A Return to the Table

Well, this entry is about three months later than I had planned it to be, but a lot has been happening here that have meant I have not felt like doing much.  In the middle of September my father in law passed away quite suddenly and since then I seem to have succumbed to ennui and a return of the low mood that gripped me several years ago.  So, I have not really picked up a paintbrush since then, but, hopefully that will change soon. However, before all this happened I did manage to do a few positive things.  Firstly I finished off the Royalist and Parliament armies so they at least are ready to go.  The Covenanters are also coming along with 12 of the sixteen regiments of foot already painted and based, that just leaves four regiments of foot, thirteen horse regiments a couple of dragoon regiments and some artillery to do before the end of the year.  So, no pressure then.  I have also managed to purchase quite a few new buildings, which are proving to be...

I cannot believe that I have let this blog slip for the past six months, I really must make more of an effort to keep things up to date in the future.  So, what have I been doing for the past six months, a good question that my wife seems to ask me often. Before I get on to the painting progress that has been made, I will say that my 'show calendar' is currently on track as I managed to attend Joy of Six in July and also Claymore in August, the next show is Border Reiver at the start of September, though I do not have to travel to far for that one and then Battleground at the end of November.  I might try to do Fiasco in Leeds at the end of October, but it might be a problem with it being a Sunday. On to the figures next, and I think it will be easier to show in table form; Bases Figures Feb-19 Aug-19 Unpainted Painted Unpainted Royalist Foot 9 ...

The week leading up to Vapnartak was a bit of a busy one, but I managed to get the Dragoons finished and as a bonus I got the Kings Lifeguard done as well.  My hunt for Royalist dragoon guidons was a little less successful though, I have painted the regiment as James Usshers Regiment of Dragoons and the only guidon I could find that might relate to the regiment belonged to Colonel Henry Washington who took command after James Ussher was killed.  So, I am just going to paint a basic plain guidon in black. I am fairly happy with the way they turned out, including the guidon.  The only problem was that there was not enough room on the base for the horse holder and horses, I will put these onto a separate 30mm x 30mm base and place them on the table when they are needed. Next up were the Lifeguard which were straightforward, though I decided to vary them from my previous foot regiments by painting the pikemen as being armoured rather than with just a buff coat.  Th...

I finally managed to get the last few regiments from my initial order completed this week.  The foot were straight forward, but, this time on the cavalry regiments I removed the moulded standards and replaced them with brass wire poles to hold the standards from Wargames Designs.  The use of these standards really does improve the look of the regiments and I am very happy with the new poles. Here are the pictures of the regiments finished this week.  So, with the total now standing at eight regiments of foot and five regiments of horse completed that brings the total number of figures painted up to 333, just another 779 to go plus whatever I pick up at the show this coming Sunday. The next two sets of figures to be completed will be a dismounted dragoon regiment and another foot regiment, though with this one I am going to armour the pikemen and paint them at the Kings Lifeguard.  Though with the show at the weekend I am going to be a little swamped here to ...

Last year I attended my first wargames show in about ten years, it was the  Border Reiver Show and even though I was not there for long it was long enough to reawaken the desire to get back into the hobby.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the  Battleground Show in November due to me being on driving duties for my wife that day, which was a shame as I really wanted to get to that one as there was a talk by the Battlefield Trust on three English Civil War battles in the area. So, this year I am to get to several more shows starting in February with a trip to York to the  Vapnartak Show .  I have read good things about this show on a couple of other blogs so I thought I would give it a go, also the company I have been looking at for getting some terrain and Baccus will be there as well, so I am sure I will end up spending some pennies as well. After that I think the next one will be  The Joy of Six in Sheffield in July.  This one is run ...

The past week has been filled .with unexpected arrivals.  First to arrive were the standards from Wargames Design, which arrived 48 hours after they were ordered, I will certainly be ordering from them again.  The quality of the standards is amazing and as a bonus two sheets of Irish Confederate standards were included, so I have started to use them this week and they do look good, but more on that later. Next to arrive was a package from the Pike & Shot Society containing the rulebook Twilight of Divine Right and the ECW Scenario book.  The rules look quite good and the good news is that I would not have to rebase the regiments to use them.  The army lists look straight forward, but there are no lists for the Scots or for the Irish armies of the period, I will certainly be trying these rules out, after testing out how the Polemos rules go.  The scenario book covers the major engagements in England during the First Civil War as well as an Irish battle and ...

It has been a busy week here, I have managed to press ahead with getting the existing regiments painted and out of the pending box. I got a couple of regiments of foot and a regiment of horse fully painted and based and a regiment of both foot and horse sprayed and ready to be painted this week.  The completed foot regiments were done as Lord Molyneux and Sir Lewis Dyves regiments and the horse regiment was done as Prince Maurice's Regiment. The standards on both of the regiments are just really generic standards.  I have just ordered a few sheets of Royalist flags, both foot and horse, from  Wargames Designs and will replace theses generic ones with specific ones for each regiment. Well the base for the regiment of horse turned out a bit better than the last one, but the guidon is still far from perfect, or even acceptable, so I think that when I have a spare cornet I will try to remove the flag moulding and then replace it with a paper one.  That ...