How much is too much ECW?

Well just about finished my second last unit of ECW Irish Pike, while packing away last weeks paint jobs (Gordon Horse & Highlanders)I pondered "how much is too much"?

When I went to place them in my ECW tool box, I found I had a storage problem arising..... so I pulled out all of my painted, half painted and unpainted ECW figures and repacked what I could of the painted stuff into my tool boxes and moved the unpainted and half painted stuff into other storage boxes or onto the work bench.

The amount of lead in this 5 year old project is quite amazing (btw it started as a skirmish campaign), I have about 70 painted cavalry, with about 30 unpainted Scott lancers and dragoons to do, 9 fully painted pike and shot blocks of 24-32 figures, 96 highlanders, three part painted tercios, and two warlord plastic regt boxes, about 10 guns including two part painted and 30 odd club men which still need to be completed also.

Altogether a lot of figures, I should not be that surprised as this army reflects most of my collections, about a third too a half painted, a third part painted and a third bare metal. Granted this army has a lot of painted figures but I do every now and then ponder when should I stop.

Some of the guys in the club are interested in doing 30 years war, should I just sabot my bases for our Might and Reason adaptation " A Forest of Pike", or do I go and buy a few more boxes or warlord minis add some more floppy hats and feathers and add to the collection????

Pondering is dangerous stuff.................

Gordon Horse

The next unit returning to the fold is George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly's Horse.
They defected to the Royalist cause (George Gordon was Catholic). I still need to complete the flag for this unit as no marketed flags are available I need to hand paint the bugger!

The miniatures are from Eureka Miniatures, sculpted by Alan Marsh






cheers
matt

Montrose Highlanders Return!

I sold my Montrose ECW army two years ago and last weekend bought it back again at our clubs car boot sale. I am refitting all of them to my new painting style, washed in devlan mud then highlighted again.

The first unit I refitted from the army were the highlanders, I added some white and yellow to the kilt setts to make them more flashy. I made up the setts so they really don't really have any historical attachment, my ECW kilt research mostly describes 16th century setts as red and black. I have added a flag just because every wargame unit deserves a flag! This unit will also double for my Jacobite rebellion army so I probably should of painted them in a historical pattern......oh well live and learn!

So far quite happy with the result, another 20 odd figures to do, then I will attack the eyes etc by then my eyes will need a rest andI will move onto Gordon's horse next, then the Irish pike and shot, which I think I will increase in size by adding another eight pikemen to each unit and another four shot.










cheers
Matt

Sir Christopher Moresby Liveried Archers

Off the table today, another addition to my WOTR collection is a unit of Sir Christopher Moresby Liveried Archers. I plan to add a unit of Liveried Billmen also to his retinune.

A stauch Yorkist, Sir Christopher Moresby of Scaleby and Windermere, Cumberland was knighted at Tewkesbury by Edward the IV, he governed the frontier with Scotland from Scaleby Castle until his death in 1495. I plan to finish my figure for Moresby tonight!




cheers
Matt

1st St Albans

The GVS members who have WOTR Medieval armies decided to get together to refight the opening stoush of the War of the Roses, the first St Albans. I spent the last week or so doing some research and refurbishing my WOTR troops (still not finished!).

I wanted to capture the main features for our refight of St Albans, so I embarked upon some research of the battle. The main features are the cathedral, the market square with the clock tower and the Great Cross, Hollywell Hill and the church of St Peter. I hunted through my terrain collection and came up with a 20mm Cathedral I use for my Arnhem collection, and I decided to build a tower out of foam card, the rest of the buildings come from my and Greg’s collection. The other main pieces we needed on the table were the three main lanes, Sopwell Lane (London Road), Shropshire (or Butts) Lane (as it lead to the archery butts in Tonman ditch)and New lane all leading off Halliwell street and of course Tonman ditch which was represented by a line of hedges.

I made up the army lists making sure I included the main characters of the battle for the Lancastrians The King HenryVI, The Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland, and Lord Clifford, and for the Yorkist’s The Duke of York, and Earls of Warwick and Salisbury.
After the set up of the tables and the troops which took some time (two hours of chatting) we then went to lunch before a dice was rolled!
Greg commanded the Lancastrians and Bruce and myself the Yorkist’s, basically Greg’s troops defended each of the lanes with a unit of men at arms or billmen behind hasty barriers (needing sixes to hit them)and his Archers defending Tonman ditch hedges(also requiring sixes to hit). The opening three turns began with the massed archery of the Yorkist’s, cutting down large numbers of Lancastrian archers, then the Yorkist billmen advanced, finally contact was made, the Yorkist bill block on Sopwell lane had a hard fight with the Lancastrian Men at arms for three turns and finally fell back after failing a morale test, the Yorkist billmen attacked up Shropshire lane fighting for three turns also before fleeing whilst being chased by Lancastrian Men at Arms, this cause four other units around it also to flee! The Yorkist billmen attacking along New lane should of had the better of the shire bill but fled also but were all cut down buy the Lancastrians.

At this stage I thought that the Yorkist cause was lost so I threw the Duke of Yorks Men at Arms with himself leading along with the Earl of Warwick and the Army standard bearer against the Lancastrian Men at Arms holding Sopwell lane. They forced their way through and chasing the Lancastrians up the hill. The Lancastrian Men at Arms on Shropshire lane decided to charge the Yorkist archers who flee leaving the men at arms at close range to another unit of Yorkist archers who promptly cause 5 casualties in one turn!

Last turn, the Lancastrian Men at arms charge the archers again losing another three in the charge leaving only three men and Lord Clifford for the ensuing combat, no archers are killed and the archers manage to kill another Man at arms, Lord Clifford promptly surrenders surrounded by 30 archers! In the streets the Lancastrian Men at Arms rally and charge the Yorkist’s plodding up Halliwell hill, Somerset challenges the Duke of York to single combat both fail to do each other damage, the Yorkist Men at arms do murder though and the Lancastrians again flee, and are all cut down including Somerset, only The King HenryVI, and the Earl of Northumberland remain both surrender.


The game was great fun, we didn’t change the historical outcome but it was a near run thing, this game with a bit of tweaking and some more buildings it would make a great demo game I think. I think it has been at least two years since we had a WOTR game so it was time! I do think plate armour in WAB should be at least a three plus save, the archers done great damage on these heavily armed men who only had a five plus save.


Cheers
Matt

WOTR Mercenary Crossbow

A small unit in the empoloy of the Duke of York. Same again painted about 7 years ago, a quick dust, then a GW Devlan mud wash, highlights, I have noticed some nics on the bows and some leatherwork so I will redo these also. I think I will also do the draw strigs with a lighter colour and redo the blue pupils black!





cheers
matt