Keep Your Powder Dry

 Another, 'about as far as you can get from the KeepYourPowderDry estates without getting your feet wet' ECWtravelogue post. Seventeenth century Kent, despite its proximity to London, was a bit of a rural backwater. Roads were bad, and often impassable; the local gentry, in comparison to the rest of the country, were relatively impoverished. Whilst England's system of local 'government' was based upon hundreds, Kent was different being organised   by "lathes". A system unique to Kent believed to date to the Kingdom of the Kentish (which existed until the 9th Century). See here for a brief description of the county's trained bands. Kent was a deeply divided county in the Civil War; although nominally under Parliamentary control, there were Royalist risings in Tonbridge and Sevenoaks in 1643, Canterbury in 1647 and a major uprising in 1648, culminating in the Battle of Maidstone. July 1643 a force of about 4,000 Royalists, from Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and...

Partizan Press, who have for so long published a whole host of Civil War titles, publish a number of ECW scenario books. These are advertised as 'for use with any ECW rules system', but will they? I have tried them with Forlorn Hope, 1644 and Twilight of Divine Right. The only real 'nod' to Partizan's house ruleset, Forlorn Hope, being the addition of unit 'class' and 'type' in the army lists.  So will they work with any rules? The scenarios themselves work 'straight out of the bag', but the army lists will require a little work: the Forlorn Hope classifications will give you a good basis on which to 'translate' the army lists to your preferred rules (even if you aren't familiar with FH). All volumes are approximately A4 sized, with full colour card covers. Illustrated throughout with line drawings and maps, Gaming Scenarios Vol 1 also includes some full colour flag sheets sized for 25mm, 15mm and 6mm figures. The more recent volu...

My final* unit of figures to paint. The 'to do' pile is empty.  So here they are the City of London Yellow Auxiliary Regiment of Foot of the London Trained Bands. A strange choice I hear you say... I selected them purely because their flag is a bit different to any of my other regiments. That really is the reason I have represented them. The City of London Yellow Auxiliary Regiment of Foot of the London Trained Bands (a bit of a mouthful, so from now on 'City Yellow Auxiliaries') were raised on the 12th of April 1643 during the reorganisation and expansion of the London Trained Bands (henceforth LTB) in the Farringdon Within, Castle Baynard, and Aldersgate areas of the City (in other words the same areas as the Yellow Regiment). If you are new to the Trained Bands, and the Auxiliaries in particular see my earlier posts: The Trained Bands The Auxiliary Regiments Their history is somewhat confusing: much seems to stem from which auxiliary regiment is which. It was the co...

I've been promising rules reviews for a wee while now, but haven't got around to writing any. Whilst assisting regular reader Friends of General Haig with some pictures for his seventeenth century wargaming rules overview (see here ), I decided to pull my finger out and finally start writing. So here goes... and as a bonus this opening entry is a two for the price of one. The original Regiment of Foot (henceforth RoFv1 ) were first published in 2002. Rulesets come and go out of fashion but these rules, or rather one section of the rules endures - the campaign system. As you can imagine from a rules set that has come from the Peter Pig stable, they were written with 15mm figures in mind. Before battle can commence, players have to march their armies to battle, utilising the aforementioned campaign system. Dice rolls dictate good or bad events which can delay the march of units, provide extra supplies, gain intelligence, or send your men through an area with the dreaded pox. Thi...