Keep Your Powder Dry

On one of the rare occasions that I visit Facebook I was perusing the Victory Without Quarter page, and saw some beautiful 28mm storming party figures. In amongst the pictures were three figures carrying a ladder. Obviously a storming party needs ladders, but I don't have any! An idea germinated... Could I make a ladder party? Where any figures suitable to chopped and changed into what I wanted. I've got some ladders tucked into a corner of my Château Hougomont model, might have some spares somewhere. A rummage through my spares box found some standard bearers from PP pack 17 'foot command advancing' and a lowland pikeman from pack 82 'Scots pike 45' open hand'. Both have potential.  The 'raw materials' Couldn't find any ladders, they were from Magister Militum, who have now shut up shop. So no more available from that source, PP make a pack, but I didn't really want to spend the best part of £10 on just a pack of ladders (the £4.50 post and ...

  Bit of an eye candy post today; where I finally get around to painting the Royalist harquebusiers on foot (they've only been sat in the 'to do' pile for nine months or so). For those of you new to KeepYourPowderDry, or the Civil Wars in general, you might be wondering why anyone would want dismounted cavalry. In a nutshell regiments of horse joined in the besieging of houses, but as horses weren't particularly useful when attacking a house, their riders dismounted to fight. They were often in the first wave of assault troops as their buff coats and armour afforded them considerable protection (in comparison to infantry). Plus it also gave them a share of any spoils if the assault was successful. For more information about the role of harquebusiers in sieges, and a look at my existing assault parties see  here . These are Steel Fist figures from pack ECWF 09, but as I have zero faith in Steel Fist swords (they are much too slender to be practical) I have replaced th...

Bit of an eye candy post today; where I take a look at Steel Fist's new harquebusiers on foot pack . For those of you new to KeepYourPowderDry, or the Civil Wars in general, you might be wondering why anyone would want dismounted cavalry. In a nutshell regiments of horse joined in the besieging of houses, but as horses weren't particularly useful when attacking a house, their riders dismounted to fight. They were often in the first wave of assault troops as their buff coats and armour afforded them considerable protection (in comparison to infantry). Plus it also gave them a share of any spoils if the assault was successful. For more information about the role of harquebusiers in sieges, and a look at my existing assault parties see here . So what comes in pack ECWF 09 and are they any good? For your money you get 12 dismounted cavalry figures,, 4 with swords raised, 4 with pistols, and 4 with carbines. Beautifully sculpted, as always. In the past my small orders from Steel Fi...

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...

Regular readers (hello all seven of you), will hopefully have seen my previous post about siege engineers  and will be familiar with the artefacts in museums across the country, and my attempt at creating some figures. As PP still do not make a pack of siege engineers, and not being 100% happy with my previous attempts, I decided to have another go. First off an easy conversion, to remind me how to use greenstuff.  Top tips:  Patience.  When mixing greenstuff twist rather than knead the two parts together. Let it go 'off' slightly before trying to work with it. Build stuff up in layers. A little and often is better than a lot all in one go. More patience.  Trim out and discard the little bit in the middle of the strip where the two colours have been in contact with one another. If you are remotely happy with what you have done, stop! Don't do anymore. You can add to it once it is dry.  Keep wetting your tools (but not too much).  If you have never used...

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...

As a Saturday treat, here's an extra post. I have got an unadulterated assault party, somewhere. These are 'extras'. Today for your delectation I present some dismounted harquebusiers, and a couple of petards. These were the result of a good rummage* in my spares box. The figures are a grenade thrower and petard party, which are straight from the assault party pack; the harquebusiers are an officer with a hat and pistol from The Mill minigame  #2 'the petard party', and the harquebusier with a sword is an officer from the foot command advancing pack. The single figures have had headswaps. Foot command advancing officer on the left, The Mill gamette officer on the right So why have I have been making harquebusiers on foot I hear both of my regular readers ask? Parliament's assault party The Royalist assault party - the officer with pistol holds his pistol arm at a slightly different angle, it got bent when I was taking his original head...

Update: added pictures of a 'siege hat' from the West Berkshire Museum in Newbury. Yet another task avoidance project has reared it's head. At this rate those Royalist horse will never get painted. Keen eyed visitors to the  National Civil War Centre  (NCWC) and the  Royal Armouries  will have spotted the exhibited siege engineer armour, with elongated lobster pot helmets with shoulder supports (helmet apparently so heavy that there are brackets which transfer the weight directly to the wearer's shoulders). Well, once you've seen them you are going to need some in your army aren't you? Also note the solid plate tassets, and the solid lobster pot tail. Apologies - the siege armour on display at Newark, beautifully presented but awful to try and capture with a camera due to the light streaming in Siege armour at Royal Armouries, Leeds. Again nicely displayed but suffering from sun light reflection. Close ups of an engineer'...