A new start to an old subject; I began my English Civil War Royalist army, both in 28mm scale and in earnest, in early 2009 and have put some bits about it on both editions of the RGMB forum, but the first vanished and the second doesn’t have any room for more pictures so its moving onto the blog, especially now I’ve a progress report!
Better start at the very beginning, a very good place to start……..All to be played using Blackpowder etc rules.........
The Army List:
Lord Flashearts Army of the West
Foote - Sir Hugh of Beeston
Regiment of Foot (Stradlings; Blue jackets) - Standard -16 pike, 16 muskets
Regiment of Foot - (The King’s Lifeguard; Red jackets) - Standard -16 pike, 16 muskets
Mortar Battery - 1 gun
Foote - Bishop of Bath & Wells
Regiment of Foot (Talbots; White jackets) - Standard -16 pike, 16 muskets
Regiment of Foot - (Hopton’s; more Blue jackets) - Large -16 pike, 24 muskets
Forlorn Hope - Standard - 18 musketeers
Saker Battery - 1 gun
Horse - Brigadier Wolfe
Regiment of Horse (Sir Marmaduke Langdale) - Standard - 8 horsemen
Regiment of Horse (The Duke of Dorchester; aka ‘Mad Frank’) - Standard - 8 horsemen
The less interesting ‘who, what and why‘ part:
Most of my troops are Renegade miniatures models, with the exception of Lord Flasheart (Warlords Charles I model) and Hopton’s foote (more Warlord pike and shotte). This makes them reassuringly heavy, and they have a nice level of detail on them.
Onto the tricky part; making and painting. Basing is the key to the making, all but the Warlord lot are already one-piece metal models (except the cavalry which are two piece, and the guns which are a few more). Having originally tried moving my (individually based for Warhammer) regiments around, and found they annoyingly fall over everywhere, I decided to base up my infantry in fours (a square 4cm by 4cm base), and my horse in twos (on a square 5cm by 5cm base), all based up on plastic card - so much cheaper and better than GW slotta bases. The artillery have a base per gun and team, which depends on their size. Here Blackpowder is handy because I don’t have to remove any models until the entire regiment is destroyed!
The Whole Damn Process:
This is all remarkably identical to my process for painting my Roman army, those who have already seen this might want to skip to the pretty pictures. On the bases are stuck the models, then the bases have sand stuck on with PVA glue, then the whole thing is sprayed black (GW Chaos Black spray paint). Following this the model is painted a brown (paints are primarily Vallejo, much easier to use than GW), then dry-brushed two more shades of a slightly lighter brown, before the main colours are picked out (coats, flesh, guns etc) very roughly. After the base painting is complete the model’s off for a dip in the Army Painter Dip tin, then after drying it gets the flock treatment, and finally a coating of matt varnish to take the gloss of the dip off it. The object is speed painting, something which I normally fail in miserably, being a stickler for details even if I‘m hopeless at picking them out! This will leave most of them looking quite rough around the edges, but hopefully will help me finish the army once and for all! I must at this point aim a finger squarely at Aidan because this is his style of painting, and I’m hoping it works for me to a similar standard as it works for him.
A last mention to some men I had already painted in a previous effort; the 18 musketeers will form the forlorn hope foot regiment and stick with their paint scheme and basing so they can skirmish and I don’t feel it was all wasted time!
Update time!
On to the current day and the picture of the entire army below is a bit out of date.
The red bunch are indeed still the same colour but no more work has been done, while the Saker cannon and horse are still more black than anything else, and finally the officers/commanders are all sprayed black. Everything has had its base painted a nice brown and lined with green, but the big improvement is that of the black sprayed regiments one has its coats painted white, one medium blue, and the fourth (Stradlings) is quite stunningly finished! I know, amazing or what? To add to this heady mix I have also finished the mortar and an officer (Sir Hugh of Beeston). All good stuff.
The next step, should I ever get round to it, is to carry on where I left off doing the King’s Lifeguard (red coats). Don’t watch this space, you might die from boredom.
Oh, and this chap kept popping up, so I painted him as well.
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