ECW - Highlanders

 Could probably be passed off as highlanders from 17-18th century - showing up in either English Civil War forces OR Jacobite rebellion forces... 

It's English Civil War that I've been thinking of most, lately, so... I'm calling them English Civil War highlanders. 

Seven newly painted Highlanders. I think most are from Old Glory...? The archers in the back might be Warlord Games...? 

Iv'e actually been on multiple massive rebasing sprees lately - 40K figures being rebased from metal washer to proper-sized plastic bases, and a mix of historical and fantasy minis being rebased from washers or multi-figure DBA/HOTT bases to individual plastic bases or wooden discs. 

The ECW stuff is going onto wooden discs - and organized into units of 6 or 12 for The Pikeman's Lament.  

I'm trying to get SIX (or seven!?) different forces completed. Scotts lowland/government, Scotts Highland and four English companies (in red, green, blue, and orange uniforms, respectively). The Scottish lowlanders could easily be TWO forces, I have so many of them!? 

the Highland Company, so far... 

• 1x Forlorn Hope (6), Aggressive (in the middle there, the Laird and his closest pals)
• 4x Clansmen (12) 
• 2x Commanded Shot (The Skirmishers up front) 

This adds up to 22 points, and a standard force is 24, so I could upgrade one of the commanded shot to "veteran" for two more points to make it 24... Maybe the ones with bows....? 

There they all are again... 

I did the bow-armed figures on slightly larger bases to put a bit more space between miniatures - to show they are skirmishers - even when in base-to-base contact. The other unit of Commanded shot are on the "standard infantry size" because I though they were part of a larger unit that hasn't been finished yet... upon recounting, I have enough OTHER shot to make three full units, and these are extras... At some point, when I get to painting the others, I'll do six of them on the larger bases - to make clear that they are different from the surrounding units of shot. 

I have loads more to do... Enough that it could be two separate forces. I Highland company and an Irish company (both of which fought together under Montrose). 

I have a unit or Irish shot and a unit of Irish pile that are also painted, but are still on washers. I have two MORE units of each to finish up and that would make 24 points right there - for an Irish mercenary force. 

I have one unit of horse - probably Gallopers - that are on the workbench having recently been rebased (they were on DBA-style multi-figure bases). Most were full painted, but I'm touching up two of them and a sixth mounted figure is being painted to finish off the unit. I could conceivably downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot to Raw units and add in the unit of horse and make them elite...? OR just down grade four of the Irish units and add a regular unit of horse... OR downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot units and add the Mounted unit AND a unit of commanded shot...? I have enough Irish to do that! 

I also have enough Clansmen to do 2-3 more units of them.. If I had SIX units of Clansmen, the one unit of bow-armed commander "shot", and the Forlorn Hope - that would also be 24 points... I guess I should get working on those last two units of Clansmen! It would be nice to have one more drawer that is FULL of COMPLETELY PAINTED miniatures... 

Now.. WHY am I suddenly working on English Civil War units, suddenly, you may wonder...? and WHY SIX different forces!? I've been thinking about campaigns again and organizing something loosely based on the old, old GW Mighty Empires game... involving a number of minor nobles in a remote part of England (on the border with Scotland). For centuries they have been rivals and fought over who controlled this pasture or that village... None of them necessarily have any strong allegiance to king OR parliament and when they hear the call aren't particularly motivated to send troops - especially when the chaotic situation may mean their neighbours would use their absence as an excuse to take back or take over lands they figure is THEIRS... 

When and HOW will I run this campaign? No idea. Ideally sometime next year. Likely I will run it online - with the players doing the diplomacy via email and submitting moves for their armies once a week (or, every other week?). If an conflict takes place, I play out the battles here and post the results with game reports of the battles and we start all over again...

It may or may not happen... I have a LOT of English that will need to be finished up to be ready... mind you... If I was okay with NOT having the English forces all being in a uniform colours, I could probably use the mix of what I DO have finished to start any time... 

Hmmmmm... 

Watch for details in the new year. 

Culloden 1746: Last Stand of the Jacobites in Scotland

This weeks final Theme Bonus Round at Fourth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is “Last Stand”. I had a hard time coming up with something… I didn’t really give this much thought early enough to make any decisions and by the time I started thinking about it, it was too late to be ordering new minis... So I had to come up with something for a last stand that I actually had minis for.

Originally I thought I’d do Isandlawana. I have a pile of Zulu war stuff to paint – English, Dead Zulus, Not-so-Dead Zulus… unfortunately all the dead British are already painted… and for a last stand I thought it proper to have piles of your own dead littering the place.

Another thought I had was The defence of the Brest Fortress in 1941 – at first I thought this might be good as I have painfully few WW2 28mm Soviets to finish up. I have a few dead Russians to paint, I have some shooting pose Germans I could paint (that could be gunning them down…) unfortunately the only live Russians I have are NKVD troops… Which… I guess… might be the last ones standing in the defence of a soviet position…?

Then I remembered all these Jacobites I have… Charging, Shooting, Dying, Dead… and the decision was made… the only problem was Tartan is a pain in the ass to paint… how many could I paint in a week!? Twenty, apparently… (along with a few fantasy figures!) I had a few very (VERY) late night’s this past week…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

I think these are mostly Old Glory figures, though there may be a few from Dixon Miniatures and Front Rank Figures... and others I'm not so sure about...  

The final charge across the Moor - the skirl of the pipes barely heard over the din of the ferocious shouts and cries of the charging highlanders!

Kilts flapping in the wind...

Leaving a trail of their own dead behind them...

The fighting - Most of these are from Old Glory, though the chap in the middle with the great sword is from Dixon and I think the Piper may be from Wargames Foundry? The two with the Lochaber axes I'm not sure about, but I think might be Old Glory as well.

The Falling - I'm pretty sure all but one of these is from Old Glory - the one on the right with the broadsword I think might be from Dixon.

The fallen. Two of these are from Front Rank Figures, the other I think is from Dixon.

This and all the other entries to the “Last Stand” Theme Bonus Round can be seen here:

“Last Stand” Theme Bonus Round

Do pop on by and check out some of the fantastic entires (and do please consider voting for mine – along with any of the other entries!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a schwack of stuff I’m painting up in a fury to try and get a few more things done before the end of the Fourth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge… I also got in a few games of A Song of Blades and Heroes over the weekend but haven’t had a chance to type up game reports… maybe I’ll get to that Thursday after the Painting Challenge is all over.