18mm ECW Scottish Covenanter Regiments Completed

I spent most of December and the Christmas/New Year break working on six regiments of Scottish Covenanter foote, and completed the last of the basing over the weekend:

The six regiments are comprised of Ker's regiment:

The Duke of Hamilton's regiment of foote:

Sir John Haldane of Gleneagles's regiment:

Barclay's regiment:

Home's regiment:

and Lovat's regiment of foot:

Of course this meant using a lot of grey, although I did mix in a few different coat colours to provide some variation:

The pikemen offered a little more variety, and I also mixed in a sprinkling of armoured figures:

I equipped two of the regiments with pikemen in the 'pike forward' position. Not my favourite pose as they are not easy to pick up and become quite easily entangled with the rank directly in front, but at least they look as though they mean business:

The flags are again from Wargames Designs. I am very pleased with them and the size fits these larger 18mm figures well:

Including 6 spare musketeer figures which will find their way on to some forthcoming command bases, that is 294 figures completed in total:

Next up, the artillery. I have sixteen pieces to be painted, with the Scots to receive four and the Royalist and Parliamentarians six each. I have made a start on them and hope to have them all completed by the end of January, so I can then get stuck into the cavalry in February.

2023 in Review

Looking back on 2023 there were a number of aspects which were quite satisfying. 

On the figure painting front the final tally was 1261 figures, all 15/18mm comprised of 1241 foot and 20 horses. On top of this I also managed to complete 294 GHQ WWII ships vessels (to give a total of 319) across six different navies such as the Japanese and Italian fleets below:

This was particularly satisfying on two counts. Firstly, I finally managed to paint my entire GHQ collection, some of which had been languishing in the pile for ten years, and secondly because the German, Japanese and Royal Navy ships actually saw some game time using my gaming friend Dale's Mediterranean sea mat (as opposed to my much darker deep sea mat for which the bases were intended):

Gaming with Dale every second Tuesday since around June introduced a bit more variety into my gaming regimen, and we also played several very enjoyable games of Black Sails and are aiming for our first game of For King and Parliament, hopefully by the end of February. To this end I have made a return to my ECW project and have now completed eight regiments each of Royalist and Parliamentarian foot, with six regiments of Scottish Covenanters completed over the Christmas/New Year break currently being based:

Aside from the above, I also managed to complete a 15mm Medieval German army which I had started in 2022, and which also saw table time with my fortnightly Saturday DBMM gaming group:

Most of 2023 with my Ancients gaming group was however spent engaged in an enjoyable biblical campaign as we worked our way through DBMM Army List Book 1, with me deploying Early Carthaginians on at least four occasions and playing in at least twenty games.

As far as blog posts go, I note that I am fifteen posts lighter than 2022. This was mainly because I found myself getting so carried away with, for example, painting the USN fleet or four regiments of ECW foot, that I usually opted to just keep going and assemble them en masse. In retrospect this has been a mistake as I end up not liking the photos as there are too many long shots which I have had to angle in order to keep the towering boxes either side out of picture.

Which raises two uncomfortable realisations. 

Purchases for 2023 were much reduced, especially as I swore at the beginning of the year not to engage in any new projects. That however did not stop me from purchasing complete Kallistra 12mm ACW Union and Confederate armies, mainly because I have never done 12mm and this stuff looked and is good, and also some Perry 28mm AWI figures because my mind had then turned to North America and I enjoy any excuse to use a GMB flag.

Fair enough I can imagine some might say, but I have also made the mistake of cataloguing over the Christmas/New Year break where my projects currently stand:

• 15mm Ancients - Xyston Alexandrian Macedonian; Peter Pig Parthian; Khurasan Korean, French, and English (more medieval and renaissance than ancient); Miniature Figurines Trajanic Roman, Successor Greek and Carthaginian (with Khurasan Tibetan, medieval Spanish, German and Teutonic, and Xyston Gallic, Spanish, Carthaginian, Numidian and Republican Roman armies completed).

• 28mm Ancients - Gripping Beast Republican Roman; Miniature Figurines Ancient British (with Renegade/Amazon Carthaginian, Gallic and Numidian armies completed).

• 1/600th Ancient Naval - Xyston Greek, Roman and Carthaginian fleets of around 50 ships each.

• 15mm Renaissance - Miniature Figurines ECW Parliamentarian, Royalist, Montrose Scot and Ottoman Turks, Essex Polish and Ottoman Turks, Mirliton Condottierre Italian, Eureka Parliamentarian, Royalist and Scottish Covenanters (with Eureka Samurai completed), Khurasan Spanish, French and German.

• 28mm Renaissance - Perry and Empress Miniatures Parliamentarian and Royalist; Perry Scottish, TAG Poles, Muscovites, Cossacks and Tartars (with TAG Ottoman Turks completed).

•  28mm American War of Independence – Perry British and Continentals.

• 15mm Napoleonic - AB Miniatures Russian and Austrians; Miniature Figurines Swedish, Essex Miniatures British, French, Prussian, Dutch/Belgian (with Essex Spanish and Portuguese completed).

• 28mm Napoleonic - Murawski Poles; Black Hussar/Calpe/Eureka Saxons; Perry Miniatures Brunswick and a few regiments of Confederation of the Rhine; Foundry and Perry Miniatures French (nearly half completed); Calpe Prussian; Miniature Figurines Russian (mostly complete); Hinchliffe British (nearly complete); Front Rank Russian, Austrian, British, Dutch Belgian, Bavarian, Wurttemburg (with Front Rank Spanish and Portuguese completed).

• 1/1200th Napoleonic Naval - Langton and Navwar British, French, Spanish and American fleets.

• 10mm ACW – Kallistra Union and Confederates.

• 15mm WWII - Flames of War British, German and Russian

• 20mm WWII - Britannia British, German, Russian and US

• 28mm WWII - Foundry and Warlord British and German for an operation Sealion campaign.

• 1/2400th WWII Naval - GHQ British, German, French, Italian, US and Japanese fleets completed.

• 1/300th WWII Naval - Cruel Seas MTBs

This is aside from a stack of unpainted terrain etc. In my defence, I purchased some of the above while living in the UK so did not have to concern myself with exchange rates and expensive shipping apart from when it all got put into a container with the rest of our belongings upon our return to Australia.

The main problem with this approach however is that there has been a noticeable rise in figuire quality which, for example, has already caused me to replace some of my old Minifigs collection with Xyston figures before the former had even seen any paint.

I have also resolved not to purchase any more figures in 2024, unless Lucas Huber brings out something exceptional (which no doubt he will).

Either way, I have reached the realisation that I have gone beyond the tipping point of what is now achievable in the remainder of my lifetime.

The other uncomfortable realisation is that my wife has recently informed that what I implicitly assumed would be my wargaming room once the last of the children had mived out is now going to be kept as a rumpus room for our grandchildren. When I say rumpus room. I mean a fully-tiled airconditioned forty by twenty foot room which also includes a separate break-out area. In other words, the perfect wargaming room.

On the plus side, I have been given clearance to put a granny flat in the top right-hand corner of our property. Something else to aim at for 2024.

A belated Happy New Year to all, and especially anyone who has managed to read this far.

Last Four Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot Completed

I put on a bit of a push over the last couple of weeks and have completed the last four Parliamentarian Regiments, to make eight in total. The first of these is Thomas Fairfax's regiment of Foot, which I beefed up with an additional four elements of pike to represent a 'pike heavy' regiment if required:

The flag is again from Wargames Designs, and I used a mixture of armoured and unarmoured pikemen to provide some variety:

Two more red-coated regiments in Onslow's and Birch's regiments respectively:

And the blue-coated Aldrich's regiment complete the quartet:

Aldrich's regiment has three lions on its flag, which is a nice change from the usual simple white circles:

I also added a few more elements to the King's Lifeguard regiment, to provide a similar 'pike heavy' unit for the Royalists:

And added an additional command element and flag to this regiment as well, to lend it a little more gravitas:

Here are the four completed Parliamentarian regiments assembled together:

That is now sixteen regiments completed, eight each for the Royalists and Parliamentarians, with six Scottish Covenanter regiments left to go. 

18mm ECW Parliamentarian London Trained Bands

Next off the production line are two Parliamentarian London trained bands, the Blue and Tower Hamlets Regiments with the former (unsurprisingly carrying a blue flag) in front:

Although some sources said the trained bands were of a uniform appearance in red coats, this was apparently an incorrect inference drawn from the fact that a Major Mainwairing was in charge of three regiments at the same time, including one which had been issued with red coats alongside his two London Trained Bands. More contemporary opinion seems to be that as the trained bands were drawn from householders who often sent their servants in place of themselves, they were more likely to be wearing civilian clothes:

The flags are again from Wargame Designs:

With the Tower Hamlets flag being red:

I went with the pike forward option for these two regiments. I must say I prefer the standing pose with upright pikes as they are easier to pick up and don't become entangled with the rank in front, but it was nice to mix in a bit of variety:

I also deliberately used less firing figures among the musketeers, to give them a slightly less regular look:

That is four regiments now completed with four to go, with the next two hopefully completed by the end of next week.

18mm ECW Gell's and Brooke's Regiments of Foot

After recently completing the WWII 1/2400th naval project it was good to get stuck back into the English Civil War project. Having already completed eight Royalist regiments of foot earlier in the year it was now time to get started on the same number of Parliamentarian regiments. It took a week to get back into the swing of it but I soon found my pace again and have actually managed to complete the musketeers for all eight regiments, and now just have the pike to go.

The first two fully completed regiments are Sir John Gell's and Lord Brooke's regiments, seen here with Gell's regiment in front:

Gell's regiment apparently wore grey coats, and I found this quite a satisfying colour to paint. I hope the attraction will still be there once I get stuck into half a dozen or so Scottish regiments of foot:

I ended up purchasing some very nice flags from Wargames Designs in the UK. I am much happier with these size-wise, and ended up replacing all my Royalist regimental flags with these as well:

I have mixed in quite a few unarmoured pikemen into the Parliamentarian ranks, to provide a bit of variety and to distinguish them from the Royalist regiments where I have used primarily armoured pikemen:

The musketeers are the same figures, but I am doing them with a lot more grey breeches than I did for the Royalists:

Lord Brooke's regiment was the only purple-coated regiment in the Civil War, so I had to include it as an excuse to break open again my very under-utilised purple paint triad:

English Civil War foot regiment flags are generally fairly uninteresting, but Wargames Designs makes the most of what there is:

Purple-coated pikemen and musketeers, with a few buff and tan leather coats thrown in:

That's the first two Parliamentarian regiments completed with the others to now hopefully follow in quick succession:

I may also have convinced my Tuesday night gaming friend Dale to partake in a few games of For King and Parliament early in the New Year, which will provide me with that extra bit of motivation knowing that these units may actually make the table within the next few months. Next up, a couple of Parliamentarian Trained Bands.