28mm English Civil War

Next in the pile of stuff to take stock of is my 28mm English Civil War collection. This collection has increase extensively very recently due to a very successful trade – I traded away eight 15mm DBA Dark Ages armies (three of which were fully painted) in exchange for… well, you’ll see… a LOT of Old Glory 28mm ECW stuff (thanks Mike!)

Originally I thought I’d use Warhammer: English Civil War – whenever I got around to playing, but (as you well know if you’ve been following the blog) I’m quite enamored with the whole Warmaster idea and imagine I’d like to use these for that… So my current plan is to bases them as per my new basing standards and have some extras on single bases for skirmishing or “change” for the stands If I play do ever end up playing Warhammer: English Civil War.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Now these lads are a touch smaller than the Old Glory – more like real “25mm” stuff. They’re actually figures I modeled and cast myself. Well actually I modeled them and my friend John cast them as I wasn’t set up for that when these were made… I’m not sure where the masters have gone to, I’m pretty sure I got them back from him. I hope he has the moulds as I’d like to cast some more someday…


A second batch of the above. These, with the ones pictured above, should make me ONE UNIT of pike and maybe two shot…


Old Glory Cuirassiers. One unit. Should be all I need, really. I’ll have one left over, he’ll become a commander of some sort.


These are the first ECW figures I ever bought. They’re old Wargames foundry figures that I ordered from England back before the internet based on descriptions and line drawings in a Wargames Illustrated add back in, oh, 1988…? Anyone remember those good old days? I wasn’t disappointed but never did get around to placing another order… didn’t really have the money at the time… or had different priorities… These will probably be kept as individually mounted figures for skirmishing – except the general, he’ll actually serve as a general. They’ll probably get touched up and re-based onto round washers at some point – including the general.


Here’s the stuff I got in trade. One of these I bought myself a while back – one of the Command Packs – I thought I’d use them with my home-cast rank and file.


My Highlanders! These boys have seen lots of action as a Mordhiem warband. Most of them are Old Glory, though I think there’s a couple of Dixon figures in the back there. Nice figures. Pain in the ass to paint – what with the tartan and all. But they do look nice when they’re done.


My Covenanters. All three of them….


The highlanders I have yet to paint. Again, mostly Old Glory but there’s a couple more Dixon and some Essex figures in there as well.


These are some old Minifigs Scotts. Probably more appropriate for the Thirty Years War.

So as I mentioned these will mostly be based as per my new basing standards. The foot will be on 60x40mm bases; pike will have 8/base, shot will have 6/base. The trouble is how many bases/stands per unit. The standard in Warmaster seems to be three. The one English Civil Warmaster variant I’ve found so far varies from that and had pike in units of four and shot in units of two…? Guess I’ll have to play it and find out how they work…

The Horse will be mounted three on a 60x50mm base and are 3 stands per unit.


So what I HAVE is:

16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast pike (so far…) Which would make one unit if 4 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise.

16 painted and 16 unpainted home-cast shot (so far…) Which would make two units if 2 stands/unit, or one and a start on a second otherwise….

One unit of Cuirassiers to be finished.

The Old glory bags include:
2x ECW-2 Unarmoured Command
1x ECW-4 Pike Advancing Soft hat
1x ECW-7 Pike Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-9 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Helmet
1x ECW- 11 Pike Buffcoat, Porte Pike, Helmet
1x ECW-12 Pike Buffcoat, Charging, Soft hat
1x ECW-19 Musketeer Firing Montero Cap
1x ECW-21 Musketeer Advancing Montero Cap
1x ECW-26 Cavalry Buffcoat Helmet
1x ECW-27 Cavalry Buffcoat Soft Hat
1x ECW-36 Royalist Personalities
1x ECW-53 Moss’ Troopers

So a total of 60 “command” (could be used in pike units or shot), 150 Pike, 60 shot.

That would make 5-7 units of pike – depending on whether using 3 or 4 stands/unit – and 4-6 units of shot, depending… any leftovers cold be individually based for skirmishing and/or “change”.

Each bag of Horse would be one unit with one left over to be a commander (or skirmisher)

The Highlanders I have 15 painted and 27 not-so-painted… the ones already painted and on washer I will leave as they are. 18 of the others will make one unit of highlanders… unless I base them as “hordes” which would be 7-9 figures on a 60x60mm base… hmmm…

Hmmmm… I have some guns somewhere, but no crew, which I didn’t manage to take a picture of.

The unfortunate bit is that the campaign I’d really like to play is Marquis of Montorse’s Scottish campaign… and there would have limited use… When I get around to the Englsih Civil War again I will model a couple Scottish pikemen and shot and maybe a highlander or two and cast them by the hundreds… That’s a “someday” project right now, though…