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.