Donald Farquharson of Monaltrie’s Highland Regiment of Foot

Technically the third of two promised new Scottish units. If sci-fi writers can have four part trilogies, I can have three of two.

If you think that is slightly confusing, the rest of this post continues in the same vein...

Donald Oig Farquharson of Monaltrie was called ‘the pride of Braemar'; he spent six months at court and clearly made an impression, as Charles would always call him "my man". Whilst visiting Edinburgh King Charles was informed of Donald being threatened in a fray by some Covenanters, the King angrily exclaimed, “Who dares be so bold as to touch my man, Donald Farquharson?” 

This is how they originally appeared on KeepYourPowderDry in December 2020.

Donald would be slain by a pistol-shot in street fighting in Aberdeen on 16th March 1645. His death was much lamented by the Marquis of Montrose, who had his body buried with military honours in Drum's Aisle of St. Nicholas Church, Aberdeen. A Victorian plaque marks the supposed spot.

Raised  in 1639 they fought at Megray Hill in the First Bishops War where they were soundly beaten by the Covenanters. They were raised again in 1644 and they fought at Fyvie, Inverary, Auldearn, Alford, Kilsyth, and the Storming of Aberdeen. They were raised from the Highlands and were initially equipped with bows and firelocks. 

Although they may well have added pikes by Megray Hill as they are described as 'a standing regiment'. And it is this description that troubled me for a while (5 and a bit years to be precise) - that they were equipped and formed as a regular regiment of foot as part of Montrose’s army. 

It is believed that Donald's brother James Farquharson of Whitehouse had taken command of the regiment early in 1645 prior to Auldearn.

>>>>>>>>>>>

The 'standing regiment' description finally reignited when I saw another blogger's 15mm Scots for Victory Without Quarter.

Highland pikemen are very thin on the ground from figure ranges. Peter Pig don't make any. Freikorps do, but as I'm not a great fan* of anything Freikorps/QRF coupled with ordering difficulties posed by Little Corporal who hold the licence for the range, means they won't be ordered. Lurkio do make some but they have targs and are now out of production (again). 

So I decided to fabricate some from the PP Lochaber axe pack.

donor figures and their conversions

Two of the poses are more suitable for conversion than the other. My initial thought was the more upright figure in trews would be the best. The other suitable figure, running in kilt, well it's a bit of a rubbish pose. But once I had drilled the hands out of a test figure, chopped the lump from under his left foot, gently eased the figure back and glued the foot down to the base, I had a more of an advancing pose. Much better.

For those of you tempted to emulate my madness: I cut off the top and bottom sections of the Lochaber axe, leaving the section between the hands in place. I then drilled (1.5mm bit) from the bottom hand upwards - the centre section of axe giving a good visual line for drilling. Four of the twelve I managed to drill perfectly through both hands, the other eight I was slightly out and had to cut a groove in the top hand for the new pike to rest in. Both 'styles' look good and more importantly do the job. The remaining metal from the centre section of axe was then cut away and the torso cleaned up. A surprisingly simple task. 

Note to self: when converting or doing head swaps, do in batches of four figures then walk away - the time I didn't, I mangled the fifth figure beyond repair.

Command consists of a swordsman from the highlander with swords pack; bagpiper and ensign from the highland command pack (the ensign starting life as the two handed sword above the head chap); and one of the wounded highlanders from the casualty pack (seeing as I have loads of them in my spares box). 

Instead of my usual halberdiers I used two of the third Lochaber axe pose. Of course I started getting cocky with my hand drilling skillz. Not content with having Lochaber axe men as my halberdiers, I had to drill the hands out of one of them in order to fit a Donnington Miniatures halberd (from pack EQ16 Halberd 1 (common)). Why? Just, because I could. He too, had the strange wedge of ground under the left leg removed, gently eased back to become slightly more upright.

Flag is pure conjecture, but utilises the strongly followed convention of the time (by the Scots at least) of the colonel's colour having a white field with something from the colonel's coat of arms in the middle. Produced for me, as always, by Stuart at Maverick Models.

Custom casualty markers from Warbases - this style has been discontinued, but Warbases make the occasional one for me as they have my designs on file.

Regular readers (hello both of you) will not be at all surprised to hear that I still hate painting historically incorrect checked cloth patterns, and the piper is still my least favourite figure to paint.

* which is a classic example of British understatement

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