Showing posts with label Sedgemoor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sedgemoor. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 January 2022

Royal Dragoons



Here is the first detachment of my Royal Dragoons ca.1685, which I originally intended to use for Sedgemoor. Now I find myself wondering whether I might be able to use them as the English 1st Dragoons in French Service in the 1670s, but haven't as yet discovered any uniform/flag details, they may not exist. Red seems possible, although they might have been in grey like the English foot in French service. I could potentially swap out the nice Flags of War guidons and use them later with my (projected) Front Rank 1685 dragoon unit.

I bought some of these 1672 minis, painted, a few years back, and chum Steve Spence painted a bunch more. Shaun McT is painting even more for me, and the foot versions, too. Ian kindly flocked the bases, I tufted and matt varnished. It's a big, deep unit- I found it challenging to photograph.

I really hate dragoons as one has to paint them mounted, dismounted and the standing horses as well- three times the work!


In other news, I'm planning to run a big Roundway Down game at Partizan near Newark-on-Trent on May 22nd. I'm scouting around for players- I need three or four players each for the AM and PM sessions (around 90 mins each), so if you are going and interested, please drop me an email (above left) and I will book you in.  I am also desperately keen to find someone local to help me set up the day before - 4pm-ish for around an hour or 90 mins - I need help setting up a huge hill. If you are relatively local and free please mail me, there might even be beer or a curry in it, after. :-)

Friday, 26 July 2019

Kirke's Lambs


Here are Kirke's Lambs, more formally known as the Queen Dowager's Regiment of Foote, hard-bitten veterans of the Tangiers garrison. There was nothing lamb-like about their behaviour after the battle of Sedgemoor, when they ruthlessly hunted down fugitive rebels and executed .

The historian Lord Macaulay describes the eponymous Colonel Percy Kirke as "a military adventurer whose vices had been developed by the worst of all schools, Tangier.... Within the ramparts of his fortress he was a despotic prince. The only check on his tyranny was the fear of being called to account by a distant and a careless government. He might therefore safely proceed to the most audacious excesses of rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. He lived with boundless dissoluteness, and procured by extortion the means of indulgence." He was personally responsible for ordering the hanging of at least 100 rebels. He famously promised to spare an innkeepers life if his daughter slept with him. She did, but in the morning awoke to find her father's corpse hanging from the window.


I bought around two dozen of the painted Front Rank minis on eBay, and some more (including the super Colonel Kirke) from a chap called Malcolm (sorry don't know the surname). The splendid flags are from Iain at Flags of War.


Here are the shotte. I messed up by using only flintlock-armed minis; at Sedgemoor, most of the Lambs would have carried matchlocks. Still, though, not too shabby!


Finally, I really like this shot, from the rear. I mixed madder, a brownish red, into the paint for some of the minis' tunics, as it was likely a major component in the dyes of the time. The bases are of my own design, so that I can swap out the command stand and even the pike, for more shotte.

Sunday, 14 July 2019

Royal Dragoons WIP


I've been very busy painting and basing, recently, too busy to post very much, although I will catch up. But here is a WIP shot of the Royal Dragoons, for a future Sedgemoor project. They are North Star 1672 minis, very nicely painted, mostly by chum Steve Spence, although I couldn't resist painting a couple, myself. They are nice Copplestone-sculpted minis, with a fair few variants, and (very conveniently) North Star have recently begun to extend the range with some new dragoon command groups and rumours of Spaniards.*

I've decided to go with the dragoons as a 24-man unit which (at least for Sedgemoor) will operate in two halves, on the wings of the Royal army. I also plan to do the unit dismounted, with all 24 horses and horse holders. Raising a regiment of dragoons is a serious commitment, and not for the fainthearted!

*Some grenadiers in furry hats, with firelocks, would be a splendid addition, Nick  :-)