Brown Paper Parcels Tied Up With String

-
...were one of Julie Andrews's favourite things. Here's one of mine. A blast from the past, some old Minifig's boxes. A couple of the fabled Hinchliffe blue boxes, and a more recent offering from Foundry*. Okay, completely superfluous and adds an extra cost to figures, but you've got to love a little box haven't you?



* don't worry, I haven't gone over to the 28mm side, I bought some paint from them.



If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider supporting the blog. 
Thanks.

Comments

Post a comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot

-
Image
A note: I added some coat colours to the list, which had the knock on effect of buggering up the formatting of the table when using a phone in portrait mode; this has been compounded by the new Blogger UI, and I am unable to fathom out how to fix it. There is only one solution - I will have to rewrite this post, so until that happens, please turn your phone through 90° and view in landscape, where it works just fine. Laptop, tablet and desktop users can continue feeling smug about the size and quality of their displays. When I first started my Civil War gaming project I relied upon the many ECW coat colour tables on wargaming websites. As my project has progressed, my library has got bigger, my research has gone back to primary sources rather than relying upon second and third hand sources; and I have noticed quite a few errors in these lists for wargamers. I have also noticed the same errors appearing in multiple lists.   As a result of continually seeing 'the London
Read more

Colonel James MacDonnell’s Regiment of Foot

-
Image
Written histories of the Irish Brigade tend to have been fabricated by the Victorians who littered this history with romantic frilly nonsense.  Little is actually known about the 1,500 men of the Brigade. The Irish Brigade were sent to Scotland in order to support Montrose by the Earl of Antrim. Three regiments made up the Brigade, this regiment was commanded by Colonel James MacDonald. Not much is known about James, he is quite possibly the illegitimate son of the Earl of Antrim, but that is by no means definite. The Earl had three sons prior to getting officially married - James is most likely the youngest of the three. Raised in 1644 they were shipped over to Scotland and almost immediately took to the field at Tippermuir where they mustered 400 men; they then fought at Aberdeen; by February 1645 at Inverlochy their numbers had halved to 200; they fought at Auldearn, Alford and finally Kilsyth. What remained of the regiment is unknown, but we do know that James returned to Ireland w
Read more

Colonel Manus O’ Cahan’s Regiment of Foot

-
Image
Here's the third of three Irish regiments of foot; Colonel Manus O’Cahan’s Regiment of Foot. Not much is known about O'Cahan (prononunced O'Kane) or his men. An experienced soldier, both he and his Regiment had been recruited from Owen Roe O'Neil's Northern Army of the Irish Confederation in the early months of 1644. Captain Mortimer’s company of dragoons grew out of the Regiment: musketeers started being provided with horses for scouting and raiding parties, eventually becoming classed as dragoons in March 1645. O'Cahan's was made up of seven companies which were formed along a sectarian divide: five companies of Protestants, and two made up of Catholics. This sectarian divide would provide grounds for confusion and inter-regimental fighting (and I don't mean not so friendly fisticuffs). Shipped to Scotland in the first half of 1644 they fought at  Kinlochaline Castle; Tippermuir, where they fielded 400 men; Aberdeen; Fyvie; raided Inverary; Inverlochy,
Read more

Chirk Castle

-
Image
The ECW Travelogue made a flask up, packed a face mask, and headed over the border into Welsh Wales. Wrexham to be precise. Chirk Castle is in the care of the National Trust and has limited open hours: check the website before travelling, particularly as opening and access is even more limited due to the current pandemic. I managed to sneak a visit in during the seven days that it was open late September, before it fell victim to local lockdown regulations. Built in the late thirteenth century, Chirk was part of Edward Longshanks chain of castles across North Wales. From a Civil War point of view we'll fast forward to 1593 when the Myddleton family bought the property. Sir Thomas Myddelton II was an MP having represented Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in the 1620s, before he represented Denbighshire in 1625, then again 1640-1648. Sir Thomas Myddleton II He was made Sergeant Major General of the Parliamentary forces in North Wales. In the summer of 1642 he returned to Wales to 'use
Read more

Colonel Alexander MacDonnell’s Regiment of Foot

-
Image
Alexander MacDonnell was the brother of Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquis of Antrim. The family was a branch (technically called a sept) of the Clan Donald, an historic clan with claims to the title Lord of the Isles. Randal would die without producing an heir and Alexander would go on to become the 3rd Earl of Antrim (Randal was 1st Marquis, 2nd Earl in case you are wondering why it seems as though I have poor numeracy skills). The good thing about taking pictures of 15mm figures and looking at them on a big screen is noticing mistakes - the errant pike (back row, left hand side as we view it) has now been repaired. Alexander had been travelling around Europe on his Grand Tour (think seventeenth century Inter-Railing) and returned to Ireland as the Irish Rebellion was beginning to gather pace. He sided with the Confederate rebels and was given command of a Regiment in 1642 by Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill. When the Regiment was sent to Scotland in 1644, as part of the Irish Brigade, Alexander
Read more

Coat Colours Part 2: Royalist Regiments of Foot

-
Image
Continuing my therapeutic blogging (write rather than rant) antidote to incorrect English Civil War coat colour tables for wargamers, I give you the Royalist Regiments of Foot Part 1  Parliamentarian coat colours Part 3  Scots coat colours Part 4  Dragoons, Horse and the New Model Army coat colours and information about the  Trained Bands Same rules apply here, as they did with the Parliamentarian coat colours: Regiments often got renamed when command passed to a new colonel - these regiments are listed under their first name e.g. Jacob Astley's Regiment was originally Richard Fielding's Regiment. Coat colour notes refer to contemporaneous references and some of the deductions made by Reid, Spring,  Peachey and Prince. You will also notice that some regiments have several coat colours listed. Where there is some question around a coat colour I have tried to give an explanation or provide notes. Don't forget the golden rule of ECW coat colours: there was no uniform
Read more

Captain Frances Dalyell alias Mrs Pierson

-
Image
Every so often a little snippet of information turns into a day of book diving and visiting some of the more esoteric corners of the world wide web.  Ballads such as  The Valiant Commander with his Resolute Lady  tell us of women wearing men's clothes and taking up arms; and, there are many myths and legends of women donning men's clothes to fight in the wars - but is this fact or fiction? The lot of camp followers and the women working as spies is relatively well documented (in C17th terms that is!) but did women cross dress and actually get to the sharp pointy end of things?  Professor Mark Stoyle of Southampton University investigated, and wrote a paper on the subject (I)n 1643, a draft proclamation was drawn up, setting out required standards of behaviour for Charles I’s army. It included a hand-written memo in the margin from the king himself stating ‘lett no woman presume to counterfeit her sex by wearing mans apparall under payne of the severest punishment’. These words
Read more

Painting Guide - Artillery

-
Image
 So I have pontificated about clothing colours (in general)... What Colours To Use? What Colours To Use Part 2: Paint ...regimental coat colours (or not)... Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 2: Royalist Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 3: The Scots Coat Colours Part 4: Others - NMA, Dragoons & Horse The Trained Bands ...and equipment... Painting Guide - Equipment Only time before I looked at artillery. So here it is. A re-enactors' cannon ready to be fired Artillery pieces were expensive to produce, heavy and difficult to move around. The idea of using artillery in battle (rather than in a siege) was still in it's infancy. Guns were placed before the battle and pretty much stayed there win, lose or draw. Gunners were highly skilled individuals, many having learned their art on the continent during the Thirty Years War, and were often described as mercenaries employed by whomsoever paid the most rather than whose cause their hearts s
Read more

Coat Colours Part 5: The Trained Bands

-
Image
As I was about to post about the Tower Hamlet's Regiment of the London Trained Bands, and about to go down my usual ranty rabbit hole about coat colours I thought it better to write a general post about Trained Bands. This got out of hand a little and became the coat colours series, without even touching upon the Trained Bands. When I first started my ECW project I took at face value lots of information from what I believed to be 'trusted' sources. Which is why my original Tower Hamlet's Regiment wore red coats and carried the 'wrong' flag. They were quickly given the correct flag, but the red coat issue was slowly nagging me. They have since been rechristened John Birch's, and the Tower Hamlets LTB has been raised anew. This post is a bit more than  Coat Colours Part 5 Part 1  Parliamentarian coat colours Part 2  Royalist coat colours Part 3  Scots coat colours Part 4  Dragoons, Horse and the New Model Army coat colours ... it also constitutes   Fl
Read more

Painting Guide - Equipment

-
Image
Having spent quite a bit of time, not to mention a few thousand words, prattling on about the colours (and paint codes) that I use to paint my toy soldiers, it is probably only right and proper that I discuss the hardware carried, and worn, by soldiers. This is an excuse to share lots of little bits of information that I have come across whilst researching my armies, and wider questions such as coat colours. Don't be surprised if there is a digression or three. For those of you new to the blog here are the other posts: What Colours To Use? What Colours To Use Part 2: Paint Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 2: Royalist Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 3: The Scots Coat Colours Part 4: Others - NMA, Dragoons & Horse The Trained Bands Caveat: these are my observations, with a smattering of references thrown in for good measure, they are in no way definitive. They could never be. The best we can ever aspire to, when modelling soldiers of th
Read more