Keep Your Powder Dry

The first of the bonus regiments of foot. Regular readers (hello all eight of you) will have spotted some halberdiers and command figures feature in the Which Figures Part 2 post and wondered what became of them... I shall start with what we know about Tillier's, hopefully dispelling a few wargamer facts™ in the process. Raised in Ireland from Dublin garrison detachments of Ormond’s army in 1643, they returned to England in February 1644. Don't be confused about the 'raised in Dublin' bit, these men were in the main English or Welsh. They would skirmish at Market Drayton; fight at Newark; possibly take Longford House and Tong Castle; march north with Rupert and storm Stockport, Bolton, take Liverpool, before fighting at Marston Moor where by all accounts they took very heavy losses. The Regiment was practically raised anew and would go on to the siege of Montgomery Castle, and battle of Montgomery. They stormed Leicester; fought at Naseby, again taking heavy losses. Re

Regular readers (hello all eight of you), will have seen me complain that I had underrepresented the Solemn League artillery train, so I added a paltry minion and limber to beef up their artillery train. A handful of frame guns and a minion doesn't really cut it, does it? So I have added a brace of  sakers. Sakers and crews from PP; limbers from Museum Miniatures, with a PP horseholder who has had a headswap. Custom casualty markers from Warbases This time I went for Cd'A wood for the gun carriages, with my now trusty mix of Foundry blackened barrel shades for the metalwork (light for the wheel tyres and dark for everything else). If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider  supporting  the blog.  Thanks .

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

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

For more Yorkshire 'related stuff' you can find North Yorkshire here ,  South Yorkshire here ,   East Riding here . See also the Rupert Travelogue  entry for Yorkshire, and the entry for Adwalton Moor Oakwell Hall    was the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë's Fieldhead in "Shirley". More recently it has been used a number of times as a film set, including "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". Located close to the M62 and the Leeds branch of purgatory on Earth (aka Ikea), this Tudor manor house is beautifully maintained by Kirklees Borough Council. The hall is presented as a seventeenth century home. I really like this approach, as so often historic houses have different rooms decorated for different eras, so it is really nice to see a house presented from one era in it's entirety. Oakwell was in the ownership of the Batt family, who supported the King; John Batt was a captain and most probably fought at Adwalton Moor. The retreating Parli