Butterfly Workbench Poles, Russians and others

So things have not been great in my world of late so I decided the Butterfly should be released to cheer me up a bit. So lots of different stuff painted this time. I should say right off that I have had to change my phone and the camera on this one is not as good so still working on that. Sorry folks!

So before going off on one I finished this highlander, hurrah! Another of the lovely Bicorne ECW range,

Next for the butterfly were Polish light horse, a real mish mash of figures, the two outside ones are Gripping Beast plastic Saracen light horse with Polish heads, they work well I think. next in from the left a TAG drummer with his drum stick replaced by a war hammer, then a Foundry officer and a Redoubt officer on a Foundry Sikh Wars  horse. They all mix reasonably well I think.

A couple more to add to these and we will have the 11th unit of Poles finished to use either for the Great Northern War or the Deluge.

A wee close up of one of the Gripping Beast conversions. You would never think the figure was designed for the crusades.

I then decided, no idea why, that as it was no longer snowing Russians for the retreat from Moscow project should get an airing, Well I have stack of these to paint so why not. Chum Steve base coated these to give me a head start when he was doing his own, cheers Steve.

Despite being a fairly old range now these are still lovely sculpts and fit really well with the larger Perrys.

Sticking with the Retreat from Moscow, I also made a start on the first French Cavalry in the shape of these Chasseurs. Again lovely figures, they are one piece castings which I am not a fan off typically, all with multiple seperate heads and sword arms.

These guys look suitably untidy, I have enough figures to do 3 groups of 8 for the cavalry, not sure yet if they will all be chasseurs, lets see.

Thats it for the moment, I might put the butterfly back in its box and focus on some more Sikh Wars stuff next.

Stay Safe!

Sikh Wars Irregulars Back from the Basing Department

 Along with a mothers day present (for the finance department of course not me) a package of based figures arrived over the Mothers day weekend with a bunch of irregulars that had gone to the basing department before the latest lock down.

These are random bases of Sikhs and Muslim tribesmen who will fill out part finished units for the most Part there are still others still over in York to help complete some of these and others in my basig gbox still to go over.

The two bases of heavy cavalry are the start of a new unit, I already have enough painted to finish this unit once I can get them over to the basing department. The light cavalry will join a part finished unit thta just needs two more figures which I am working on currently. These are all original Foundry Sikh Wars Miniatures.

These Muslim tribal cavalry will finish a unit of irregulars off taking me to three of these, I think the mix of Foundry and Perry with the Perry flag works really well.

All of the horses are the smaller Foundry ponies and the Standard bearer is from the Perrys Victorias little Wars range.

Again  a mix of Foundry and Perry with the first three from the left being Foundry and the last one  perry figure with a horse pinched from the crusades range.

The flag is one of the Virtual Armchair Generals and pretty generic but works quite well.

These blade armed troops all look like they mean business and are a real mix of manufacturers. This leaves me one base short of a full unit of swordsmen. I particularly like the chap in buff with the pinkish turban and orange scarf, a Perry miniatures plastic figure this one.

In this group of 8 we have both Perry plastic and metals, Wargames Atlantic plastic, Wargames Foundry and Studio Miniatures, essentially 5 ranges out of 8 figures.

I particularly like this next lot. a nice unit of Jezailchis these a really useful for a number of periods so a nice to have unit, these will finish off anoher unit of Hill tribes.

These are a few different manufacturers, quite a few of these are plastics from both Perrys and Wargames Atlantic with five wargames Foundry Afghans.

Heres a few group shots , forgive the stripey throw its a bit more jarring than I had hoped.  Promise not to use this one again.

So a nice addition to the collection, the boxes are almost full and I am having to find more space with lots more to paint and to come back from the basing department.

Hope you like them, until next time, stay safe!

Reviewing the Elizabethan Ireland Project Part 1 The English

I was reading some Facebook posts from fellow Wargamer Paddy and his plans for Elizabethan Ireland and our chat got me thinking about doing a little more work on this project, but also about how I saw it panning out.

I got the figures out so I could see where I was in terms of project progress and thought I might share with you the figures panited so far, what I think might be missing and thoughts on whats next.

Those based so far are all on individual bases, this suits for the moment whilst I am still thinking which rules will work best, eventually I may re-base them, for now these movement trays will need to make this a bit easier.

Its interesting to consider how useful and therefore actually used, pike were in smaller engagements. So far I have twenty which in a 3-1 ratio gives me a company of 60 pike so far. Adding a couple of standards and drums thats 3 units of 8 for Sharply Buffed (Sharp Practice) or two units of 10 for Pikemans lament. I like how they look en-masse if you can call twenty pike a mass.

The Pike will only be useful up to a point but I think that reflects the problems the English had when fighting the Irish.

Far more useful will be the Shot. The English had both the Heavy Muskets and lighter Calivers. Below are 7 Musketeers, they use rests as these were heavy weapons, a much better range than Calivers but much less handy in difficult terrain. Just oen more to find and thats a unit of 8 complete for sharply buffed.

The left hand three are Foundry and the last 4 smaller TAG figures. I see these workign in conjuntion with the pike and deliverign formed volleys. I think I have enought to form two groups of 8, potentially then thats two sleeves of shot.

The Calivers are the skirmishers or "Loose Shot" for Sharply buffed thats 6 man units. These first 4 are TAG so I need a couple more to finish them off.

The next six are the old Graven Images now Hoka Hey Border Reiver range of Garrison troops. Very chunky figures.

Lastly 7 Foundry Swashbuckler figures, I have a few more of these so possibly enough for 4 units of these chaps but certainly enought to finbish off 3 groups of skirmishers.

For Command we have three standrad bearers, three drummers and two Seargents with Halberds to flesh out the units of formed troops. I am thinkign each group of pike to have a flag and a drum.

I also have a bunch of gentlemen who may not be quite as useless as they first look. Firstly we do need leader characters for the forces, but also units of sword and buckler men were used as forlorn hopes where pike or shot might not be able to clear an obstacle so a unit of 6 or 8 of these guys seems a useful addition. 

For actual Officers I have these 4 gallent gents, three Hoka Hey and a TAG figure lookign much cxmaller at the end. Lovely figures these, leader figures are particularly important for Sharply Buffed.

We then have the horse, two types typically served in Ireland, Demi-Lancers and Border Horse. The latter are more useful for our purposes I have two units of 6 of them all Hoka Hey figures but I am very interested to see the Flags of War releases in the future and how they might fit in.

The Demi-Lancers with their full armour were not particularly suited to warfare in Ireland but are lovely and were there so I thought it worth having a group. The command are Redoubt and the lancers all the same Hoka Hey figure with soem headswaps and mounted on Perry Wars of the Roses horses. I particularly like these figures despite how impracticle they might be.

Then my secodn group of Border Horse, this is where the collection initially sprung from as our group of gamers all bought a few Borderers to start gaming Elizabethan border raids. It was a bit of a downhill ride from there.

Last up, so far, my hounds master. No idea how I will use him yet, except perhaps to drive stolen cattle in raiding games, but  alovely Eureka model.

So a few more figures to do to complete these, 10 or so pike, 7 Calivers and 9 Musketeers, then I need to consider if the Horse should be in eights for Sharply Buffed or sixes for Pikemans Lament. Either Way I am not far off enough for a small game.

I will do the Irish in a seperate post, interesting food for thought though being that the loyal Irish Lords ed their troops alongside the English so an excuse to buy more of those to have on both sides.

Thats it for now, stay safe!

A Tartan Workbench Highlanders for the 1745 Rising

 So as a break from the Sikh Wars project I decided to work through a bunch of Highlanders, a mix of manufacturers with more from yet another manufacturer on the way.

These first two are Flags of War, lovely dynamic and detailed figures. The right hand figure has seperate arms to give us more variety, I thought the targe and pistol combination was quite nice. As mentioned before the trews and kilts have more of a nod towards tartan than actual plaid. Something that can be seen from the tabletop but not meant to actually look like a tartan pattern close up, thats my excuse anyway. 

The character with the Claymore is a lovely touch too.

Sticking with Flags of War these two swordsmen are again really dynamic, both in waistcoats and shirts I have kept the pattern on these very simple indeed.

The blue with white in particular is very simple but actually works quite well I think. The blue on green possibly too subtle to stand out. 

The Redoubt figures are a bit more of a cunundrum. They are mostly split boddies with seperate torsos and legs allowing for a great variety of figures. This however doesnt always work and some figures are difficult to balance. Add to this some with dodgy heads, Lovely detailed shields that are far too thick so overbalance figures and the fact that they are designed for 100 years earlier than I m using and you can see they wont all work as well as I would like.

The below two I am happy with, you can however see how thick the shields are in this image.

Lots of nice detail and quite nice faces, I should have cut off the sword hilt on the right hand figure as he now has two swords, doh! The patterns have come out well and the one on the left was a bit of an experiment in colours which I am reasonably happ with.

With these two you see the difference with some Redoubt figures, the left hand one is quite nice but his moustache and chin beard are very 17th century and he is a bit hunched up, the one on the right howver has a head at an odd angle, the kilt looks far too long on the body and I am not sure the tartan colours have worked.

This next figure is a classic example of where the shields are just too heavy, this figure wont stand up without being bolstered, that said he looks ok apart from that.

Will have to be careful when I glue this guy to his base until he is completely dry he will need holding in place.

The three guys in shirts with lochbre axes actually look very nice and dynamic. That said they do very much look like the belong in the ECW and the one on the left will hardly stand up without overbalancing.

The figure on the left was described by Chris as "Prancing" which I feel is a bit much, first use of Khaki as a base colour and seems to work well I think. The chap to the right has brighter red than usual which again works quite well here.

These Bicorne figures are again for ht eearlier period and slightly small ins ature but very nice never the less, the Kneelign figure works really well and the leader reminds me of Billy Connelly.

I have then started to put some of these onto bases to be sent off to York. The command base I have to say is the mutts nuts, really pleased with this.

Flags of War leader, standard bearer and flag with a Front rank piper.

So most of these will go straight to be based, I will keep figures on bases with similar sized figures and from the same broad timeframe so I can use the earlier ones seperately and they dont look odd on the same base.

The Redoubt look lovely en-masse, if I dont mix them with the others they will work just fine.

The Flags of War on the left and Warlord on the right are a closer fit but I will still keep them seperate to help gaming earlier conflicts.

The Bicorne figures whilst having a too early musket do have the advanage of actually being in firing line so really helpful to use as skirmishers.

And another couple of last minutes additions with these two Flags of War chappies.

These bases will be pretty typical of how I mix the troops I think, Redoubt will typically sit with other Redoubt, Warlord I can mix with Bicorne and Front Rank can supplement bases of Flags of War.

I think that will work and give me lots of flexibility. I may well change my mind with individual figures mind you.

Hopefully these will be based in the not too distant future and I can share some finished forces with you, until then stay safe!