The Lobster's lament

ECW Skirmish Bases

"WHAT CAN YOU SEE TED?"

The real advantage of this 1,2,3 basing (apart from the units looking great), Is that they can now fit into all sorts of terrain pieces. Here is a sneak peek at a church I am basing up, with a broken tower that was crying out for a sniper. Now at least I can fill it to the gunnels with able bodied musketeers, something I couldn't do with my four to a base system before.

 " You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off!"

 Fits like a glove.

"Your names not on the list...You're not coming in!"

This officer figure is a really good one to have as a single figure. He looks great in amongst the men, either stopping them from running or pushing them forward.

Pike Man's lament Basing

 I made the plunge and rebased my ECW regiment onto the skirmish Bases worked out by Michael Leck. These are great and they give a much nicer realic feel to the units. I had planned to base my pike on 35mm bases to make them a tighter formation but they just didn't fit, so the larger bases are 40mm.

So it goes single model =25mm, two models =30mm, three models =40mm.

 12 men in each unit.

I tried to include at least one officer in every unit. I will also be adding a 'free' standard to every unit as I think it looks very period having lots of banners fluttering. These will have no effect on the game though, just look nice.

Praise King Jesus, The True and Only King!

Hay You! Get off my Land!

 My first bit of painting for months and so I thought I would ease back into It slowly. I picked up these hay stacks from War Bases at Colours 2016. At £8 I paused for a while, thinking I could make my own from Daz, but in the end I gave in.
A simple terrain feature and dead easy to paint. I sprayed them dessert yellow then washed with Army Painter strong shade. A few high lights here and there and job done.

 I started to think about getting some forces ready for Pikeman's lament out next January and these stacks are great for ECW. I don't suppose they are much good at catching lead, so will probably be classed as soft cover...CAREFUL JON...I SUGGEST KNEEING. No it's no good he can't hear me from here.

I enjoyed painting these and they got me back into the saddle...time to tidy the painting area and get organised.

Basing ECW for Skirmish rules (Pikeman's Lament)

 I've been giving this subject a lot of thought recently and the fantastic Blog 'Dalauppror' has given me some great ideas.
 Michael Leck has come up with a really good way to represent skirmish troops in a way that looks really good and is very practical. This simple method of using different size bases to subtract causalities is a really good idea. It also will allow some great formations and come in handy when troops have to occupy buildings or small spaces. I like it a lot. The real draw for me is that cavalry based in this way look really good and a lot more realistic. The odd guy out of formation looks a lot more true to life.
It has given me a fresh boost to paint up some more ECW, which has to be a good thing.

The only thing I'm going to tweak to Michael's idea is to make the '3' fig base 35mm for the Pike block, so they are more packed together.

The Musketeer's will have the usual 40mm, so they have a little more room to load etc. I just like the dense formations of the Pike block to look close and crushed together.

Above are the bases laid out for a Pike block, using a big base of 35mm rather than 40mm. All bases are from WarBases.

Forward My Children!