Keep Your Powder Dry

This week a bit of a book review. Which is a bit odd, because it is two books. Steve Archibald published his first volume with Redcrest Books (part of Amazon) a couple of years ago. The first volume covers English and Scottish Foot Regiments. His second volume covers Cavalry Cornets and Guidons. Both books are well researched: anyone familiar with the source material will be able to see that the author has gone back to primary source material to check the designs rather than simply rehash the Military Modelling flag articles from 79/80. You'd be surprised how many other authors and flag manufacturers have used the MM articles as their source material. The giveaway that the author went back to original source material Many flags were only described, rather than illustrated, in source material - so they are only an artist's interpretation. Publishers of flag books take note: this is how to do a flag book - full colour illustrations! The Foot volume starts by explaining the differ...

Due to continual 'ah, but I need to represent this unit' type scenarios I came to the conclusion that I needed some more artillery for my armies. This coincided with the demise of Naismith-Roundway and I thought I wouldn't be able to get matching limbers.  Thankfully, I discovered KeepWargaming who have a dwindling stock of Naismith figures. I quickly purchased all of the limbers in their stock room.  (So expect similar artillery posts about the Covenanters and the Royalists.) So here are my final planned Parliamentarian figures: two minions, crews and limbers. Figures from PP, the gun is listed as light gun. I must confess that I wasn't totally happy with my cannons. Historically the metalwork was most probably black, but it just looked much too flat. So I decided to paint these differently. I decided to use Foundry blackened barrel. I have two shades of the paint, the lighter version being used for the wheel tyres (my thinking being that the paint would be more worn)...

Hold your horses partner, as the denizens of the former colonies might say. Sashes? If you mean the fancy silk thing worn by officers in C17th portraiture then you are in the right place, but they weren't called sashes. Thems were called scarves. Now we've got correct nomenclature out of the way we can move on. Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes 1641, by Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt You will often see portraits of Charles, his sons, and his nephews wearing blue  sashes  scarves. Only these aren't sashes, or even scarves. These are ribands, signifying that they are members of The Order of the Garter. The Order underwent a bit of a renaissance during Charles' reign, and also his eldest son's, no doubt as a means for raising revenue. Charles wearing the Order of the Garter riband, Sir Edward Walker wearing a rose scarf and a riband signifying that he is Garter King of Arms  But first let's start with who wore scarves and how they wore them.   One only has to look at portr...

I quite fancied a coach, no other reason that it would look nice on the battlefield.  No doubt Robert Morley as the Earl of Manchester had a hand in this 'need'. A little bit of research (i.e. Google) showed two options available. Magister Militum and Essex both having a C17th gentleman's carriage in their listings. But no picture on the Essex website. A little more Googling brought up a review: the writer* ditched the Magister Militum offering as it was too complex and fiddly to build. So I ordered the Essex one on the strength of it (and my experience of having had a run in with MM Scots frame guns, which are really fiddly to assemble, which went in the bin). The coach arrived promptly, along with a restock of brown paint... must be more harquebusiers in the offing. The coach body comes in three parts: two sides and a roof. Attached to the body are the springs - take very great care not to damage them!  Unfortunately the two halves needed considerable greenstuff action to...

Regular readers (hello both of you) will know that I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Wargamer Facts ™ . Here's the latest Wargamer Fact ™ to go under the KeepYourPowderDry investigative microscope. By default this post has become part of my coat colours series. You can find the rest of the posts here: Introduction   Part 1  Parliamentarian coat colours Part 2  Royalist coat colours Part 3  Scots coat colours Part 3B  Montrose and the Irish Brigade Part 4  Dragoons, Horse and the New Model Army coat colours The Trained Bands Scarves   Having seen the phrase "the London Auxiliaries may have received blue coats" many times I decided to look into the source of this information. Just as another  wargamer fact™ asserts that the London Trained Band wore red coats*, this "blue coats" fact™  would   seem to be on equally shaky ground. 1939 Player's Cigarettes card: Trained Bands of London But first, who were the London Trained Bands ...