Keep Your Powder Dry

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...

Next set of rules to come under the KeepYourPowderDry microscope are Twilight of Divine Right: From Defenestration to Restoration. They already have bonus points for shoehorning the much under used* word 'defenestration' into the subtitle. Published by the Pike and Shot Society you'd hope that they have a degree of authority and historical accuracy. Originally written as a set of rules covering the the Marlburian Period, Twilight of the Sun King was rewritten, then tweaked to give Twilight of Divine Right covering the 30YW and ECW.  Grandly self proclaimed as 'radical' the rules focus on morale rather than casualties as the key to deciding battles: do your men stand and fight, or do they flee? There are two main phases to play each turn. The first phase is movement, which involves all standard manoeuvre as well as charges into combat. Certain aspects of movement require an action test, a simple d6 roll; more complicated movement can require multiple tests. Movement...

Rules wax and wane in popularity, the release of a new set of rules usually makes the gaming community giddy with excitement and a rush of buying ensues. For King And Parliament is a fairly recent addition to the ECW rules library, and looks like it will be a popular ruleset for quite some time. Another set of 'pike and shot' rules that have grown out of a popular set of ancients/medieval rules - in this case To The Strongest ( henceforth TtS!). The difference between For King And Parliament (FK&P) and those rules that have taken the same path, is that FK&P is not a generic pike and shot rulebook, they are specifically for the ECW. Game mechanisms are quick to learn, and once you are familiar with the rules, gameplay is fast and furious. The rules are very well written, and have clearly had a lot of play testing. The rules are well explained, you don't need an old hand, an explanatory video or a thesaurus to understand them. The rule book is spiral bound, has full c...

Once again, I pen the words 'who'd have thunk it?' KeepYourPowderDry still exists and I still find stuff to write nonsense about. Oh dear, the Saturday boy shows himself up again at the work's bloggiversary 'do', and Derek from accounts looks a bit angry - think HR might need a word... At the risk of sounding like an awards ceremony acceptance speech... Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog via BuyMeACoffee , your support really does help the blog keep existing. Particular thanks, and honorary board memberships go to @BirdyTheolProf and @Clubmen1645. Regular reader numbers have swelled to almost ten (hello everybody), a number that mainstream social influencers can only dream of   scoff at. Page hits don't actually matter, as I wrote 5 years ago. This blog is a receptacle for lots of little bits of paper, hopefully laid out in a slightly more sensible and understandable order; it is primarily for me, if it helps anyone else, even better. But I can...

You've seen the armies of Montrose, the King, clubmen, and Solemn League... so just one army outstanding. That of Parliament. So here they are... the army consists of the following: Regiments of Foot  - 18 units, each 34 men strong Combined Shot  - 3 units, each 24 men strong Regiments of Horse  - 21 units, each 16 men strong (1 unit are cuirassiers) Regiments of Dragoons  - 3 units, each 21 men strong Siege Engineers  - 10 men Assault party  - 6 men, and 4 petard teams Train of Artillery: demi-culverins  - 2, each consisting of a crew of 4 men and a limber Train of Artillery: sakers  - 3, each consisting of a crew of 4 men and a limber Train of Artillery: minions  - 6, each consisting of a crew of 4 men and a limber Baggage Train  - 15 assorted pieces of baggage Command  - 19 individually based 'generals', Essex, Waller, Fairfax and Cromwell are based with an ensign. One chaplain. Any old excuse to post lots of pictures... In ...

Almost three years after the launch of their Kickstarter, I take a closer look at Steel Fist's ever expanding new range of 'true 15mm' ECW figures.  I must point out that it is inevitable that I will hold them up against Peter Pig's offerings for comparison (because my armies are almost exclusively PP). I'll be very honest; my armies are pretty much complete. I'm only really looking for a few extra figures here and there: characters, specialist figures, certainly not in the market for another 100 or so foot or horse. Steel Fist are unlikely to be able to retire on the profits made off my purchases - sorry . Update August 2023: I've just taken delivery of two packs of the new dismounted harquebusiers. They arrived securely packaged in a small box, wrapped in bubble wrap. I am pleased to report that all figures arrived intact (see my comments below). I regularly see advertised new 28mm figures, and look on somewhat jealously at the breadth of inter-range comp...