Building Norchester

For my Salute '24 game, part of the table will feature part of the besieged Cittie of Norchester. I've made a start with the modelling for this. I already have around 20 of the 30 required buildings (a mix of Hovels and ex-Gallia townhouses) and I've bought the city walls from Caliver Books. Next I need to buy/finish the remaining buildings, assemble and paint the walls, buy and paint the remaining defensive works, buy and assemble the siege lines, and populate all of the above with soldiery and civilians.  So not much to do. :-/

Prince Maurice's forming

I recently bought some figures from a friend, George, and have been repainting them as a new regiment, Prince Maurice's, which was conveniently at many of the major battles of the English Civil War. All of the minis are from Bicorne. I will give them red standards.

It took a surprising amount of time (retouching minis always does) but I am now just four minis short of a regiment, and hopefully will be able to field them in the next For King and Parliament Roundway Down game, which will hopefully be at Colours (assuming the table is confirmed, which is very likely).

Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of time for ECW modelling, just now, but I would love to finish these, some extra troopers to complete a "Dutch" regiment, some combined shotte, base some firelocks and some paint baggage before I move on to other pressing projects.

Roundway Down at Partizan

This weekend Andrew Brentnall and I enjoyed a very jolly weekend at Partizan with the Roundway Down game based on the For King and Parliament scenario that we wrote together, a few years ago. The game is perhaps best viewed in this 90-second video.

Above is the game as set up.  I had been apprehensive about a hill-failure, but mercifully it held together. The hill was perhaps 15" tall at the top.

Below is a shot from the first game- Andy Green (left) as the Royalists got off to a shocking start with some terrible cards, but pulled it around and came close to beating Matthew Hotston (with Andrew). All the photos are clickable.

Here are a couple of shots of the protagonists- Parliamentarians above and Royalists below.

Alas I got not photos of the second game, which was even closer than the first, ending, this time, in a narrow Royalist victory. 

Above, Andrew brought his alternative version of the scenario, in 6mm, which generated quite a bit of interest.

I was very pleased with the general balance of the scenario, which you can find here.  We might take the game to a couple of other events in the South, later this year. I have an idea to extend the board so that I can depict the Bloody Ditch and the Parliamentarian baggage train at Oliver's Castle.

Huge thanks to Andrew who worked very hard on the running the games whilst I nattered with bystanders. 

As ever, Partizan was a great event- very well run, a credit to the organisers. It's always fantastic to catch up with so many friends.  There are always a ton of lovely looking historical games, and no time at all for me to see them! 

Roundway Down Preview

This afternoon Andrew Brentnall and I built the terrain for tomorrow’s big Roundway Down game at Partizan in Newark-on-Trent.

It was a complex process- the gigantic 12’ long hill is supported on ubiquitous Really Useful Boxes, anchored in place (hopefully!) by Rug Grippers. I didn’t bring quite enough boxes, and it became something of a faff to make it work.

On top of the boxes go MDF boards in various sizes.

Next there is a black cloth, to hide the workings, more rug gripper and the hand-gridded Geek Villain mats from a previous post, joined together at the edges with double-sided tape.

Finally we added the miniatures and some trees, then I shot a brief video of the finished article. I’ll shoot some more video of the forces in the morning.  Hope to see some of you at Partizan tomorrow!

All the ECW horse

Today chum Ian came around and helped me to sort out all of my ECW cavalry. I say sort- many of the regiments had become mixed up after their last outing (at the Wargames Holiday Centre- three or even four years ago!), and we had to work out what fitted with what. I've recently added three or four new regiments bringing the total to eighteen. You can click on the above image for a closeup. 

Better still, I've recorded a brief YouTube video, below, describing them- I think it is the first I've ever posted. I hope you enjoy it.

On Sunday I'll have the majority of these cavalry and a few infantry, too, at Partizan in Newark. I hope to see some of you there!

More Empty Horses

Here are the final markers for Roundway, these are FK&P pursuit markers, and depict rider-less horses and horses carrying injured riders; photo is clickable. They are used to show when a cavalry unit is in an uncontrolled advance. They are a mix of odd horses I had spare, with a couple of Redoubt riders and a whole lot of tufts! I am using so many tufts this year.

In case you missed the post on BigRedBatCave, here are the earlier markers I finished. This is the most markers I've ever completed for a game,. I'm really pleased with them. I'm looking at the battlefield itself, today, marking up cloths and testing the build of the big hill.

Roundway Down chez Andrew Brentnall

Yesterday I travelled to the deepest wilds of Suffolk for a chat and game with FK&P stealth co-author Andrew Brentnall. He has a lovely dedicated gaming area and set up Roundway Down in a corner of it. I volunteered to play Sir William Waller's Parliamentarians at the top of the hill, and Andrew led Wilmot's plucky, outnumbered (but well-hard) Royalists at the bottom. All the minis are 10/12mm from his collection, and we used Andrew's variant of the scenario for the deployment, as opposed to my variant which has the Parliamentarian horse a little further forward. The unit cards were designed by chum Ian Notter. 

Here's a shot early in the game. Wilmot's own command piled into Heselrig and the other two commands are inclining towards the Parliamentarian left.

Above, brave Sir Arthur led his London Lobsters into one of Wilmot's units. I played a nine for the first activation, attempted a general's replay to get a lower chit and pulled a ten! Don't you just hate it when that happens? Still, I got to watch Andrew's jaw drop as I pulled two further tens to activate it twice more (3 tens in a row, the odds of that are rather to the north of 100 to 1, as there are only 8 in the bag), and managed to ride down a unit of cavalier horse before being slaughtered by a flurry of flank attacks. Those are some of the new yellow and white activation chits, by the way, very classy.

Here's the situation late in the game- the roundheads had closed on the left of my line, which I had held back so that I could support it with my foot. In the ensuing melees the leftmost "Dutch" unit broke through the Royalist line, and pursued the survivors down the hill, pursued in turn by Crawford's two units of reserve Royalist cavalry. Luckily for me my Dutch outran their Royalist pursuers, because I only had three medals left! But Andrew, by this stage, only had two himself.

And here was the last decisive melee. Requiring two medals to win, I managed to activate this disordered and exhausted unit of horse no fewer than four times. On the final activation I hit and the cavaliers failed their final save, giving me the last two medals that I needed.  It was a very narrow victory, indeed!

It was a great day out and a great delight to see Andrew again. Glorious weather, to boot. We had a sensible chat about the Thirty Years War in general and Lutzen in particular, and I feel a new scenario is coming along.

Sir William Waller

Sir William Waller was a leading Parliamentarian general during the English Civil War. He won numerous victories, at one point earning the nickname "William the Conqueror". He also suffered a few notable defeats, including that at Roundway Down. He was remarkable for his friendship with Sir Ralph Hopton, his old comrade and frequent Royalist opponent, which continued though the hostilities.

Sir William is a Bicorne miniature, as are his colleagues. I love the Bicorne historical commanders, I'll probably end up collecting the whole lot of them. I think Sir William was painted by Shaun McTague. I couldn't find a suitable cornet, so I painted my own (rather badly!). Sir William will, of course, be leading the Parliamentarians in my Roundway Down game at Partizan in May.

Colonel Robert Hammond’s Regiment of Foot

 

I've added a New Model Army unit, Colonel Robert Hammond's, to my collection. It's a "small unit", understrength due to campaigning, or it could be part of a larger regiment divided into two battalia. It contains around 2/3 the number of miniatures in my full battalions (which have 41-42 minis) drawn up in 2 ranks and a colour party. In FK&P terms, it has two hits. The images are clickable.

I formed it from a spare unit I designed for the 20cm grid, which you can see on the first colour page of the For King and Parliament rule book. By adding an extra FK&P7 base onto the edge of each of the three FK&P6 bases (shown above), it has now become a battalion suitable for the 30cm grid.  Almost all of the miniatures were painted by Shaun McTague. Ian flocked it up and I tufted- the new bases blend in pretty much seamlessly. 

Sir Arthur Hesilrigge’s Regiment of Horse

I've recently expanded my regiment of Sir Arthur Hesilrigge’s Regiment of Horse (more famously known as the "London Lobsters") by adding a fourth troop of nine, the ones on the right and below. You can click on the photo to get an expanded view.  Some of these Bicorne Miniatures were painted by David Imrie, but the majority were painted by Shaun McTague and finished by me. The basing, as usual, features my FK&P bases, flocked by chum Ian Notter, tufted by me.

I have unaccountably lost my model of the eponymous Sir Arthur, but that doesn't matter greatly as I plan to replace him with a more heavily armoured version. These are, of course, intended for the Roundway Down game that I'm working towards for Partizan.

In other news, I published the updated book of TtS! medieval army lists yesterday - five new lists, bringing the total to a nice round 120 - if you've previously purchased the lists you will have received a copy or a link, or, if you'd like to buy it, you can find it here.

Sir Marmaduke Langdale

Here's Sir Marmaduke Langdale, commander of the élite Royalist Northern Horse in the English Civil War. He was a tough commander and needed be, as the Northern Horse were well aware of their own value and could be very undisciplined.

He commands my own For King and Parliament Northern Horse. I have three regiments of these, a mighty 54 men, but I realise that I've never taken a proper photo of them! I'll put that right, soon. But you can just make out some of them on the right in this link. They are hard men; they took out the Ironsides (left) in this battle.

If you are at a loose end, tonight at 8PM UK time I’ll be joining the Pile of Shame Broadcast on Youtube. 

I’ll  be talking about what I’ve been writing and modelling recently, and what I have planned. You can join us at the below link, hope to see you there!

 

https://youtube.com/channel/UCS7347mT9uSFHblr9f6xGcA

Proletarians, To Horse!

Here is the second unit for my Roundway Down game at Partizan. This is the fourth of four regiments of Parliamentarian horse, each consisting of three troops of nine men. The London Lobsters, the subject of a future post, will have four troops, so there will be 144 riders in all. You can click for a close-up.

These are mostly Bicorne miniatures, although a Warlord rider has somehow managed to join them (front right). I always use static horse poses for the "Dutch" style units, which, being a megalomaniac,  I draw up in three ranks (completely unnecessary but looks good). In For King and Parliament "Dutch" units usually stand to receive a charge from their feistier Royalist "Swedish" peers. They bristle with pistols and carbines.

All of these were beautifully painted by Shaun McTague last year- I highlighted and varnished. Chum Ian flocked the bases and I tufted. The flags are Flags of War- I have taken to snipping the edges into a fringe, and painting them gold for extra bling. A shout out to David Imrie who gave me some great advice on how to get the best out of my camera!

Now I'm working on the command stands for the battle, including Waller and Wilmot, images to follow in a week or so.

To Horse, you Gallant Princes!

It has been far to long since I posted on this blog! With preparations underway for a big Roundway Down game at Partizan in May, I find I need to base more generals, more guns but, most of all, more ECW cavalry. Here's the first of three new new units. This is a Royalist regiment- I like them to be a little more dynamic than their sober Puritan peers, also they carry Royalist cornets. You can click on the image for a closeup.

These are what Andrew and I describe as "Swedish" horse in our For King and Parliament rules- more aggressive than their adversaries who often fought in defensive "Dutch" formations, at least in the first year or so of the war. Most of these miniatures are the excellent Bicornes, intermixed with a few Renegades. Many came from an eBay purchase but others were beautifully painted by Shaun McTague. By the end of May I will have 18 regiments of horse and some independent troops- I only need 14 for Roundway, so I can leave out recognisable units that weren't present at the battle.

Roundway Down Scenario published

Roundway Down was a really unusual and exciting battle in which a modestly-sized Royalist force, entirely of cavalry, launched a desperate uphill charge against a superior Parliamentarian army. Incredibly, they prevailed – perhaps you can, too!

The Battle of Roundway Down Scenario is a digital file, designed for the TtS! For King and Parliament English Civil War rules, but adaptable for use with other rule systems, too. It is a medium-sized battle with only 21 units. It will suit two to four players.

A sample page from the booklet

The 12 page Scenario PDF includes a brief account of the campaign and the battle, reconstructed orders of battle for both sides, deployment diagrams and photos. It can either be viewed on a tablet, or printed out and bound. 

Separately available is a  booklet of  Roundway Down unit cards, designed by Ian Notter (below). There are cards for all the officers and units that we have been able to identify as present at the battle. These can be printed out on card, and used, in conjunction with the For King and Parliament rules and Roundway scenario, to re-fight the battle.

You can buy the Roundway Down scenario and unit cards (and others, including Edgehill, Montgomery and Stow-on-the-Wold) here.

Sir Jacob Astley

Sir Jacob Astley, Sergeant-Major-General of the Royalist foot, is one of my favourite characters of the Civil War. 

He neatly book-ending the war with two fabulous quotations. At Edgehill, the first major battle of the Civil War, there was his famous battle prayer:

"O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not thou forget me." He followed this promptly with the order "March on, boys!"

At the last pitched battle of the first Civil War, Stow-on-the-Wold, he surrendered to the Parliamentarians with the words:

"Well, boys, you have done your work, now you may go and play - if you don't fall out among yourselves."

What a man!

The model is a lovely Bicorne. I think I bought him on eBay; his drummer and fifer were painted by Chris Meacham. The base is one of my circular command bases with a scalloped edge.

Edgehill Scenario and Unit Cards published!

I've just published two exciting new downloads for use with the For King and Parliament ECW rules.

The first download is our Edgehill 1642 scenario. Edgehill 1642 was the first major battle of the English Civil War, and amongst the largest. The 18 page PDF includes a brief account of the campaign and the battle, reconstructed orders of battle for both sides, deployment diagrams and photos of beautifully painted wargames figures. It can be viewed on a tablet, or printed out and bound. The scenario, designed for the TtS! For King and Parliament English Civil War rules but could be adapted to work with other rule systems, too. It is a large and well-tested scenario that will suit two to six players.

The second download, below, is a 17 page digital file of unit cards, which can be printed, cut out and used to re-fight Edgehill, in conjunction with the scenario and the For King and Parliament rules (although the cards could be used to fight the battle with other rule systems, too).

There are cards representing all the general officers, some colonels and all the units that we have been able to identify as present at the battle. They are additional cards for Parliamentarian reinforcements that might have influenced the battle, had they arrived in time. There are also cards permitting an alternative deployment of the Royalist foot in a Thirty Years War "Swedish" style, which may have been used in the battle. There are card overlays that will indicate whether your horse is pursuing, or your foot formed up in hedgehog. Lastly, there's an explanatory booklet which explains how to prepare and use the cards.

The cards were designed by chum Ian Notter, based on the Naseby Streeter engraving, and the detail is stunning. They can be printed and cut out either for use with a 10cm grid (9' x 4' playing surface) or a 7.5cm grid (6' x 3' playing surface). They can also be used in conjunction with miniatures, taping each card under a unit's base, so that only the tag with the unit's name and details upon it, protrudes. A really useful way of showing which unit is in which brigade!

You can buy the Edgehill scenario and/or the Edgehill unit cards here. 

Edgehill - Unit cards - Sneak peek!

Here are a couple of images from the Edgehill Unit Cards pack that will be published, shortly. The cards are designed by my chum Ian Notter, based loosely on the images in the Streeter Naseby engraving. Here is a page from the introductory pack that accompanies the cards, and, below it, an image of a sheet of the unit cards, themselves.

These are some of the Parliamentarian Edgehill foot; large units, eight  ranks deep, so with an extra (fourth) hit. We have added uniform colours, where known (not often!), sometimes we have guessed. The flags indicate who the officer for the brigades is, and his superior general. All the information needed for play with For King and Parliament is on the card tab (save, ammo, battalion guns and so forth). If you laminate the cards, then you could use them with a whiteboard pen.

The whole Edgehill OOB, with lots of "what if" units, will be included in the download. Hopefully I'll have it in the shop on Wednesday or Thursday. If it proves popular, we will give the same treatment to some of the other battles of the ECW; perhaps we could also produce a set of generic unit cards for use with the game.

Edgehill Scenario- sneak peeks

Here are a few sample pages from the imminent Edgehill scenario booklet- due out later this week.  :) 

Edgehill Scenario and Unit Cards coming soon....

Very shortly I will have two new For King and Parliament products coming out- a PDF scenario booklet, based on Andrew Brentnall's excellent and well-tested game, and a pack of stunning unit cards designed by Ian Notter, which can be printed out and used to re-fight the battle (if you don't have three or four thousand suitable minis ready to go, that is ;-) ). Here are the covers, I'll post some images from inside, in the next day or so!

Watch this space! :-)