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Friday, December 23, 2022

ECW - Highlanders

 Could probably be passed off as highlanders from 17-18th century - showing up in either English Civil War forces OR Jacobite rebellion forces... 

It's English Civil War that I've been thinking of most, lately, so... I'm calling them English Civil War highlanders. 

Seven newly painted Highlanders. I think most are from Old Glory...? The archers in the back might be Warlord Games...? 

Iv'e actually been on multiple massive rebasing sprees lately - 40K figures being rebased from metal washer to proper-sized plastic bases, and a mix of historical and fantasy minis being rebased from washers or multi-figure DBA/HOTT bases to individual plastic bases or wooden discs. 

The ECW stuff is going onto wooden discs - and organized into units of 6 or 12 for The Pikeman's Lament.  

I'm trying to get SIX (or seven!?) different forces completed. Scotts lowland/government, Scotts Highland and four English companies (in red, green, blue, and orange uniforms, respectively). The Scottish lowlanders could easily be TWO forces, I have so many of them!? 

the Highland Company, so far... 

  • 1x Forlorn Hope (6), Aggressive (in the middle there, the Laird and his closest pals)
  • 4x Clansmen (12) 
  • 2x Commanded Shot (The Skirmishers up front) 

This adds up to 22 points, and a standard force is 24, so I could upgrade one of the commanded shot to "veteran" for two more points to make it 24... Maybe the ones with bows....? 

There they all are again... 

I did the bow-armed figures on slightly larger bases to put a bit more space between miniatures - to show they are skirmishers - even when in base-to-base contact. The other unit of Commanded shot are on the "standard infantry size" because I though they were part of a larger unit that hasn't been finished yet... upon recounting, I have enough OTHER shot to make three full units, and these are extras... At some point, when I get to painting the others, I'll do six of them on the larger bases - to make clear that they are different from the surrounding units of shot. 

I have loads more to do... Enough that it could be two separate forces. I Highland company and an Irish company (both of which fought together under Montrose). 

I have a unit or Irish shot and a unit of Irish pile that are also painted, but are still on washers. I have two MORE units of each to finish up and that would make 24 points right there - for an Irish mercenary force. 

I have one unit of horse - probably Gallopers - that are on the workbench having recently been rebased (they were on DBA-style multi-figure bases). Most were full painted, but I'm touching up two of them and a sixth mounted figure is being painted to finish off the unit. I could conceivably downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot to Raw units and add in the unit of horse and make them elite...? OR just down grade four of the Irish units and add a regular unit of horse... OR downgrade ALL of the Irish pike and shot units and add the Mounted unit AND a unit of commanded shot...? I have enough Irish to do that! 

I also have enough Clansmen to do 2-3 more units of them.. If I had SIX units of Clansmen, the one unit of bow-armed commander "shot", and the Forlorn Hope - that would also be 24 points... I guess I should get working on those last two units of Clansmen! It would be nice to have one more drawer that is FULL of COMPLETELY PAINTED miniatures... 

Now.. WHY am I suddenly working on English Civil War units, suddenly, you may wonder...? and WHY SIX different forces!? I've been thinking about campaigns again and organizing something loosely based on the old, old GW Mighty Empires game... involving a number of minor nobles in a remote part of England (on the border with Scotland). For centuries they have been rivals and fought over who controlled this pasture or that village... None of them necessarily have any strong allegiance to king OR parliament and when they hear the call aren't particularly motivated to send troops - especially when the chaotic situation may mean their neighbours would use their absence as an excuse to take back or take over lands they figure is THEIRS... 

When and HOW will I run this campaign? No idea. Ideally sometime next year. Likely I will run it online - with the players doing the diplomacy via email and submitting moves for their armies once a week (or, every other week?). If an conflict takes place, I play out the battles here and post the results with game reports of the battles and we start all over again...

It may or may not happen... I have a LOT of English that will need to be finished up to be ready... mind you... If I was okay with NOT having the English forces all being in a uniform colours, I could probably use the mix of what I DO have finished to start any time... 

Hmmmmm... 

Watch for details in the new year. 

14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Ha-ha! I knew there'd be a few people excited about that... you among them. Stay tuned for more! I've actually been working on a pair of Great War Tanks this afternoon to kick off a little campaign of the Last 100 Days of the Great War - starting with Cambrai 1918 - using One Hour Wargames!

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    2. Ooops... it's AMIENS that kicked off the the last 100 days of the War, in August... Cambrai was later in October, closer to the end...

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  2. These look great, can’t wait to see them in action!
    Alan Tradgardland

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  3. Your campaign ideas are most exciting. I look forward to hearing more about it…
    Alan Tradgardland

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  4. Superb painting and basing on your gorgeous Highlanders...Thumbs up!

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  5. I do like round basing for figs, I just wish there was an easier way to make them work for big-battle. Or, bigger battle, anyways. The look the part, though, those highlanders are fierce.

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    1. Thanks!

      Sabotted movement trays...? I made a few for 40K a while back:

      https://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/2019/07/movement-trays-for-apocalypse.html

      I've seen people base stuff for Dan Mercy's games on three different sizes of bases, a small one containing one figure, a medium one with two. and a larger one with three. Makes for a bit faster moving of things.

      For me, I like singly based figures so the size of the unit can change (for different games) and I don't find it too onerous to move this many about. And this is about as large a battle as I have the patience and evergy for, at this point in my life. I'm not in a rush to get games finished - like at tournaments and such.

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  6. Awesome as always. I enjoy your campaigns as well. Have you read One Hour Wargames then? I have a copy, which I ignore... What's its best feature, in your opinion?

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    1. Thanks! I read it - as much as I "READ" any rules - ages ago. That is, I read the pertinent information needed to play the game for any of the periods I thought I might play out of it... and skimmed over the "designers notes" section before the actual rules.

      It's hard to say what the "best feature" is, as I have yet to play it. I think the big draw is that it is insanely simple and played in ONE HOUR!? I worry it might be a little TOO simple. There will be things, I am quite certain that will come up that is not even remotely covered by the rules... which is fine if you're playing with a like-minded opponent that is just interested in seeing how it plays out. As soon as you play it with someone who WANTS TO WIN, it would probably be a shit game.

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    2. It seems that every game is open to abuse, even DBA, which tries to be both simple and fast while covering every possibility...
      I can see how OHW would be perfect for a short campaign, especially if you're gaming all the battles for remote players. You could pick compatible red & blue generals that way, and have fun fast games.

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    3. Exactly!

      For the remote ECW campaign, I'll be using The Pikeman's Lament.

      I was planning on using ONW for a short campaign of the last 100 days of the Great War - which would be more of a narrative campaign, rather than one that used a campaign system to track casualties and one battle affecting the outcome of the next in any great way.

      There are 10 battles I could probably play out at least some part of using my Canadian Corp minis:
      Amiens - 8–12 August 1918
      The Scarpe - 26 and 30 August 1918
      Drocourt-Quéant Line - 2–3 September 1918
      Canal du Nord - 27 September - 1 October 1918
      Cambrai - 8–10 October 1918
      The Selle - 17–25 October 1918
      Valenciennes - 28 October to 2 November 1918
      Sambre - 4 November 1918
      Grande Honnelle - 5–7 November 1918
      Mons - 11 November 1918

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