Keep Your Powder Dry

The latest tome from Helion focuses on an issue that is right up there in the list of favourite topics at Château KeepYourPowderDry. Occasionally Helion send me books to review, for clarity I bought my copy. I might not be the intended audience for this book, as I know a little bit about the subject, and my bookshelves groan with the weight of Civil War books. But I bought it none the less. Laurence Spring is one of those Civil War historians/researchers whose books will always make me sit up and take notice.  This volume, unsurprisingly, takes a long hard look at clothing issues to soldiers both in Britain and also on the continent. I'm going to be honest, I've not read the 30YW chapters (plus I feel unqualified to comment upon their accuracy), but I have read the 'British' chapters four times. Yes, four. I'm that sad. On the subject of my copy being well thumbed, the cover is, somewhat disappointingly, already delaminating. Not good. This book is chock-full of acc...

If you are 'new' to the Civil Wars there are a number of technical helmet names bandied around by authors and gamers. At the risk of turning into the Ian Allan* armour spotters guide, here is a guide to the different types of helmet commonly used by soldiers during the Civil Wars. Pikeman's pot , is a bit of a catch all as there are several types of helmet used by pikemen. The cabascet/cabasset . An older style of helmet, still made in the seventeenth century. Easily spotted by the 'aerodynamic' go faster spoiler at the top of the helmet. On display at the Nantwich Museum, from the Grosvenor Museum Collection The morion . Another older style of helmet, anyone who watched episodes of The Flashing Blade during the school summer holidays in the 1970s will be familiar with this style of helmet - those dastardly Spanish wore them. A really rubbish picture of an early morion, Combined Military Services Museum A much better picture of a morion, Royal Armouries Leeds Morion...

Hold your horses partner, as the denizens of the former colonies might say. Sashes? If you mean the fancy silk thing worn by officers in C17th portraiture then you are in the right place, but they weren't called sashes. Thems were called scarves. Now we've got correct nomenclature out of the way we can move on. Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes 1641, by Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt You will often see portraits of Charles, his sons, and his nephews wearing blue  sashes  scarves. Only these aren't sashes, or even scarves. These are ribands, signifying that they are members of The Order of the Garter. The Order underwent a bit of a renaissance during Charles' reign, and also his eldest son's, no doubt as a means for raising revenue. Charles wearing the Order of the Garter riband, Sir Edward Walker wearing a rose scarf and a riband signifying that he is Garter King of Arms  But first let's start with who wore scarves and how they wore them.   One only has to look at portr...

I suppose this post was inevitable; I started wondering what colour palette I would need to use to paint my forthcoming Montrose army. I've already investigated coat colours , general dye colours and how that roughly translates to paint codes , but I needed a rough idea of tartan colours, shirts and in particular those colours favoured by the Irish. Just as there is a wargamer fact™  that 'the London Trained Bands all wore red coats' so there are also quite a number of well established wargamer facts™  concerning the clothing of the Irish and Highlanders. But how factual are these facts? Highlanders Wargamer Fact™: the Highlanders wore yellow shirts .  Highlanders did wear shirts, and some, at least were dyed yellow. Highlander's shirts were made from coarse linen, they certainly didn't lace up at the front (in an Adam and The Ants style). James Gordon's History of Scots Affairs 1637-1641 (written 1841) has this description “As for their apparel; next the skin,...

Having spent quite a bit of time, not to mention a few thousand words, prattling on about the colours (and paint codes) that I use to paint my toy soldiers, it is probably only right and proper that I discuss the hardware carried, and worn, by soldiers. This is an excuse to share lots of little bits of information that I have come across whilst researching my armies, and wider questions such as coat colours. Don't be surprised if there is a digression or three. For those of you new to the blog here are the other posts: What Colours To Use? What Colours To Use Part 2: Paint Coat Colours Part 1: Parliamentarian Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 2: Royalist Regiments of Foot Coat Colours Part 3: The Scots Coat Colours Part 4: Others - NMA, Dragoons & Horse The Trained Bands Caveat: these are my observations, with a smattering of references thrown in for good measure, they are in no way definitive. They could never be. The best we can ever aspire to, when modelling soldiers of th...