Thursday, 10 March 2022

Dutch Artillery, 1672 style


Here's my first unit of artillery for 1672, a battery of Dutch guns.  These are mostly miniatures from the North Star range, with accessories from Bicorne Miniatures and TAG. I converted several 1672 pikemen to add variety to the limited number of poses of the gunners. Unusually, I painted most of these myself from scratch, and the guns, too. Ian added the static grass and I added the tufts. all the pictures are clickable.


I think I have the uniforms reasonably right, but, in any case, there is a very great deal of uncertainty about the Dutch uniforms. They possibly had orange sashes. Incidentally, the wicker basket in the left foreground holds grape shot.


Here is a close-up of the unit's officer, he is an officer from the Warfare Miniatures "officers with character" range, equipped with a TAG linstock. These recent releases from Warfare are very nicely sculpted and compatible, size and style wise, with 1672. Great buttons! The chap behind him, on the left, is a 1672 pike man equipped with a (Bicorne?) trail spike. 

I hope you like these, I do! I'm still a very long way from playing a game in this period, but the armies are coming along in the background. A big shout out to David Imrie for further lighting advice; I now have green grass, again!

In other news, I've been chatting with Andrew Brentnall and David Imrie about how to depict units in the Thirty Years War. David Imrie has recently painted and based a breathtakingly-lovely Imperialist unit and I am strongly resisting basing up a unit or two of Swedes. Andrew and I are in the early stages of discussing some possible tweaks to For King and Parliament to take into account some of the additional continental troop types and tactics that one encounters in the TYW.

Monday, 7 March 2022

New Chits of War released

 I've just released some more lovely chits for use with To the Strongest! and For King and Parliament. Chits of War come in sheets of 80, are 20mm in diameter and are drawn from a bag and used in the place of playing cards. I've introduced two new colours, white and yellow, to complement the existing five colours (purple, dark blue, green, red and orange). 

The coloured, varnished MDF chits are double sided for speed of play, because you don't need to flip them over.  The two new sheets offer a strong contrast to the existing colours, so you won't mix them up.              


I've also had matching stratagem tokens made:


You can find them here (chits) and here (stratagems).

Monday, 28 February 2022

Updated To the Strongest! Medieval Army List eBook released


I’ve just published an updated versions of the medieval army list eBook for To the Strongest! The 211-page PDF now includes 120 Medieval army lists, including five new lists (West Slav, Old Prussian, Early Lithuanian and Samogitian, Later Feudal English and Yi Korean lists). I’ve also moved the Later Hindu Indian, Early Lombard and Avar lists here, from the Ancient List eBook, as they sit better alongside the medieval lists. Several of the existing lists have been revised, and a good deal of background information has been added.

Each list consists of a spreadsheet describing the army. Most of the lists also include details of how the army fought and a historical background, and sometimes a picture of painted miniatures.

You can find buy the army lists here.  Should you order the lists you'll receive updates roughly every three months until at least the end of 2022, with new lists and additional material added each time. The next update will be at the end of May 2022. The eBook costs £9.99.

https://bigredbatshop.co.uk/collections/all/army-lists

Alternatively, if you are outside the UK (especially if you are in the EU, where I can't sell digital products) you might like to buy it from Wargames Vault for $14.99.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/343132/To-the-Strongest-Medieval-Army-List-eBook?term=medieval+ar

Monday, 21 February 2022

ECW veterans

 
On Saturday I came across an old ECW regiment that I based up perhaps three years ago to illustrate how I'd model a unit on a 20cm frontage; it's the one featured in the colour pages in the For King and Parliament rule book. It's never been used, because I have always gamed on 30cm, but I've long thought about rebasing it. I worked out a shortcut to do this, by inserting three FK&P7 bases on the edged of the existing FK&P6's, adding extra files to the pike and to each wing of shotte. I just needed to paint an additional seven minis to bulk it out and, on a whim, I did this over the weekend.

The regiment is only in two ranks, unlike my other units which have three, but that's not an issue as I intend it to represent an understrength unit. The minis (many painted by Shaun McTague- the additional minis I repainted from eBay purchases) are a mix of Renegades and Bicornes, and feel like they are veterans.

I don't have a name for this unit, which is fairly generic- probably Parliamentarian as the sashes are orange. I'm open to suggestions! I'll post a better picture when it is flocked.

Tuesday, 8 February 2022

Blowing hot air


I am just finishing some bases on a couple of regiments of cavalry for Roundway Down (at Partizan in late May), and I found myself wondering whether anyone else uses their wife's hairdryer to blow away surplus flock? Also does anyone else matt varnish their finished flock? I find it comes out better in photos, that way.

Monday, 31 January 2022

Burgundian arquebusiers and TtS! Ancient Army lists


One more Burgundian unit, for the time being, again painted by Lionel Bechara, flocked by Ian and tufted by me. I intend to add at least two more units of these, including some nice old Grenadier minis that will add a bit of extra variety; perhaps also some Perry officers and a standard with an arquebus. this unit is based on slightly shallower
FK&P13c bases. I have more-or-less enough Burgundian foot, for the moment, and I've started to think about mounted knights, coustilliers and pages (gulp; potentially quite a lot of work in them!).

Today I've just released an updated version of the TtS! Ancient Army list eBook, with four new lists (Cappadocians, Hasmonean Judean, West African Forest Kingdoms and Mossi). Now with 164 army lists, the book is now approaching completion and consequently the new armies I am adding tend to be somewhat more obscure, although often all the more interesting for that. I'm still adding background material to the lists  - I'm up to 128,000 words (!) - and revising some of the older lists. If you've previously bought a paid-for version of this list (as opposed to the original free version of the book) you should have recently received an email copy (from the BigRedBatShop) or a download link (from Wargames Vault). If not, please mail me. At the end of February there will be a similar update to the Medieval army lists.

Friday, 28 January 2022

Twofer

By way of a slight digression from the 1670s, here are some minis I finished late last year but never got around to photographing. I decided to expand my two x two stand units of Burgundian longbowmen each to three stands, and added stakes. Most of the miniatures were painted my my French chum Lionel Bechara, I did some highlighting. They are, of course, Perry plastics, even the flags are Perry. Chum Ian flocked and I tufted. I now have around eight Burgundian units, I need at least twice that. Chum David sent me some recently, which will certainly help. But even 16 units would barely speedbump my Swiss!

In other news... I've managed to get the BigRedBatShop restocked. I have pretty much everything in stock, aside from the Deep-Cut cross-grid mats which I can't get printed at the moment for technical reasons- but I have bought in some from Geek Villain. I have all of the coloured chits, plain MDF chits and bases back in stock. If there's anything that you want that appears to be out of stock (other than cross-grid mats), mail me, I probably have it somewhere in my lounge.

I'm currently finalising the latest version of the Ancient Army List eBook- that should go out on Monday, it includes four new lists and some other new material. If you've previously bought it I'll send you a copy or a download link.  It now has 164 lists in it- pretty much any ancient army that you'd ever want to put on a table.

Finally I hope to be at Partizan on 22nd May- I'll be taking Roundway Down in 28mm. I still have a few slots for players- email me if you'd like me to book you in.