Keep Your Powder Dry

I know, I know, I did say out loud that I wasn't going to build a Covenator army. I hold my hands up: guilty as charged your honour! Bit of a tricky one this. The manufacturer of my figures does do a range of Scots, but in comparison to the English it is quite limited. The biggest issue is currently there are no lowland pikes open handed. At the moment I've planned on three regiments of foot, a couple of generals, a preacher, and an Earl of Leven figure with standard. I've already mentioned the issue with the pikemen; musketeers, sadly, only come in one pose, and there are no halberdiers. The lowland musket pack was a big influence in my buying into the PP range at the start. They are beautiful figures. Just a bit of a shame there are only three variants of the firing pose (unlike the English musketeers who have rests or not, are loading/standing/firing/marching/waving their muskets in the air/ and have a variety of hats). Command stand is covered by a pack, but wha...

Anyone who has ever visited a wargaming show (or convention for our continental cousins) will know that feeling of "ooooh, shinies" looking at the display stands of our favourite manufacturers. I am no exception to this, I too am afflicted with 'wargamers' disease'. Earlier this month I visited Vapnartak, aka the York Show (mainly because most people can't spell it). Cracking show, and a lovely drive there and back under beautiful blue skies, and a brief sojourn in to York centre for a bite to eat. #4 son was distracted by Warlord's Dr Who stuff, whilst I was weak and gave in to some Covenator Scots - more on that in a later post. Museum Miniatures were there, coupled with the logic of having some dragoon horseholders and appropriate bases in my 'spares box', led to the inevitable and more items were acquired for my baggage trains. This time a brace of covered wagons. As with my other baggage trains they are nominally labelled as Parl...

For the none UK readers of this blog, a quick explanation: fields in the UK historically were enclosed by either hedgerows or dry stone walls, and occasionally a hybrid of the two. Depending upon whereabouts in the country you are you will find a dominant method. Here in the Peak District we have dry stone walls as stone is a free resource lying around on the ground, in nearby Cheshire where stone is less easy to come by you find fields divided by hedgerows (also known in mountain rescue circles as God's barbed wire). Many of the dry stone walls in the Peak were built in the seventeenth century, only requiring occasional repairs. I have a quantity of hedgerows, but fancied some dry stone walls for some variety. Living in the Peak, and knowing a few drystone wallers, any stone walls would need to be correct! I looked around and found that most of the commercially available  models didn't have coping stones on them, so they wouldn't do. I found two models that were accura...

This post, has, by default turned into part 4 of my Rupert's March North series (even though it predates the series by several months). Still not had the call up from BBC2 for a miniseries - bet Ben Fogle gets the gig, or Professor Alice (lovely speaking voice, as my mum would say). York, as the country's northern capital had an important part to play during the Civil War. The siege, Rupert's relief of the siege and the resulting battle of Marston Moor have a lot to offer the wargamer. First we need to learn a little bit about York's place in English history and why it was very important during the Civil War. York was England's capital in the north (shades of Game of Thrones I know), strategically very important as a muster point for any military action against Scotland. Heavily fortified since Roman times, the city was also an important religious centre as well as being a seat of government. Fast forward to the C17th: the north is pretty much under the control of...