Model command

This is the command stand for John Pickering's regiment of the New Model army. These are from Ian at Flags of War; very nice they are, too! I distressed them.

The command minis are mostly Bicorne.

The above snap is a bit "washed out"- they are actually pretty colourful. I'll take some better photos when  the bases are grouted.

New Model models

Above is my third regiment is forming up- John Pickering's from the New Model Army. All being well I should get the command stand based tonight. This regiment are all Renegades- slightly bigger minis than Bicorne but which work fine as separate units. Unusually, I painted these myself and they have come out pretty well but aren't quite as good as the pro-painted minis in the other units.

Below is the army so far- elements of four battalia. I plan to raise at least two dozen foot units, drawn mainly from Hopton's, Waller's, the Oxford and New Model armies.

Pike at charge

Last night, I couldn't resist basing another "at charge" pike stand. I feel very conflicted about lowered pike; they are hard to store, have a big footprint on the table and the command stand has to sit behind rather than being in front. And yet...

In this second photo, below, chum Ian Notter designed the bases so that they "lock" frontally and to the side. He has also very cleverly designed them so that a command base can lock midway in front or behind two other bases; darned clever! This is handy as I intend to take photos of double and quadruple sized regiments (for photos and fun rather than for gaming).

All minis by Chris Meacham (or possibly David Imrie). I plan to put a few more stands together, over the next week, and then I had better get back to ancients for a bit!

Alternative pike stand

I wanted to see what the units with vertical pikes will look like; in this case, the command stand can be in front (retiring behind when the lines close). Most units will have three flags instead of the four on this one; so there may be a chance of seeing the £60 worth of pike behind them!  ;-)

First battalia coming on!

Here's the army's first battalia deployed on its Batbases (the photo is clickable). For regiments with lowered pikes the command stand will sit behind the pike. The empty base at the front is there to protect the lowered pikes- it'll have casualties on it, too. Again, all the minis were painted by Chris Meacham- in this regiment they are in attacking poses.

Put out more flags!

I'm very pleased with these- the minis were superbly painted by Chris Meacham, I did the standards. Four standards is too many, but, painting ancients, I have been starved of big flags and thought I'd indulge myself!

A new beginning!

Welcome to my new English Civil War-themed blog! 

It is early days, here, but this is a picture of the bases that I've designed for my own regiments. This is for a foot battalia; it is 25cm wide. The larger bases are each intended to take 12 shot or pike miniatures, and the smaller one at the front, 6-7 command miniatures.

I designed the bases and chum Ian laid them out using Inkscape- there are bases for everything (horse, guns, dragoons, different pike to shot ratios), and they all have wobbly edges but fit together. Martin at Warbases did a fine job cutting them! Later today I'll fit magnets and start to think about putting some lead on them.