28mm English Civil War Regiments - Newcastle's Foot

28mm The Earl of Newcastle's Regiment of Foot.

And so back to the painting bench after a sojourn of 16 weeks travelling around the countryside culminating in my moving to a new house.

I'm now restocking my First English Civil War Armies starting with one of the more famous Royalist foot regiments, one of The Earl of Newcastle's Foot Regiments. Present during the campaigns of the First English Civil War in the North it was destroyed almost to a man at the battle of Marston Moor 2nd July 1644, this is one of the regiments I haven't tackled until now.

Famously waring the traditional English traditional white coats equipping the English armies since medieval times, until replaced by the Red coats introduced by the Parliamentarian New Model Army.
I'll have to add some blue bonnets later with green stuff cos the Earl ordered several thousand blue bonnets for his army in the Scottish manner, I'm guessing that means over sized soft woollen bonnets.

The miniatures are produced by 'Bicorne Miniatures' and painted by yours truly in Humbrol matt enamels, artists oils and acrylics, and finished off with matt varnish. I just managed to acquire a batch of Testors dullcote matt varnish, huzzar; flipping hard to get over here in the U.K. sometimes.

The Flags are GMB designs, folded and glued together with PVA with the folds wrapped around a handful of spare paint brushes to give the flowing in the breeze effect. Tassles, cords and flag tops acquired from Front Rank, I'm going to try Bicorne flags points next to see what they're like in comparison.

Seeing that this will be an early war army, most of the wealthier officers and volunteer folk will wear as much blackened armour as they could afford, having not realized how much of a burden tassets and a back & breastplate together with a helmet are on campaigning yet.

A few notes on the colour scheme.
Firstly my Royalist ECW regiments have crimson sashes so they don't clash with any red uniforms in the rest of the Royalist army under construction. I tend to have muted breeches grey being a adequate neutral colour which won't clash with the colour of the coats, outer stockings grey, inner stockings where shown a clean white colour. The coats are undyed white wool a bit of a creamy colour. The coat lining, cuffs and collars cotton white in colour, the shadows of which show as very light greys.

Basing plasticard 2mm thick (80 thou), textured with filler and small grit, tea applied with PVA glue then flooded in greens and dirt colours, after various drybrushing tones applied, finally having 2mm grass tufts added.

Anyhow, The Earl of Essex's Foot Regiment will be next, I'm just waiting for some 100mm pikes to arrive from North Star miniatures. I have some buildings on the construction/painting bench and I have a inclination to paint some ancients up.

All the Best,
Peter.

English Civil War in the Marches: The Siege of Hopton Castle 1644

I'm on the move again, whilst stumbling through Shropshire today I had a chance to visit Hopton Castle on the border of Powys and Shropshire. One of five publicly accessible castles and eight on private land within 16 miles (25km) range.

Hopton Castle was of interest to me because of the English Civil War siege carried out there in 1644 where its commander Samuel More and 31 Parliamentarian defenders fought off several hundred Royalist soldiers.

Hopton was featured in an episode of the British television series Time Team, created by television producer Tim Taylor and presented by actor Tony Robinson, each episode featured a team of specialists carrying out an archaeological dig over a period of three days, with Robinson explaining the process in lay terms (various Time Team episodes are currently available on YouTube covering prehistory to the industrial revolution.)

 Hopton Castle, during the siege of 1644 had a number of outbuildings around it fortified for its defence against a detachment of Royalist forces under Sir Michael Woodhouse, Prince Rupert's forces based in Shrewsbury held most of Shrophire at that time.

 The small brook that runs passed the castle grounds

 The castles stone structure dates to the c14th century standing on a Norman motte

 I think this is the outlet for the guarderobe since it has a shaft running upward to a room above. Renovators discovered a hole where the besieging Royalists eventually gained access to the tower during the siege apparently via this aperture on the outer wall of the keep, the ascent is approximately 12 feet vertically.

Small grassy mounds are all that is left of the oubuildings.The remains of Gregory the steward's lodgings and the manor house which featured in the early stages of the assault on the castle during the siege.

 Inside restoration work has been done to stop the building decaying any further.

 small ruins under the grassy mounds left of the tree

 The Royalists had brought 3 cannon comprising culverin and demi-culverin to convince the Parliamentarians to surrender.

 The carpark and access to the castle and leaflets are free, any donations will go towards Hoptons upkeep.

 view over the small bridge.

The site of infamy due to the bloody massacre of the 31 defenders, who twice refused to surrender. Only at the third request the garrison commander thought it prudent to surrender to avoid being blown up after Royalist engineers had dug a breach under the walls ready to fill with gun powder.

Apparently the Royalist intention was to reduce this small castle at Hopton and use it as a base to attack the Earl of Oxford's castle of Brampton (on private grounds). Castle Brampton was held against a Royalist siege by the Earl of Oxford's wife Brilliana in 1643 while her husband and son were away fighting for the Parliamentarian  cause.

Hopton castle is obviously going to be in the shadow of its more popular castles such as Stokesay and Ludlow castle. But it could make a small interesting skirmish wargame with 31 defenders and 1 commander Samuel More fighting for Parliament against several hundred Royalist foot armed with muskets pike and supported by 3 cannon culverin and dei culverin commanded by Sir Michael Woodhouse, fighting through the outhouses and enclosures on one side of the castle and trying to support a breaching party digging at the base of the tower in the hopes of planting some barrels of gunpowder to demolish the keep.

Anyhow, until next time.
All the Best, Peter.

The First English Civil War in 28mm miniatures.

intro...
And so a year later I've managed to kick start my English Civil War project again, with a Royalist King's Regiment of Foote on the workbench at the moment, their pike block are complete, supplied unpainted by 'Bicorne miniatures' in my humble opinion are the very best miniatures available at this time.

Trent miniatures 'Prince Rupert' paints up a treat.

prince Maurice is provided by Bicorne miniatures.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine reviews his uncle's (King Charles I) troops, a nephew of King Charles and is joined by prince Maurice his younger brother.

Some doughty Parliamentarians come a little too close and are requested by Rupert to surrender their standards, the Royalist request is politely declined.

And so a Royalist frame gun, a 'Robinet' is brought up to provide a little persuasion.

Anyhow hoping to get stuck into painting the remainder while I'm waiting for Die Waffen Kammer JTFM to cast me the remainder of my World War Two stuff.

And I have an English Civil War campaign planned as well.

All the Best,
Peter.

The First English Civil War in 28mm miniatures.

The English Civil War in 28mm -  The Red Regiment of The London Trained Bands.
The First Regiment of Parliamentarian Foot has been completed over the weekend,  I chose this regiment to start the ball rolling because of the colour scheme red uniforms with black armour looking quite smart. They were present early on in the war and formed part of the Earl of Essex's army.

28mm Bicorne Miniatures ECW range provided almost all of the figures, with the odd redoubt mini thrown in for luck.

 The Banners are in tin foil for durability, folded around wire shafts, the flags finials and cords are provided by Front Rank miniatures.

 I thought 4 banners per regiment would be a good compromise between too few and too many banners.

The odd Redoubt miniatures figure makes an appearance namely the banner bearer with a bicorne miniatures head from their spares range.

Based on 3mm plasticard for durability.

Basing effects use my 2mm and 4mm grass tufts available through this blog or on Ebay.

Finally matt varnish testors dullcote was sprayed on to even out the colours and for protection.

Uniform.

The Red Regiment of the London Trained Bands I assume would be well equipped and sponsored by the City of London. The officers, drummer and sergeants all wear red tunics and breeches the other ranks wear red tunics and grey breeches. The Red regiment was the first regiment in order of precedence, the other regiments being the white, yellow, blue, green and orange. Its flags were red with notable white wavy 'piles' or rays and was recruited from the wards of Aldgate, Tower and Billingsgate.

Formation.

The London Trained Bands were the City of London's militia, composed of householders who fulfilled thier statutory obligation to maintain arms and serve in the defence of their city. They were under the juristiction of the Lord Mayor of London and were commanded by officers appointed by him and the Aldermen. Members of the Trained Bands met regularly at the Artillery Garden in Bishopsgate and the Military Garden in St Martins'-in-the-Field to practice weapon handling, drilling and other military activities under the guidance of officers from the Honourable Artillery Company. These officers made the Trained Bands an effective fighting force, providing professional training for its part-time members. 

Active Service

They were part of the Eastern Association commanded by the Earl of Essex and were present at the relief of Gloucester and a number of battles including 1st battle of Newbury 1643, the London Trained Band Brigade seems to have been equipped with 11 cannon and 3 drakes (light guns) at this time.

Anyhow the next Regiment on the painting board are Charles I Lifeguard of Foote.

The English Civil War - 28mm miniatures

Collecting English Civil War 28mm miniatures.
This is a period of history of which has interested me for  long time, although I have only now been in a position to start two small ECW armies from the early years of the war nominally 1642-1643.

I have painted a lot of ECW minis for customers from various manufacturers though eventually deciding on the 'Bicorne Miniatures' range for the shear amount of variation in figures available and also their size being on the largish size compared to 'Wargames Foundry' or 'Perry miniatures' (the 'Perry miniatures' ECW range I'll use for my future Thirty Year War armies together with 'The Assault Group' thirty year war range).

Anyhow I thought I'd give it a shot and start with a few command bases, Oliver Cromwell early on in his military career when he served in the Eastern association as Lieutenant General of Horse. Note the orange sash worn by officers in that particular army. The Eastern association was commanded initially by Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex (on the painting workbench at the moment) and by 1643 Edward Montagu the Earl of Manchester (I'll try to purchase this guy next).

Oliver Cromwell as a subordinate

a 50mm round mdf base is used for subordinate commanders.

Oliver Cromwell funded a single troop of Horse at this time.

A Royalist commander in full armour.

This is a Redoubt miniatures figure on a Bicorne miniatures horse.

A squadron of  Haselrig's (or Heselrig or Haselrigge) Horse after the majority ditched their cuirassier armour, I think one troop of this regiment still were equipped with full cuirassier armour. 

The flag is the 6th company flag Haselrig's Regiment from 1643.

A Royalist Squadron of Horse, Regiment unknown.

I admit I picked this Regiment for their cool flag.

Each squadron of Horse will have their own flag made out of tin foil and hand painted, the lettering is hand painted as well, my photography skills cannot really pick out the details.

Next in this collection will be William Waller for Parliament and Charles I for the Royalists each on a command base. Also a 'Red' Regiment of London Trained Bands and also a regiment of the King's Lifeguard of Foote.

Cheers for Now,
Peter.