The Irish Shotte

The biggest gap for my Elizabethan Irish is the Shotte. I use the mispelled Elizabethan version on purpose just because I am a bit perverse like that.

I have the Perrys pack of shotte which are lovely but with too early firearms really. It doesnt bother me too much but I do want another six with later muskets and calivers.

With that in mind it looks like conversions might be in order.

The first figure I am looking at is the Perry's standard bearer, with an open hand at just the right height its an easy job to put a musket in there instead of a flag pole. The next one is slightly harder. One of the leader figures from the command pack is slightly open handed on the left. I might have been able to cut up a metal musket slightly to fit in this hand but decided it would be easier to use one of the spare parts I have from the Warlord plasic ECW musketeers.

For this figure I trimmed away both arms and also the right hand on the butt of the musket using the remaining hand to replce the metal hand cut away from the Perry figure. as this has a coil of match cord around the wrist it disguises the join quite well.

I think the end result on these two is pretty good. Any excuse to get the fortified manor out again.

I now started to look at the other figures to see which ones might lend themselves to a minor bit of surgery. The below Crusader Kern was one of those I think was most suited. With this one I can either trim away the bow, open up the hand and then have a musket resting on the floor in a relaxed pose. Alternatively I can use the plastic ones trimmed back so just a hand remains on the butt of the musket and do a hand swap, I think either would look OK. Now I only have 13 archers and need 12 so only one of these two guys can be sacrificed to the knife. Unless I replace one of them with a piper?

This next figure is a Dark Age Pict from Westwind with his hand open for a spear, whilst he doesnt have the flowing sleaves of many of my Irish I think he will look OK with his caliver.

So here are the two Crusader Kern with Bows and hands gone and replaced by new ones. The rested musket on the left is metal with an open plastic hand I pinched from a spare sprue and the one on the right is  a plastic Warlord ECW musket with the arms and the left hand trimmed away. They dont look much here but I can see them taking shape.

 Once I have slapped a bit of paint on I think they look pretty good to be honest. With the others this will give me 11 so near enough a unit or two units of forlorn hope. Not enough but a fair start.

Chum Chris Charlton also picked up some Irish from an old Essex range which I think I can use, not entirely sure about the wicker shield on the top two but the musketeers and officer should be a good fit.So I now have slightly more than required.

The first of the Perry kern with firearms are also over the line, these are lovely, the one with the helmet is a head swap using a Redoubt ECW helmeted head. Also the first of the musket armed troops from Essex is complete too, not so sure I have his jacket right, not sure if its supposed to be a padded leather jerkin or not, but still it looks OK.

I also picked up a bunch of Dutch militia from TAG which are a good fit for the English. The rested muskets being particularly useful as I only had 3 of these to start with.

The English had heavy muskets on rests and also units with lighter calivers. Whilst the muskets has more stopping power and great range they slowed the English down making them less manouvreable.  The Irish used Calivers only and were adept at skirmishing with them. The English also used the Calivers to Skirmish but it took a number of years for them to become as effective as the Irish.

These are really lovely figures, they fit reasonably well with the Foundry range but are slghtly smaller, they are too small to sit in the same unit as the Graven Images figures though.

This is probably one of my least favourite of the Graven Images English, an officer in a rather odd looking hat.

You can really see the difference with this guy against the TAG musketeers. He was already bigger but the hat and the armour exagerates the size difference.

I also finished these two books, the Celtic Warriors has some lovely colour plates for Elizabethan Ireland from the master Angus McBride and the Nine Years War is a really interesting read that convinced me that the earlier period is probably more suited to the game I want. Gallowglass and Kern with Darts, bows and double handed axes are much more fun than two lots of pike and shot. Something around the time of the Armada might be perfect, although the earlier Desmond Rebellion would also suit, so I can do something fairly transitional and maybe even add a unit of English Longbows into the mix.

So this little lot takes me a bit closer to enough for a game. 3 more Musketeers and 3 more archers will be 6 units completed for the Irish and the English are already well on their way. Watch this space for further updates.