Showcase

Thirty Years War / English Civil War

The European wars of the early- mid 17^th century provide an interesting period to wargame, with the added advantage that many of the troops for the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) can also be used for English Civil War battles, with the substituting of flags here and there.

 The rules I use for this period are “1644”, by Rick Priestley and available via Foundry originally (not sure these are still available actually). I am also using Warhammer ECW rules for the Scots mini-campaign based on the exploits of Montrose in 1644-45.

The Thirty Years War  

 The figures are a mix of Foundry, Essex and a few others. Many of the Swedish infantry units were painted around 1996-98. Note the Scots regiment in Swedish service (Mackeys regt… clad in hodden grey with blue bonnets). With a change of flags this unit can also serve as a covenanter regiment in the English Civil War. 

I picked up the green-coated regiment from someone at a show who was selling at a bargain price. I re-based them, added the linen flags, and hey-presto… stalwarts of the Swedish line.

The two squadrons of Imperial Cuirrassiers can be pretty hefty on the tabletop… great fun to operate with.

English Civil War

One of the first Wargames Foundry ranges, and in its original form one of my favourite figure ranges of all. The variety of headgear and the shear number of figures made this a very comprehensive range. The character of the sculpting making it one of the Perry twins finest.

These whitecoats were painted in 1995, and won the Claymore Wargames show (Edinburgh) painting competition for best Wargames unit in August that year. The flags are conjectural, so no letters on that please!

The whitecoat regiments were the backbone and veterans of the Royalist army in the north of England during the civil wars. They are depicted here at Marston Moor, where their grim determination halted the enemy onslaught until, outnumbered and virtually surrounded, they refused an offer of “quarter” and were cut down in a dramatic last stand.   

ECW Scots Mini-Campaign

Based on the campaigns of Montrose in 1644-1645.

I am concentrating initially on Montrose’s Royalist forces to take on the Covenanters, which I'll move onto next.

Manus O’Cahan’s

 The Green coats are possibly not correct, but add some colour to the tabletop amongst all that hodden grey! The flags are conjectural... one being based on that carried by the Sealed Knot re-enactment unit, and the other based on a description of contemporary Irish colours in a Stuart Reid book.

The Strathbogie Regiment . 

Note the “lucky white heather” attached to some of the pikes. No historical evidence for this, but I like it. After all, many pikemen in other periods are reputed to have lucky charms attached in this way, so why not these lads?! One of the Strathbogie flags is fairly well documented, whilst the second simply shows the Gordon Arms, and there were loads of Gordon's serving in the regiment, so it seemed right.

Below: Gordon of Minimore's commanded shot unit, a Highland clan, and Montrose command base. 

The Highlanders and my Montrose figure were painted in 1993... the Highlanders have been rebased a couple of times, and initially they were in fact the first unit I did with water on the bases, a technique which was adopted by others in the group and features on many of our League of Augsburg units.