Keep Your Powder Dry

Montrose's army wasn't known for it's artillery or baggage trains, but they must have had one. A good rummage (who doesn't love a good rummage?) in the spares box provided some dragoon horseholders, who with a headswap for a Scots bonnet some became little Scottish men. A Museum Miniatures open wagon with load, with a couple of extra PP drums and a Donnington halberd fancying up the cart's load up a bit. As Montrose wasn't really known for his artillery train I had a spare PP frame gun and crew lurking in the spares box. Also residing in the spares box was a Magister Militum pack mule, a suitable candidate to transport the frame gun between jobs. I would like to point out that my spares box is not enormous, nor does it hold riches beyond belief. In fact, apart from far too many standard bearers it is looking pretty empty now. Of course an artillery expansion requires a casualty marker from Warbases. If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please ...

The BBC have just released a new comedy series set in East Anglia and Essex in the 1640s. The story follows a failing witchfinder taking a prisoner to court in order to impress Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General.  An impressive cast, the series was written and produced by the team behind Alan Partridge.   More details here Publicity still ©BBC The witchcraft stuff is fairly accurate, apart from continuing the myth of witches being burned alive (they weren't, they were hung). The series looks wonderful, and is well written and researched: not exactly laugh out loud funny, but this is well worth a watch.   This is gentle smile to yourself humour rather than clutch your sides funny - it took until the very end of episode 4 for me to actually laugh out loud. Plus there is the bonus of hearing some Beirut over the closing credits on the first and last episodes. The first episode aired on Tuesday 8th March, 10pm BBC 2, all episodes are now available on BBC iPlay...

Regular readers (hello all seven of you) will be familiar with my tit-for-tat army expansions. So just as Parliament had an artillery expansion, so the King's Army requires one too. With the apparent demise of Naismith-Roundway, I thought I wouldn't be able to get hold of any of my preferred 'light' limbers. Thankfully, I discovered  KeepWargaming  (no relation) who have a dwindling stock of Naismith figures. I quickly purchased all of the limbers in their stock room.   So here are my final planned Royalist figures: two minions, crews and limbers. Figures from PP, the gun is listed as light gun. Regular readers will be aware that I wasn't totally happy with my cannons. Historically the metalwork was most probably black, but it just looked much too flat. So these have painted using my new paint recipe: instead of matt black I now use Foundry blackened barrel. I have two shades of the paint, the lighter version being used for the wheel tyres (my thinking being that th...

Back in the days when the only people wearing a mask to go to the bank were armed robbers, I started this blog as a repository for all my little notes. Since then, the blog has taken on a life of its own and become... well... here is a post that goes back to the roots of the blog. Somewhat selfishly, it is primarily for me. If it helps anyone else out - bonus! Regular readers will know that I am continually on the lookout for suitable buildings.  The bulk of my buildings are Hovels , which are 15mm sized but with a reduced footprint. I've found a few other suitable buildings from PP and Total Battle Miniatures ; and some less suitable ones (from the extensive building ranges stocked by Magister Militum ). So maybe it is time to scratch build a few... I've kitbashed a windmill , making a stone base for it, which doesn't look too shoddy. Could be fun. Equally could be a nightmare (best to gloss over my woodwork lessons at school). Buoyed by my greenstuff adventures making ar...