Bolle's Royalist Regiment of Foot

Another weekend, and another regiment added to the ECW collection. This is the Royalist Bolle's Regiment.

I arranged them with the same frontage as my Parliamentary foot, but with fewer numbers to reflect the poor recruiting and equipage of the Royalists in the earlier war. Since I've been painting and basing figures in singles and pairs for some time for the VBCW collection, I'd forgotten what a pain in the fundament basing close-order figures is!

Currently, I have Royalist cavalry on the painting block. A look over the remaining ECW lead pile shows a typical problem with buying multi-figure packs: I don't have enough of some infantry figure poses, and a few too many others. There are enough for another regiment of Royalist foot, but not enough for another Parliamentary regiment. I think I'll need as many packs again to make up a reasonable size force. Ho hum.

Progress with the river sections is slow but steady. I hope to finish them before the month is out. I'm impressed with the Envirotex Lite. It's relatively easy to work with, and the drying time isn't too long. The pack I have is a few years old, and it sat unused in storage in a freezing-cold garage for months, yet it's still perfectly fine. It's a bit expensive, but I think it's worth it.

Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foot

The first of my ECW regiments is now based and finished - Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foot for the Eastern Association Army of Parliament.

Some of my new thistle teasel trees stand in the background.

In spite of my best efforts I've had a spot of trouble with the card bases warping, so I'll revert to using plastic card in future.

The next unit is on the painting block in the shape of the Royalist Bolle's (later Sir George Lisle's) Regiment of Foot. Described as having the blue uniforms typical of the King's Oxford army, it's a moot point as to which shade of blue they wore. Their modern Sealed Knot descendants wear slate-blue, so I'm going with that and slightly lighter blue breeches and montero hats for contrast.

A nice find came my way yesterday at our local Habitat for Humanity store in the shape of three two-inch-thick slabs of pink insulation foam. They cost me a buck, and the money goes to a good cause.

Most if not all of this stuff will go to making rugged upland terrain for my Colonial/VSF gaming. I've got some scraps of wood and bark which will do nicely for rocks and rocky outcrops to break up the regular outline of the slabs. For a look at what a master can do with such items, check out The Mad Guru's Maiwand Day blog.

River sections - Envirotex Lite

Okay, so... The experiment with Envirotex Lite was a qualified success. It took around four hours to cure in a rather cold man cave, and there were issues with the masking tape used to seal the ends. Even so, the result isn't too bad.

I put a drop each of yellow and blue acrylic ink into the mix whilst stirring. It did look too green at first, but I think it's about the right hue now, especially with the colours of the green or beige cloth underneath. About an hour before it cured altogether I managed to create a few streaks in the varnish to give the impression of flowing water. The darker green patches are where the masking tape acted more like a full-on dam than a restraint. I think using a little less varnish in the next pours should do the trick.

I'm going to experiment with Pledge varnish with green ink next to see if that will give a comparable result. If so, I'll probably go with that method since it'll be easier, cheaper and far less messy.

River sections - work in progress

Yesterday turned into a real cluster-wotsit, with us having to report a raft of nuisance phone calls that have increased in frequency over the past month. All have been from credit and debt-collection agencies seeking the person who had our phone number previous to us. One call late Wednesday night claiming to be from the local police was the last straw. Since the number is one we use for business it'll be too inconvenient to change it. Hopefully the steps we took with various authorities including the FCC will knock those nuisance calls on the head.

It did mean my planned day of work on my next novel went out the window, but instead I managed to do the base-work for Montagu's Regiment of Foot and make a lot of progress with the river sections I've had under way for a couple of months.

I painted the bare wood showing on the inner side of the banks with a mix of brown craft paint and Pledge floor polish. Hopefully this'll seal the banks so the next step, an application of Envirotex Lite epoxy varnish won't leak out. It also gives the effect of shallowing water near the banks. The ends of each section will be sealed with masking tape while I pour the varnish. Check out the videos by maestro Bruce Hirst - they have lots of great tips which are useful for anyone making terrain, including uses for Envirotex Lite.

At the moment I'm thinking of dying the varnish with green acrylic ink and making the layers fairly thin, streaking it with a cocktail stick while it dries so it'll give the impression of flowing water. All being well, I'll finish these over the weekend, then crack on with painting the first Royalist regiment of foot.Watch this space...

Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foote

The first unit to roll off the new painting block is done and ready for the base-work to be applied. Here's Edward Montagu's Regiment of Foot, of the Eastern Association.

 

These are Pendraken Miniatures 10mm figures. I did think the russet uniforms would make for a boring-looking formation, but on the whole it works en-masse. I did mix musketeers in caps with those in broad-brimmed hats, and painted a few figures with britches of muted blue, black, greys and so on. The armoured pikemen break things up some more. The pikes are mounted on one base for convenience, and have a first and second rank of eight figures. The command is in the rear rank along with two unarmoured pikemen. I stuck with a musketeer to pike ratio of 3:2, which was fairly typical of the early war.

Next up on the painting block is a Royalist regiment of foot. I'm thinking of making it Richard Bolle's (later Sir George Lisle's) Regiment. Their flag was white, but details on their coat colour vary - some sources say red, others blue. As they were part of the King's Oxford Army, I will plump for blue.

The Royalists had a hard time recruiting and equipping their troops. A Royalist foot regiment would typically have a musketeer to pike ratio of 1:1 if they were lucky - some units went into action with clubs and billhooks. I'm going to noodle around with the number of figures and see what looks good. I want to reflect the period, but I don't want to make Royalist regiments too small to take on their Parliamentarian equivalent.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Day once more here in the US. We'll be heading over to friends soon for the traditional meal.

Wargaming-wise, I'm making progress with painting the ECW figures. As mentioned before I'm building up the Army of the Eastern Association, and I chose to begin with Edward Montagu's regiment of foot. The musketeers are now finished and in the early basing stage, and the pike and command element are on the painting block and undercoated.

I did put an officer with the musketeers, but decided in the end to keep with just the one command element, which explains the missing man space at the rear of the right-hand base.

Montagu's regiment was issued russet uniforms. Now, I always thought russet had a lot more of a reddish tint than it subsequently proved to have...

Let's face it, it's bloody near khaki, and not the most exciting colour for a uniform. I decided to break things up a little and have some figures wearing muted blues, greens and rusty black here and there, and it seems to have worked.

I did toy with the idea of having the command element as a separate base so they could 'lead units into battle,' but decided for convenience to base them with the pike block. The pike block itself will be a single base and have a frontage of eight figures three ranks deep, with the commander, standard and drummer in the rear rank where they'd naturally be in the course of battle. In the ECW the better armoured troops were placed in the first two ranks and that's what I'll do, with a couple of unarmoured pikemen in the rank with the commander.

Painting block for 10mm figures

We have a dusting of snow on the ground and the garden is put to bed for the year. Having a bit more spare time now I thought I'd make a painting block suitable for painting 10mm figures, specifically my shiny new ECW collection. The block I already have is best for 15mm-28mm figures, and those poor little 10mm blokes look lost on it.

It's a simple design, based on one a friend of mine uses. Take a block of scrap wood, drill a series of holes in it, fill holes with a number of galvanized nails, and glue the figures to the nail heads using a hot glue gun. The nails make it easy to grip and maneuver the figures to get at all angles with your paintbrush. Bob's your auntie's significant other!

This block will take 45 nails, but I'll typically use fewer than that to allow a bit of handling space. The inaugural batch of figures to grace the block are musketeers for a Parliamentarian regiment of foot. These are Pendraken Miniatures.

I'll paint these up as Edward Montagu's regiment of the Eastern Association, which was raised in Cambridgeshire and issued with russet-red coats. Being early-war Parliamentarian they'd have roughly a 3:2 or 2:1 muskets to pike ratio, which I'm going to represent with 24 musketeer figures to 18 pike, including the command element.

ECW Shininess

I'm back from a family event in southern Florida, with long road-trips through the south-eastern states there and back. Travel takes its toll and I feel like ten miles of rocky road - but! The mailman delivered my Pendraken ECW order today!

ECW shinies in all their glory.

The figures are clean-cast and have a nice heft to them without feeling or looking clunky. Sometime in the next few days I'll clean off what few pieces of flash there are on the bases, bung 'em in the soapy water to soak, then have at them with the paint. Something to look forward to.

In the meantime, I'm going to press on with a new project - river sections for the tabletop. These are an experiment I'm trying out, using lengths of clear plastic packaging material bound with thin strips of wood as stiffeners. The aim is to make the banks as low profile as possible so they don't stand too proud of the table surface. I'm toying with the idea of sealing off the ends with masking tape and pouring a thin layer of Envirotex Lite epoxy varnish mixed with a little blue acrylic ink onto the plastic. Once the varnish has set the tape is removed. The varnish should stick in place and show the surface beneath (which will be either green or brown anyway - both natural river colours), tinted a watery blue colour by the ink.  

The banks are covered with liquid nails adhesive, the kind you get in those cartridges that fit inside an extruder gun. I press this down (it takes a bit of work to get the stuff to stick to the surface, but perseverance pays), then sprinkle sand on top and press that into the adhesive. In the photo above are (left-right) the basic piece of clear plastic, a piece with the wooden splints glued into place using epoxy adhesive, and a piece with liquid nails smeared on and sanded. I used green sand to show the effect more clearly in the photo, but I'll use plain sand, paint and flock to get the final result.  The section above is a river bend in the making.

I've cut enough sections to stretch over five feet - the width of my gaming board plus a foot or so of bends and so on. The river should work in either N-scale as a river, or in larger scales as a stream. An N-scale bridge and ford will make an appearance somewhere once I've worked out my ideas on how to make the sections.

Je me souviens Paris

My wife and I were travelling down to Florida for a family event when the dreadful incident occurred, so I was unaware of it until now. The horror which was visited upon a city I know and love has left me shocked and saddened. My sympathies and condolences go to the people of Paris, especially those who lost loved ones. As a tribute to the indomitable spirit of that beautiful city and the citizens of France, here is the singing of La Marseilles from the movie Casablanca.

Thistle do for trees

So, I've finished a batch of one dozen N-scale trees for gaming, with another dozen in the preparation stage. The thistle head method is generally working, although dealing with spiky bits whilst trying to trim the bloody things down to a safe level is a trial. Attaching the flock with spray adhesive is also problematic. It's not as strong a bond as it could be, except when gluing fingers to any loose object in the vicinity; then it works just fine...

Anyway, one vital step is to remove all seeds from the head. This takes some time. The cache shown below is from the next batch of twelve alone.

If this step isn't taken, given the right conditions the seeds will germinate, and you'll have odd tendrils appearing through the foliage! Unless you're gaming some kind of Weird War or Cthulhu scenario, it's probably not something that's desired.

Once the adhesive is dry, I paint the trunks a neutral shade of beige and attach them to circular card bases using hot glue. A spray over with cheap green paint helps stick the flock to the trees, although they still tend to shed if handled roughly. The bases are then painted. I gave mine a simple coat of green craft acrylic with a few brown splotches for soil. I'm not going for great detail here as I find it isn't required - a case of seeing the wood but not the trees once they're deployed on the tabletop. The whole process takes a couple of days for things to dry/set, etc, but the result isn't bad at all.

Those fine chaps at Pendraken Miniatures have emailed to let me know my ECW figures order is on the way. It's a courtesy I appreciate, because it means I can arrange for the order to be safely gathered in ready for me to get my sticky fingers on. I must do something about that bloomin' spray adhesive...