English Civil War!

In my previous posts, where I wrote about the Plastic Warrior show and my purchases therefrom, I enthused about the new English Civil War cavalry by Replicants. I was particularly pleased by these as the timing could not have been better. 

I have wanted to game this period for some time and have been squirreling figures away for the past ten or more years. I probably have between three and four hundred figures awaiting the attention of my brushes, but the project kept being pushed to one side, as my hollow cast addiction was fed. 'One day', I kept promising myself. 

In the meantime, about four years ago, I suffered a small 'bleed' in my right eye. Three lots of laser treatment and 28 steroid injections into the eye, have failed to remedy the damage and I have probably lost 40% of the sight in that eye. 

The main issue is a loss of depth perception. I have difficulty judging when the paint brush is touching the figure, and as you can imagine this has slowed me down somewhat! I can still paint 54mm figures but not with the accuracy or speed that I did just a few years ago. I love modelling, painting and gaming with my toys but I am having to face up to reality...my days of quick army painting and large projects are over and this did not bode well for my long planned English Civil War project. That is until I found out a large, heavily converted and expertly painted ECW collection was available to purchase. 

From initial phone call, to their arrival here at Apperley Towers, was a matter of days. I exchanged a not insubstantial amount of coins of the realm, for over 250 infantry, 50 plus cavalry and 2 guns and crew! I now had the basis for the two forces I had been planning, without the years of effort and delays. It meant I could start gaming this era, whilst leaving me with the luxury of adding small units, characters, and other factions, without any time pressure.

This financial shortcut made so much sense. I was exchanging money, which can be replenished, for time, which cannot. More importantly, my dream of refighting this period in 54mm was now a reality. 

The collection itself, was originally that of the extremely talented and all round nice chap, Eric Kemp. Eric had sold it to a toy soldier dealer, who is a friend of mine and I bought it from him. 

So, two beautiful armies, ready to fight for king or Parliament! So why is this not a battle report I hear you say? Well, I needed to organise the collection to address my personal future gaming requirements. I had acquired approximately 80% of the original collection, the rest having been disposed of to other buyers. This meant that there are some units which aren't complete and will need a few additions to bring them up to strength. Fortunately, most of the main infantry regiments were all present, but Eric had built them around 9 pike and 18 musket plus 5 command figures. I have decided that I want to organise them based on multiples of 6 or 12 which will work better for my proposed rules (Pikeman's Lament and another home brewed set) so repainting a few coat colours is in order. 

In addition, there is some minor repair work and touching up to do on a few figures, as they are over 20 years old. In general, they are in immaculate condition, but the odd rifle, sword, scabbard etc has flexed and lost paint and I would like to put that right. 

The biggest time consumer however is basing. All of the figures are just as the manufacturer made them (apart from the many conversions , head swaps etc) and in a lot of cases the plastic bases are small and the figures unstable. I have therefore decided to do what I do with my hollow cast armies and base each figure onto a plywood/mdf base for stability. Sticking them to bases may not sound like a big task, but when you have to paint and then varnish each base for a 'proper job', it becomes very time consuming. 

So the collection is not yet ready for me to game how I want to, but I expect it to be ready in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I have taken a few photo's to give you a taste of the figures involved and my progress with some of them. Yes, I realise a lot of people would have just played with them as they came, but I am cursed with a need to organise to my own design. OCD?..... Moi?

The first two photos give you a snapshot of my wargames table with the collection spread over it as I tried to make sense of the units. The cavalry were all loose and I had no idea which rider went with which horse! They were not interchangeable! I spent way too much time on this particular issue but eventually made some sort of sense of them and glued the riders to the horses! 

 

The next photo shows a New Model Army Regiment of Foote, reorganised to my own specifications of 36 men, divided into 3 units of 12 men. 12 Pike and 2 sleeves of 12 musketeers. I decided to spread the 5 command figures amongst the 3 units with the banner and the drummer in the Pike block. When finished, there will be 6 full regiments, 3 New Model army and 3 Royalist. Probably way more than I will use in one game but its a great feeling knowing I can play larger games. 

The collection included two artillery pieces. I shall be adding more, but of different sizes. 

Roundheads accompanying a figure which Eric thought of as Cromwell himself. Eric tried to make the two armies recognisably 'Cavaliers and Roundheads'  although we know that in reality there was little to distinguish the two sides from the way they dressed. I am more than happy with Erics original decision as I am looking for toy soldiers not historically accurate scale models.

Royalist Cavalry by comparison are much more flamboyant! Here Prince Rupert and his poodle lead a small detachment.

So a glimpse of a few units. I have completed the rebasing etc, of all but two Royalist regiments of foote and a unit of dragoons. Its been a long slow process but the figures handle so much better on the mdf bases and I also like the look of them. Another week or so and they will be finished and then the fun will begin! 

Tara a bit!