English Civil War part 3

Hi Folks

part 2 of this project can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/english-civil-war-part-2.html

I have been cracking on with the ECW army build over the last couple of weeks assembling vast numbers of Warlord plastic figures and I am delighted to report that I am nearly there. Just the small matter of painting them ! I'll post pictures up of the fully based and primed army in the next few days.

Fortunately my good friend Mark has also decided to join this adventure and we have agreed to split the build. He is going to focus on the Royalists and I am going to do the Parliamentarians.

Up to now I have very much focused on the Infantry and Cavalry requirements of my army but of course I am going to need Artillery. At least a few guns !

Now I m trying to build this force on a budget so a bit of investigative analysis would be required on which company offered the best value.

Most offer guns with crew but the number of crew varies considerably. Using the 'Saker' cannon as the comparison and looking across multiple ranges I produced this small table.

Company	Cost for Saker Gun	Is Crew Included If so how many	Cost for Crew (no gun	How many Crew
TAG Miniatures	£10.60	No	£6.50	4
Renegade	£12	5
Perry	£9	4
Bicorne	£10	No	£8	6
Redoubt	£5	No
Empress	£15	4
Warlord	£15	4
Foundry	£8	No	£12	6

Based on these numbers there is an enormous variety of options. I should also point out that Renegade had a buy 4 packs get fifth free (se effectively a 20% discount applied if you bought the volume. For the purposes of this analysis I have left the real price in. 

Based on this table the Perry option looks like the best deal £9 for a gun plus four crew. A potential purchase of 4 cannon from Perry would be £36.

 

We are likely to start using Pike & Shotte as our initial rule set and they advise that the Parliamentary Army can have either 2 or 3 artillery pieces per battalia (depending upon time in war). With a maximum of three foot battalia on the table I am probably going to need 6-9 guns. 

Once I have completed the plastic horde and seen what is missing (eg Dragoons, Commanders etc) I'll make the decision as I am sure the costs will be somewhat different once postage is included.

 

Decisions, Decision....  

part 4 of this project can be found here

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ecw-part-4-plastics-all-assembled.html