Off the Painting Table (Feb 2015)

A box of Warlord Games plastic 28mm Royalist Cavalry has been sitting on my ‘lead’ pile for a while now, in fact I cannot remember when I brought them. They are nice, simple figures to construct and the sprues allow a good degree of variation in heads, arms and weapons to be made. I have previously made the Parlimentary Cavalry box and I cannot see any differences; the figures/sprues seem the same! Why don’t Warlord Games simply market them both as a single, generic ECW cavalry set rather than suggesting they are different? Anyway I painted them using the Wargame Foundary 3-tone paint system, after priming with a light grey basecoat. All the figures have been painted with a buff coat, so no regimental coat colour was used. I also painted the sash a ‘neutral’ blue, rather than a red or orange which would align them to a specific side within the civil war.

Previously I discussed the profusion of spare parts from the Wargames Factory 17^th century figures I painted last month. I had constructed 2 drummer figures using cocktail sticks and milliput to make legs and lower torsos. I was pleased with the results, so I decided to attempt to construct some ECW pikemen in a similar manner. The C17^th cavalry set provided torsos wearing breastplates, plus heads wearing lobster-pot helmets (ideal for the ECW). The pikes were spare flagpoles with the tassels removed. The figures would be wearing gauntlets, so the wide cuffs of the C17^th arms would look the part when painted. The legs and trousers do look a bit ‘wooden’ (pun intended) but I think they are OK for pikemen at rest. I still have over 60 more upper torsos (courtesy of Wargames Factory) and I am scratching my head on how to use them. I am considering making some casualty markers, this time with bent knees etc. to give more dynamic poses.

 

Number	Scale	Period	Manufacturer	Notes:
97	15mm	War of the Roses	Peter Pig
16	15mm	Pony Wars	Peter Pig	Casualty markers
12	28mm	C17th British Cavalry	Wargames Factory
20	28mm	C17th British Infantry	Wargames Factory
12	28mm	ECW cavalry	Warlord Games
14	28mm	ECW pikemen	Wargames Factory	Conversions