Third foot regiment now done.

Queen Josephine's Regiment of Foot ready for basing.

As with the earlier two regiments, the swords will be added once based. This is the first infantry regiment for the country of Cadesh, so now all three of the initial Imagi-Nations have one foot regiment.

Just as I was completing the gold on the officers and grenadiers, the bulb in my illuminated magnifier gave up the ghost! Will have to do without for now, I do have a spare bulb at home, so will collect it on my next visit.

Drummer in reverse colours and this time with a feathered hat.

The national and regimental flags have yet to be designed and printed out.

24 strong, six bases of four.

My wife chose the colour scheme, right down to the tan earth facings. I think they look brilliant.

I should have my MDF bases delivered tomorrow, so I can get down to some basing, I can manage that without my magnifier.

Cavalry reinforcements should also arrive tomorrow, so a break from infantry, as three regiments of cavalry will be next up.

First group of infantry for Cadesh.

The first eight members of 'Queen Josephine's Foot, minus swords, are now ready for basing. The striking violet and black colour scheme is my wife's creation, and I actually quite like it.

Another eight musketeers are now on the painting board, prior to the final eight, consisting of command and four grenadiers.

I hope to have my MDF bases at the weekend, along with four boxes of cavalry, This regiment should hopefully be completed by then, and along with the two regiments already finished, can be based.

Imagi-Nations. Line Regiment 'Barbeck' ready.

Kiracia's first foot regiment is ready for basing. Line Regiment 'Barbeck' named after the region from which it was raised.

24 man regiment with 16 musketeers, 4 grenadiers and 4 command.

I have not yet glued on the sword scabbards, as they fall off if you so much as look at them. I shall attach them when the figures are based.

Ready for action, or they will be, once based up.

Next will be the first foot regiment for Cadesh, in their violet jackets and breeches.

A few test figures from the Marlborough Box Set.

I couldn't resist making up a few test figures from the box set. There are enough infantry in each box to make up 2 x 24 man regiments, and that is the route I intend to take. Bearing in mind I have two of the starter sets, this allows me to build four infantry regiments for each of the two main protagonists. Other nations can be added later as required.



The figures washed and the heads attached. Unlike the AWI box set, these figures come with arms already attached, which I find a lot easier, as it is very easy to mix the wrong arms etc. or at least it is for me.

The sculpts are very nice, the guy on the left is either a poor mould, or he is just plain dog ugly!

I then brushed on Vallejo primer.

They are now ready for the colour to be added, which of course, being Imagi-Nations, is the fun part.

Unlike the Liberty or Death box set, these figure come with arms already attached for the most part, drummer, officer and standard bearer, do require assembly. I have put on the first layer of flesh, hair and blocked in the hats, jacket and breeches.

One figure of each regiment/battalion will be painted as a representative of each regiment, so the cuffs, waistcoat and hat lace, can be in whatever colours I choose to represent that particular regiment.

It will be the same for the other nation. All regiments will be made up of six stands of four figures, four being the standard infantry figure, one being command and finally one of grenadiers. The latter company can be split off from its parent to form a combined grenadier battalion with grenadiers from other regiments.

Some unit facings added.

Well they certainly look different.

Next will be the shoes, belts and bag. I also better write down all the colours I used too, for when the rest of their mates join them.

Update on what I have been doing.

I realised that it has been ten days since I posted here on the blog. I have not been idle during that time and have a few photographs to show what has been taking up my time. With the completion, for the moment, of the Wars of the Roses project, the War of the Three Kingdoms or English Civil War project, has been resurrected. The Montrose Irish and a unit of Scottish Covenanters have been completed and the final unit of Highlanders is currently on the painting board.

This is the box set from Warlord games, with four casualty figures and a few other figures added. All are metal and are about 80% complete. They will make a great warband to add to the army of Montrose.

Mixed dress and weapons as you would expect, I have some ink pens to apply the tartan at the very end.

A piece of old carpet tile, which I had put away for future use was cut up into rectangles and made into crop or ploughed fields. The usual method of painting the tile, which was a ruby red colour with Mocha acrylic paint to tone it down. Then PVA glue applied to attach the clump foliage around the perimeter and a mix of PVA/water liberally spread to allow flock representing crops on the tiles themselves. The whole thing then was sprayed with hair lacquer and left for about three days to thoroughly dry. They turned out pretty good I think.

Of course my consignment of trees also received some basic treatment. Various sizes and shapes, all were glued onto pennies and flocked, again given a generous coating of hair lacquer to hold everything in place. You can see for yourself how many there are in the containers, with almost another 100 still to be done!

I only ordered one packet of these trees, but they really are excellent and are of a size suitable for my 28mm troops. I will be ordering more packets of these,(they come in tens). I also gave them MDF bases with some rocks, flock and flowers.

The whole lot laid out, so I now have plenty of terrain especially for 6mm but also some can be used for 28mm.

I really did need a shed load of trees to create realistic looking battlefields for my 6mm American Civil War. Trees tended to be in great abundance on most battlefields. This little lot, added to what I already have, should do the job nicely.

Wars of the Three Kingdoms Project. - Irish and Scottish troops.

On my return to a lapsed project, namely the Wars of the Three Kingdoms or English Civil War, I have completed two more regiments and also had a battle with 28mm troops on a small table! So a busy, but enjoyable few days. I have finally added some Irish and Scottish troops to my collection.

First up are the Scottish Covenanters, dressed in their Hodden Grey uniforms and topped with blue knitted bonnets.

The bonnets appear green in the photographs, but they are a light blue.

Next up is their deadly foe, the Montrose Irish. In front is Alisdair 'The Devastator' Mac Colla, a giant of a man with his two bodyguards. These boys favoured white trews and any captured Covenanter clothing and equipment they could lay their hands on.

A motley, but fierce bunch who ran the Covenanters ragged in the Highlands of Scotland, defeating four separate Covenanter armies in the process.

All the boys lined up.

Next on the table will be a reinforced box of Highlanders.

I also managed to fit in a game of Pike and Shotte over the weekend, using a table measuring just under 5 x 3 feet. Some basic scenery and a building were laid down and I used a single base of figures to represent each regiment.

A full turn by turn battle report is available to read, with lots of photographs, on the Tabletop Commanders Blog page.

All change on the Project front.

I had forgotten how awful the soft plastic of 1/72nd scale really is. It is a long time since I worked with this scale and after working with metal and hard plastics for the last few years, I simply could not motivate myself to actually paint them. First of all one of the horses was minus a tail, it was not in the box, which was shrink wrapped, so it must have broken off prior to being packed. Then when fixing them to pennies with blue tack, I managed to snap two of them off their bases. The spindly little legs just came away.

The upshot is I chucked the whole lot back in their boxes in disgust and have gone back to 28mm. If I do attempt a Hundred Years War army, then it will also be in 28mm. All my 1/72nd scale will be going up for sale on that well known auction site.

So, with that project thrown out of the window, I am returning to my English Civil War, or more correctly The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, armies. I am going to add the Montrose Irish, Scottish Covenanters and Highlanders to the ranks of my English regiments. There are also three or four more boxes of standard infantry to build and paint as well.

Today, for the first time in months, it is sunny and actually quite mild, so the metal figures from two of the packs were duly taken outside and sprayed with a light grey primer. The Montrose Irish are all metal but the Covenanters are just a standard hard plastic infantry pack, with four specific to them, command figures in metal and some bonnets as opposed to hats favoured by the English.

The box set of Montrose Irish.

The four command figures.

'Mac Colla' and his two bodyguards. They are a blister pack and don't come with the box set.

Sixteen musketeers to allow for two sleeves of eight.

Six pike men who will along with the command occupy a centre base between the two sleeves of shot.

As mentioned earlier, the Covenanters are the standard plastic infantry set with a bag of four metal command and bonnets.

The four command figures, include a piper.

So a return to a project that hasn't been touched for a year. Also the pleasure of dealing with metal and hard plastic.

Turn Four of the Wars of the Roses Battle.

After a major mistake in turn three, in which a unit of light cavalry, not only wiped out a unit of heavy mounted knights, they also gave pursuit and killed Richard III! I had missed a line in the rules that stated 'light cavalry can only attack skirmisher units to the front', so the brave charge was actually illegal and as such Richard and his knights live to fight again.

So the position at the end of the turn.

The Lancastrian light cavalry have maneuvered in front of their spear men. 

Looking down the table, Lancastrian foot knights are in melee in the centre as are bill men on the far right flank.

More foot knights are advancing on the Yorkists in the centre.

The heavy mounted knights with their respective kings attached are jostling for position in the coming fight.

This unit of Lancastrian archers have already inflicted three kills on the Yorkist spear men, one more casualty and they will rout!

Foot knights in melee in the centre, with help rushing forward.

On the other flank bill men exchange pleasantries!

Another Lancastrian unit of bill men are attempting to close to assist.

This unit of Lancastrian foot knights have routed.

So the battle rages on, the Yorkists on the ridge look as strong as ever, but casualties on both sides are taking their toll.