James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose

Hello it's been a bit of space since my last post, but not so much because of productivity which I've actually been getting things done in spite of the heat and have several things to post, but rather the fact that with work, heat, family, painting and keeping up with what others have been doing has resulted in one thing having to be neglected and that has been the blog. I enjoy blogging so no worries this blog will stop as I will continue to march on for the foreseeable future as I still think it's the best medium in presenting what you are personally doing be it past, present and future plans without all the noise other mediums usually have.

James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose aka "The Great Montrose" is thought by many to be the best commander to come out of the ECW and a tactical genius for his daring surprise attack victories against  forces larger and better equipped then his own. While first supporting the Scots Covenanters for a short period he later switched sides to support King Charles I which eventually cost him his life.

He represented the Royalist cause in Scotland during the reign of King Charles I fielding an army of mostly Irish mercenaries and Scots Highland clansmen vs Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll leader of the Covenanters.While many like to debate if Montrose was a patriot or traitor most agree militarily he was a superb tactician with a string of famous victories in 1644 - 1645 at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearn, and finally culminating in the coup de grace at Kilsyth making him all but master of Scotland in effect crushing his rival Argyll. However, with King Charles defeat at Naseby Montrose had to try and save the king so had leave before he could consolidate his grip on Scotland, but lost his highlander support along the way leaving him with a force to small to resist the Leslie Covenanters blocking him thus leading to his defeat at Philiphaugh.

In 1649/50 Montrose once again tried to rally the Royalist cause in Scotland to avenge the death of Charles I and support a return of Charles II but failed to get enough highlanders to join back up resulting in a defeat at Carbisdale. He escaped capture only to turn himself into Neil MacLeod who he believed was friendly only to discover he was a political enemy and was soon after hanged in Edinburgh. Ironically just a short time later the Scots Covenanters supported Charles II attempt to regain his throne and were soundly defeated by Cromwell's New Model army thus depriving themselves of an excellent commander who may have been able to change the outcome or at least mitigate the defeat.

This is my Montrose command stand to lead my Scots Royalist forces and is on an 80mm round base. The figures are from Bicorne and the flag is from Flags of War. The figures are large 28mm and a pleasure to paint and the flag I believe represents the severed head of Charles I so would place this command vignette just after Montrose ill fated attempt to retake Scotland in 1649/50 although I will use this stand for the entire service of Montrose in Scotland, but included the flag as I felt it was such a striking symbol. I removed the blood droplets from the head as I wish to interest people in the composition and not turn any off to something some may find gruesome although my flag still has the drops on the actual flag. I'm quite pleased how the overall piece turned out.  I still need to make some more commanders for both sides so expect more to come. Eventually I will get a game of Baraque I tell you! Don't arch your eyebrows at me!:-)

Plenty of more material for the blog waiting in the wings already finished just waiting for me to do some write ups like AWI, ECW, Terrain and CoC battle reports so more on the way for those interested!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Bicorne Miniatures

Scots for Impetus Baroque and A Happy New Year!

These are from my on going Impetus Baroque ECW upgrade project I've been working on and talked about a couple posts ago here. This time they are Scots to compliment the English I already finished.

After the AHPC is finished I hope to get back onto this project again as I would really like to get a game in, but still short a few units. So other then a few small things for this I doubt I'll be back onto upgrading units until after March.

I would say 2017 was a moderately successful year with activity in the beginning and end but not much in between so I'm hoping 2018 will be more consistent in terms of painting and yes more gaming would also be nice.:-)

Goals for 2018:

-Complete enough F&IW figures for M&T and Sharp Practice
-Play some more Chain of Command both WWII and SCW
-Add to my SCW collection
-Finish the ECW upgrade project for Impetus Baroque
-Work on my Goths
-Start my Romano- British
-Get back onto my ACW project
-Add some more units to my AWI for some BP Rebellion scenario's
-Add more units to my Spanish Reconquista project for Impetus
- More terrain for North America and Spain

As always that list can easily change, but as of now that's what I'd like to see happen.

I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and may 2018 be a great year in the hobby!

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature company- TAG, Bicorne, Renegade

More ECW English for Baraque

The blues are here!

Just completed the upgrade renovations(skin, wood, straps,stocks, flags, basing etc.) on 4 new English regiments ready to go of my ECW project I acquired and talked about last post here. Also, added some more work to the uniforms here and there to round things out. This will bring my English up to 11 regiments of foot.  Again some rather quick pics, but I feel they turned out a bit better then the last sets.

Darker Blues

They are flying Rupert's royalist colors, but honestly I'll use them as needed depending on the game as other then the flags many units looked very similar from both sides up until the New model army arrived to give more distinction.

Lighter Blues

I'm really hoping to have the ECW renovations finished before the year is out as I'm pretty eager to try the game out. Some plastic Warlord got in the mix this time, but admit I really do prefer the metals of the others!

I have noticed several people coming back to the blogs which is nice!

I'll be moving on to the Scots foot blocks of units so get ready for some hodden gray and blue folks!:-My second post in a month I must be on a roll!:-)

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Bicorne, Renegade, TAG, Warlord 

Baraque ECW and Crisis

I'll be there for the first time and I hope to see many of you as well!

As any of my regular readers will know my blog has gone quite for awhile....well pretty much the whole summer in fact. I've been blogging for over 9 years now and while I've not been prolific I have been consistent with one or two posts a month on average, but for some reason I just ran out of gas. I expect things will return to normal. I haven't been completely idle and have been painting here and there, but just couldn't be bothered with taking pictures and writing things up I guess. I'll post some of the other painted projects I've done later.

Anyhow I thought I should share at least some of what I've been doing. While I still don't feel like setting up some studio pictures I thought I would show a progress report of a sort so the pictures were just quick ones without proper lighting, but still give one an idea of the project.

I'm advancing in years and have settled on the fact that I'm a slow painter and will just never be able to finish all the projects I want to do, so some compromises will need to be made if I want to see a particular period hit the table.  A few months ago a nicely painted ECW collection came up for sale at a very reasonable price and since I've been burning to play the new Impetus Baroque rules, but lacked the armies to do so I decided this was a opportunity not to be missed and purchased the collection. The collection consisted of both a complete English army and Scots army numbering some 600+ infantry 40 Cavalry, some artillery, commanders and a number of blisters of unpainted figures!

Lots of figures!

Upon receiving the package I was happy with what I purchased, but knew I would need to change a few things and put a little work into the figures to get them in the ballpark of what I wanted. Namely-

-Add extra highlights to the skin, hair, musket stocks, leather, sashes
-Repaint chipped paint and damages
-change the color of the pikes from a dark to light brown
-Repaint or in most cases replace flags with GMB ones
- Rebase everything for Impetus Baroque

No question this is proving very time consuming with the additions and changes, but nothing compared to if I had to start from scratch so I'm not in the least bit complaining! At one time I was thinking of going 10mm with ECW, but changed my mind and happy that I did. I will of course need to rebase my own personally painted ECW collection for Baroque which will add a further 100+ figures to this one.

The rule set I plan on using.

Anyhow here is some quick pics of the units I've completed with the transformation so far. Not the best pics I know, but enough to see what is happening.

The Reds

The Whites

The Greens( A mix of P&S and Shot)

I'm currently working on 4 bases of Blues which will see the English foot finished and then I'll move on to the Scots. I really enjoy putting everything on Impetus Baroque bases as I feel you can really give a sense of movement. Regiments tend to form up in somewhat imperfect lines which Baroque bases allow you to depict quite nicely.

So one can see I have been doing things, but haven't been reporting on it which I plan on fixing and going back to my regular posting schedules. 

As I mentioned at the header I'll be at Crisis this year which will be my first time so I'm looking forward to it even if my wallet isn't! I hope to meet a few of my fellow bloggers that I haven't met plus the ones I have! One of the things I like best in traveling to wargames conventions is talking to my friends about wargaming on the way and since this looks to be a long drive I'm sure we will get to cover many topics!

Miniature Company-Bicorne, Renegade, Warlord, TAG

The Strathbogie Regiment 1645

Marching under the banner of "For God The King Against All traitors" over and "God Save The King" under comes Lord Huntley's Strathbogie Scots Royalist regiment supporting Montrose fight for the king's cause in Scotland during the ECW.

The regiment was very well equipped if not the best equipped in Montrose's army and for the most part fought very well for him. Most wear a typical Hodden grey and blue caps, but as always I took some liberties and mixed up their look a bit to fit the overall theme of my Montrose army which which is to say it's more of an all rounder in that I intend to use the army as both a Scots Montrose army and a northern English army like those that fought at Marston Moor. With this in mind I kept the tartan to just a few figures to give the proper impression and the patterns basic to give the Scottish feel, but not so much so that I couldn't use them as English in a pinch in other games.

The figures are a mix of Bicorne and Renegade which I prefer for this period. The lovely flag is from Flags of War. Painting was done using AP and some highlights added. It seems Renegade has temporarily closed their Web Site which I hope does not become permanent as I really like their figures.

Thanks for viewing!:-)

What a commander really does most of the time

Ever seen a model and knew you had to have it? well this was one of those times. I just really like the look of it as one can see what a commander is often really doing and not always charging with sword drawn down the glory road(which I like too). It's probably my favourite ECW figure and comes from Redoubt.

I was very excited when it came in the mail......until I saw all the clean up on it which was nasty indeed! However. after that was finished I was quite pleased with how he turned out.

For now he will be the commander for my Irish Brigade, but I'm not sure if he will remain so as I have the actual figure for that. Good chance he will as I like miniature so much.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Redoubt Miniatures

More Montrose Irish

Here is my second regiment of Montrose Irish this time advancing and loading. The figures are once again the fantastic Bicorne ECW range. The flag is from Flags of War where the generous Ian sent me free enlarged ones to replace the smaller ones I had. The old ones were very nice, but the new ones are even better both in quality and size. Thanks again Ian if your reading!!

The principle behind this regiment is the same as the other one I did in that I took quite a few liberties in my impression of the hard fighting Irish Brigade and thus is not an attempt on a direct reflection of what they looked like, but I still hope it comes off looking if not exact then somewhat believable.

I'm looking to shift into the Scottish portion of the army soon with Renegade and Redoubt figures making up the lion share of those regiments, but I probably will come back and do a third Irish regiment at some point. I'm not sure if I want to paint tartans on my Scots as that's horribly time consuming!
Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Bicorne