Scots Covenanters : Epic scale English Civil War

These didn’t quite make the post yesterday but were finished off this morning.

I think I prefer the upright pike position and the Covenanter sprue doesn’t have the ‘Porte’ versions. I’ve tried to create a little variation from the Hodden grey. But you can only really tell that from close up, so I’m not sure it is worth it ? I tried the bonnets slightly darker blue but it was lost, so went lighter shade (early UN i would call it 🙂) again I might do some variations in the future. The good thing is the flags were in the box set I won last week so I can cover off the freebie units. The flag bearers are better positioned on these newer sprues enabling the two flags to be seen.

Head swops seem way over the top in this scale but I was wondering if with careful cutting some could have bonnets removed and go bareheaded ? Or perhaps add a few helmets into the front rank.

Time wise they take about the same time as the other ECW figures.

Thanks for looking in Matt 😀

Every cloud has a silver lining …….

Well the silver lining to my frustratingly slow recovery is loads more time to paint soldiers. I have also been able to do quite a bit of preparation work so several more units are now in the painting queue.

First up some Peninsular British Light Dragoons

Two shots of these, Perry Miniatures one of the benefits of these boxed sets is you get 14 figures and effectively two sets of riders and I discovered Perry sell the horses separately so I now have another unit to paint in a slightly later uniform.

The first of some additional French command bases, again Perry figures, these are the heavy cavalry divisional commanders.

Fairly randomly I also had a Confederate cannon needing finishing off.

And finally off the painting table some more epic ECW infantry. The purple colours are vaguely historical although it is clear that few if any of the regiments were ‘uniform’ in appearance 

and a blue unit. I’m really enjoying painting these which can be done quite quickly as long as you don’t worry too much about the detail.

The downside of still being stuck indoors is I have spent far too much time thinking about hobby stuff and this inevitably leads to purchasing more figures !! This in part to cheer me up after my illness. Even my wife thought this would be a good idea although I didn’t tell her how much I was spending 😀

A fairly large box of Perry figures arrived in the post, a real mix of artillery, command packs and some Portuguese.

Too much time on my hands so I have also been on eBay as well…….french drummers to fill in other units, some may get careful head swops.

Some nice warlord Grenadiers, 25 figures and only one broken bayonet. No rush for these but with the other Grenadiers I will eventually be able to field a Guards ‘reserve’ Brigade.

I also purchased a bunch of these to help with wound marking

So keeping busy and enjoying my extra hobby time

Thanks for checking by Matt

Epic Cavalry and my preferred option for spears/standards

Still spending a fair bit of time painting while the final lurgy lingers on. I have several units on the go at the moment but this Epic ECW cavalry got finished first.

I know there has been quite a bit of discussion about the quality of these figures. Firstly I thought it would be nice to paint a classic ECW ‘Roundhead’ cavalry unit. They paint up fairly quickly but the sculpts do lack something. Firstly in a number of areas they lack clear definition, something you don’t see on the infantry. Secondly the poses are a little strange although when they are mixed together I don’t think they look too bad. Most annoyingly the sculpts especially from the front have areas which are ‘blocked out’ the most obvious of these being where the reins are badly moulded.

Here they are lined up so you can make up your own minds.

Of course as 13.5 mm figures this is what they look like from a couple of feet.

Secondly for this post Norm had mentioned on his blog buying some sharp metals spears, I have had a number of these in the past and have been hurt several times. So ages ago I decided to look for another option. After checking other blogs etc brush bristles were suggested as an alternative and I have been using these ever since.

It is probably a lifetime supply and they can be used both for spears, pikes or flag poles.

If you are interested I can’t remember where I got it but here are the details

Here is a random figure to show the advantage , they are fairly rigid

But unlike other plastic spears they are not brittle and bend significantly, they do have a break point but as you can see this is hard to actually reach in normal handling.

So that’s it for now, I’m working on another ECW Infantry unit and some British dragoons are getting close to completion as well. both will likely be done by the weekend.

Thanks as always for checking in

Matt 😀

A new project ? : the English Civil War

After some consistent painting on Napoleonics my thoughts have been turning to a new project the English Civil War, I had picked up a few of  the Warlord Epic ECW figures either free from magazines or at shows for £1. I wanted these to try painting them up, firstly to see what they look like with my painting techniques and secondly to see how easy/quickly I could paint them. One of the challenges is of course is these epic units are 80 man units ! which if I can’t paint them quickly would be a non starter.

Anyway I tested a couple of the infantry units and here are the results.

Both units were fairly generic 

And not based on any specific colour scheme.

My approach was to paint the infantry on the sprue which worked pretty well. One of the key factors for painting was undercoating in brown meaning I didn’t need to paint the pikes, muskets etc. time wise I estimate each unit took a bit under 4 hours. I have placed them on slightly larger bases than provided with figures in the sets which I prefer and kept them simple for ease. Generally I am very impressed with the figures, the sculpts are very clean and easy to pick out the details, but small enough to not bother with too much. Having done the two units I took the plunge and ordered a starter army which I managed to pick up off eBay for a very low price given the amount of stuff you get.

This meant I now had some flags to complete the two units which certainly improves the look. Obviously at 13.5mm and with big units the plan is for massed battles similar to our SYW approach.

Despite the cheap price and free postage the starter army arrived extremely quickly

Excitingly opening the box packed full off stuff

The box states something like 1300 figures ! I plan to spend some time seeing how much variety I can create for units from the box ? I know many people don’t rate the cavalry so we’ll see how they look painted up, I might also expand the collection with some metals as others have done. So watch this space for progress.

Somewhere I also painted up these 76mm American anti tank guns which had been undercoated but unpainted for ages.

Also played a splendid battle with Jon remotely, I will leave the full report to him. A battle that was close until my Carthaginian army collapsed !

We haven’t had many landscape shots for a while, this weekend saw us visit the nearby Shap Abbey for a picnic a very nice spot including a swim in the river

Thanks as always for checking by, another battle to post soon 

Matt 😀