Tuesday 19 January 2016

English Civil War part 2

Good Morning Folks

Part 1 of this project can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ecw-new-shed-project.html

Not too much to report at present, the weather is too cold to venture into the Shed (and it so desperately needs a clear out and tidy up) so I have been focussing on putting together my English Civil War army.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to assemble the first of the King and Country box sets mentioned in the previous post. The figures are relatively straight forward to assemble but they do take time.

Once glued I stuck all the infantry onto 25mm m4 washers and the cavalry onto 2.5 x 5cm plasticard bases. The washers were then given a quick coat of paint (I find pva glue adheres better to a primed base). All the bases were then given a sand and ballast treatment.

These were left overnight to dry and on sunday morning I sprayed them up all grey primer. With the weather so cold I had brought the spray paint in over night so this was room temperature as were the figures. The spraying itself was done outside but I allowed these to dry in the kitchen. Much to the annoyance of the family who complained I was trying to poison them with paint fumes !

So the Army starts to take shape...

I am still waiting on the rest of the box sets to arrive but a quick analysis of what has been bought shows that the cost of a Plastic Army is relatively good value.

In summary I have bought a total of 288 figures (of which 60 are cavalry) for the princely sum of £181 which works out at about 63p per figure. By comparison a metal army of equivalent size would cost double if not triple this sum.


Unit
For King & Country
For King & Country
Battalia Box Set
Cavalry Box Set
Pike
16
16
24
56
Musket
36
36
48
120
Firelocks
12
12
10
34
Command
6
6
6
18
Cavalry
12
12
24
12
60
Total Figures
82
82
112
12
288
Source
Warlord Games website
Ebay
Ebay
Ebay
Cost (inc postage)
£70
£44
£49
£18
£181
Total Cost /Figure
85p
54p
44p
£1.50
63p

The plan is to assemble all of these boxes before the serious painting starts.

I still need to purchase some artillery support and then determine what other gaps exist in this force?

I reckon I can use some of the firelock infantry as dismounted dragoons so just need some unmanned horses - bound to be able to get cheap ones on the ebay site.

Until next time

part 3 of this project can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/english-civil-war-part-3.html



7 comments:

  1. Fire locks were generally used to guard the artillery. Not burning matches near large quantities of gunpowder. Not a Dragoons had fire locks. Hope this helps.
    Simon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you considered clubmen? They add an interesting dimension to the period (and make useful cannon fodder if you're so inclined). They also allow you to add some attractive miniatures to the tabletop.

    Following on from Simon, dragoons were simply mounted infantry (if that makes sense). I use individual figures on round bases to distinguish them from regular infantry.
    Regards, Matt

    ReplyDelete
  3. Curious as to the unit sizes you plan to use?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Going with the Pike & Shotte Unit sizes - c 12-16 men per unit.

      More in next post once I get all these plastic soldiers assembled

      Delete
  4. Quite a lot of Dragoons were equipped with firelocks, especially on the Parliamentarian side - difficult, wasteful and somewhat dangerous to be riding around with matches constantly burning

    ReplyDelete