More Planning Applications

This post picks up where A Matter of Town Planning left off. By the end of the Comments section, I’d pretty much talked myself into repainting the rendering on the two remaining Conflix buildings. Here they are in the header image above. It’s not that obvious from the photo, but I’ve applied a pinkish wash to the “Merchant’s House” (the […]

A Matter of Town Planning

This is a slightly odd post – odder than usual – because most of the work is being done by other people. (The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this a great concept! 🙂 ) The 28mm buildings in this post are all from the Conflix range by Bachmann. I’d seen […]

Bardic Reinforcements

Warlord Games‘ flag sheet handily includes a second pair of ensigns for Sir Henry Bard’s Regiment of Foot, so that determined which unit I’d paint next. (On this monitor, the uniforms are looking quite blue-ish; they’re somewhat greyer in reality). The approach was the same as before, if a little slicker this time. Each of […]

“Honey, I Shrunk the Bard!”

Last year, I posted about my progress in painting a unit of Sir Henry Bard’s ill-fated infantry in 28mm for the ECW/BCW. With an “Epic Pike & Shotte” starter box in front of me, absolutely rammed full of sprues, I thought I’d begin with replicating that unit – a solid block of pike, with two […]

Chippenham ECWS Grand Muster 2022

The heat-wave has passed, and Chateau de Syllabub has cooled sufficiently that it’s possible to think (and write, and hopefully paint!). I’m back from a week in the lands of the former Eastern Association, so it’s time to catch up on a couple of events I attended last month. [I did wonder about a more […]

Following the Bard?

At the end of the previous post, I’d just embarked on painting another 28mm ECW/BCW infantry unit. Last August/Sept, it took me about a month to complete a pike block with 2 sleeves of shotte. Oh, and a casualty figure. Of course there was a casualty figure. This time, it’s taken me… about 5 weeks. […]

(Not quite) the Battle of Lansdown Hill

When I was planning out the next set of posts, I’d intended this to be an account of the Battle of Lansdown Hill (5th July 1643), illustrated with photos of the present-day battlefield, and to segue into my next ECW/BCW unit. The inspiration was that I’d signed up for a battlefield walk, led by Ian […]

What’s in a Name?

It’s finally happened! Two adjacent posts on the same subject! (Don’t worry, I don’t expect to make a habit of this. Normal randomness and butterfly-mindedness will be restored). One question I ducked in the last post was “what to call the conflict during this period?”. When I was at school (so, not long after the […]

Remember the Mantra!

My biggest risk when attending an interesting talk, a battlefield visit, a reenactment event etc. is that I might then break The Mantra: “No New Scales – No New Periods” A friend and I quietly chant this to each other – with, admittedly, only indifferent success – when the other looks liable to make a […]

Checking the Casualty Figures

This post was nearly titled “Mounting Casualty Figures”, but it’s not really about basing figures at all. Well, not much, anyway. A little while ago, I saw a discussion (somewhere… mind like a strainy thing…) of whether or not to include dead and/or wounded versions of our toy soldiers on the model battlefield. Leaky recall […]