Cropredy 375

-
Rather than cluttering up my ECW Travelogue guide to Cropredy Bridge, I decided to post a second entry which is purely devoted to my snaps from the Sealed Knot's Cropredy 375 event.

The Living History camp...




 
The battle...
 











 













 












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

So You Want To Know About Scots Armies?

-
Image
As the Scots fought on both sides, and regularly changed allegiance it makes sense to just write one Scottish reading list. Regular readers (hello all 12 of you) may have noticed a bit of a shift to matters north of the wall. You'd be correct, and can expect quite a bit of Scottish content over the next few months. The 'regularly changed allegiance' bit of that sentence seems rather flippant, but in reality the Scots were looking after number 1. They wanted to protect the rights of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and would support whomsoever they thought would guarantee those rights. We mustn't overlook those Scottish lords who appear to have harnessed the chaos of the wars to settle old scores, consolidate and extend their lands, and generally feather their own nests. Our starting point has to be Professor Furgol's "A Regimental History of the Covenanting Armies 1639-1651" (John Donald Publishers) .  Long out of print, copies do surface from time to t...
Read more

So You Want to Know About Royalist Armies?

-
Image
Finally! I hear some of you say. A Royalist Army reading list. Well, there's a problem. The Royalist Armies are nowhere near as well documented as the various Parliamentarian Armies.  Why is this the case? There are, potentially, several reasons. Parliament, at every level, consisted of committees who needed minutes, account books and audit trails. Parliament 'won' the Wars, so these records were transferred to what would eventually become The National Archives as State Papers. The records of the various Royalist Armies don't generally exist in The National Archives. Records tend to exist in the archives of the families of Royalist supporters, and are usually specific to the units that the family raised and equipped.  There may well be 'unknown' military records waiting to be discovered, but these records are not centrally held, and in many cases access is difficult or completely off limits.  Any researcher wanting to collate an "Old Robin's Foot" ...
Read more

Assault Parties (yet again)

-
Image
Apologies, just a wee snippet of a post this week I'm afraid (there has been some significant bonus midweek ECWtravelogue content recently). Today's post is the result of a combination of storage reorganisation, and some rebasing*. This led to a little alteration to my assault parties. In case you are wondering how assault parties operated see here  and here . My assault parties consisted of five figures, all individually based; their storage box had plenty of room to house them. I decided that they would look much better on a movement base, but this would involve finding another couple of figures. A quick rummage in my spares box yielded up some officer figures who required a headswap. A movement tray from Warbases finished the whole thing off. * My usual basing 'recipe' consists of a base coat of Citadel Stirland Mud with a wash of Miniature Paints chestnut ink.  As I was getting through bucketfuls of Stirland Mud (and it is quite pricey) I decided to replicate the ef...
Read more

(Even More) Baggage Train

-
Image
Regular readers (hello all seven of you, maybe even eight now) will have seen my claims that my baggage train was finished and that there would be no more expansions. In fact you will have seen me claim this a number of times. Cutting a very long and tedious story short, space appeared in my baggage train boxes. Oh noes, I hear you cry, what is to be done. Fortunately the now vacant space was just the right size for a small cart... Not wishing to upset the karmic apple cart by having empty space I ordered two barrel carts from Museum Miniatures. As always, the drover that came with the pack was discarded and replaced by a PP horseholder.  In the interests of prettification the Royalist incarnation has a Naismith marching musketeer on its base; Parliament's has a Steel Fist flautist (from command pack 3). The complete Parliamentarian baggage train... ...maybe I have overdone it. A little. (The Royalists have a similar sized train too.) If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the othe...
Read more

Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot

-
Image
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 Trained Bands and their Auxiliaries wore red coats' (there is no evidence supporting this at all, the evidence, whilst not explicit suggests that the London Trained Bands wore civilian clothes - some of the Auxiliaries might have been issued with blue winter coats) I decided to write my own list.  So here it is. If your allegiance lies elsewhere you might want to look at  Introduction   Part 2  Royalist coat colours Part 3  Scots coat colours Part 3B ...
Read more

Assault Parties (again)

-
Image
Way back in the midst of time I posted some converted figures which would be used as assault parties - some harquebusiers on foot (converted from foot officers) and some figures from the storming party pack from PP. At the time of writing I mentioned that I had some unaltered figures from the storming party somewhere. Well they are back, and they are no longer unadulterated. The storming party pack contains 3 petard teams and two grenado throwers. The unadulterated figures from the pack But what is a petard, and what is a grenado? A petard was a small explosive device attached to doors and gateways which hopefully blew the door/gate up thereby allowing the attackers to breach defences. Fun fact: petard comes from the old French word for fart.  Usually carried on a stretcher type device these bombs were propped up against doors, wedged into position and lit. The brave souls who had carried the petard (technically called petardiers) then have to run away very quickly. (There is a pet...
Read more

William Gordon of Minimore’s Strathavan Highlanders

-
Image
The best thing about painting highlanders is that when you have finished, you know that you don't have to paint them again. Technically that is true for any figures that you paint, but to be honest I don't actually mind painting harquebusiers. I positively enjoy painting London Trained Band regiments. But not highlanders. I really dislike painting highlanders. I mean I REALLY dislike painting highlanders. It's not like it is just an aversion to painting 'tartan'. They are just all round bloomimg horrible to paint. With their little knees on show; the tricksy billowing folds of their plaid; their 'apostles' hidden amongst it all; not to mention their strange fixation with offal based 'food' products. But I digress. Colonel William Gordon’s Regiment was raised in Strathavan, a small glen some thirty miles south of Elgin. This branch of the Gordons came from the town of Minimore, near what is now  Glenlivet. The Regiment was commanded by Colonel William...
Read more

Warwick Castle

-
Image
I'm of an age where it is de rigeur to be curmudgeonly about anything and everything, lamenting about how much better it was in the 1970s (it really wasn't, trust me). So you will no doubt be expecting me to rant and rail about the theme park presentation of Warwick Castle. Sorry to disappoint. I really like how the castle is presented, with only a few gripes, most notably the hidden speakers blasting out the sounds of merry olde England™ everywhere.  Warwick Castle is old, and I mean proper old. Having its roots in a AngloSaxon burh built upon Æthelflæd's instruction in the early C10th. William the Conqueror would build a motte and bailey castle upon the site in the C11th, the stone castle starting to appear from the C12th. So why does the ECW travelogue take a visit to the theme park castle? It certainly wasn't to sample the delights of Zog's kingdom adventures or the Horrible Histories maze. Caesar's Tower Fulke Greville was granted the ramshackle ruins in 1...
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. For all of my coat colour articles see: Introduction   Part 1  Parliamentarian coat colours Part 3  Scots coat colours Part 3B  Montrose and the Irish Brigade Part 4  Dragoons, Horse and the New Model Army coat colours The Trained Bands London Trained Bands Auxiliary regiments Scarves   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 aro...
Read more

Houses of Interest: Derbyshire

-
Image
Derbyshire wasn’t the county of major battles, it was mostly the source for soldiers for conflict in neighbouring counties. There were however countless skirmishes and short lived sieges, the majority of which are poorly documented. The other thing that Derbyshire had was lead mines, vitally important for supplying the lead for musket shot. Bolsover Castle : mmmm, I hear you say. Besieged? Nope. Battle of? Nope. Home of William Cavendish the Marquis of Newcastle, and commander of the King's northern army? You'd be correct. Like several grand houses in Derbyshire, Bolsover had a Royalist garrison, which was a bit of a thorn in the Parliamentarian side. Troops from the garrison venturing out to disrupt Parliamentarian activities, and gather supplies. On one occasion an "agent" was sent to Derby to sow discord and incite rioting. Home to the Cavendish family, William entertained King Charles and his Queen, Henrietta.  William was an accomplished horseman, and was t...
Read more