Keep Your Powder Dry

In a moment of madness I wondered if it would be possible to recreate Streeter's famous plan of Naseby using my 15mm figures. Streeter's Plan of Naseby Bit of a problem, haven't got a copy of Streeter's Plan; I do however have an original copy of Sturt's Plan. (If you don't know what I'm talking about see here for an explanation.) My original Sturt Some 'egging on' meant it was happening... Some caveats: topography wasn't going to be in the recreation, nor were the correct regiments in the correct places (shoddy, I know) for example Waller's dragoons stood in for Okey's at Sulby Hedges (there is a little bit of real Sulby Hedges grit on their basing though - does that count?). Figuresare ture 15mm, buildings form Hovels, Total Battle Miniatures, Naseby windmill is my own conversion of an Ironclad Miniatures Russian windmill. hedges are from S&A Scenics, and roads from Fat Frank. Naseby village t...

Regular readers (hello both of you) will remember my original TBM post a few weeks ago. Impressed with my sample building (and how it blended well with my Hovels offerings), I took the plunge and ordered a couple more. Again from the 15mm Big Battalions range (correctly scaled height, reduced footprint) I went for 'three story buildings' (15BPBB07U) and 'warehouse' (15BPBB17U). My parcel arrived quickly and was packaged securely. The buildings were very clean and needed no cleaning up. I gave them a very good scrub to remove mould release agent. With some of my dragoons for size reference The three storey buildings is very neat, thankfully this isn't the Architectural Journal magazine so I can't nitpick about rendered stone in the seventeenth century (stone was an expensive building material so generally wasn't rendered, it was shown off). The warehouse, again, a neat and simple design. If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the...

Regular readers (hello both of you) will know that I am always on the look out for resin buildings that will work with the Hovels buildings I had a look at Total Battle Miniatures' (henceforth TBM) ranges. Why resin? My own house is almost 200 years old, nothing is straight, nothing is true. Whilst laser cut mdf buildings can look good, they are a bit too crisp, neat and square for the seventeenth century. Hence resin. Sagging roof lines, wonky windows are all better represented in resin. I already own a few of their Big Battalions Napoleonic buildings (Essling Granary etc), so I hoped they would work size wise. TBM make two ranges - Skirmish which are accurately scaled, and Big Battalions which are the correct height but have a reduced footprint. My test piece is from the Big Battalions 15mm Black Powder Europe section: 15BPBB12U 'Row of Houses' A clean, crisp hollow resin model which required no cleaning up. I thought I'd washed all the mould release a...