Charles Gerard's Regt of Foote

This will be my starting point, a nice strong regiment with nice strong colours! What more could a painter ask for?

ECW Colour Reference sheet

I've been toying with the Idea of starting my ECW at last and have created a few guides to help me choose my Regiments. Please feel free to print out this page and use it yourself to try out colours. You might even use It to Illustrate existing Regiments you already field. I know It will help me when It comes to getting a feel for a unit.

Parlimentarian Horse

The Orange sash of Parliament marks this man out as a Round head. I always thought that there wasn't a lot of difference between the Orange sash of Parliament and the Red sash of Royalist, In the smoke of battle things must have got pretty confusing I'm sure.
I think It's funny when It comes to ECW what side people choose when they start to collect and paint. I think It says something about you to which side you throw your lot in with. I chose to collect a Royalist army with out a second thought, even though I'm not much of a Royalist in this day and age. Royalist Cavalry.

I think it just appealed to my loyal mentality. I'm sure the members of the Sealed Knot must go through the same dilemma when looking for a Regiment to join.
Mind you, my town was a Royalist garrison for a while so that might have swayed matters back then of course.

Royalist Horseman

I have been spending a lot of time in Turnham Green recently and stumbled upon a plaque for a Battle site, The Battle of Turnham Green funny enough. It was obviously Civil War but my bus came before I had time to read it. I will take my time on my return but My interest had been sparked as It is rare to find Battle fields in London so I researched it once at home again.

The engagement came about after the Battle of Edge Hill. The Royalists had won the field and Prince Rupert proposed a rush on London to seize the Parliamentarian capital to end the war quickly. However, Charles I did not want to provoke the delicate situation in England and delayed for a few days. This gave the Parliamentarians time to amass a large force in London for its defence. By the time the Royalists did march on the capital they found an army waiting for them at Turnham Green. The Royalists withdrew and the war dragged on.

Go to Saxon Dogs Blog for some great ECW inspiration...I do all the time

The Loneliness of a Deep Space Blitz Terror Trooper

Roman parade Armour

I couldn't visit the British Museum without coming away with a few pictures of the Crocodile skin armour. I remember when I first saw this suit, It really blew me away. This suit is from the Third Century and is believed to be a set of parade armour for special occasions.

Centurion Secundus of the XVII Legion

Centurion Secundus after hacking his way out of the Teutoburg Forest.

Optio of the 3RD Parthica

"Join the army, see the world they said...all I get to see is sand and arrows!"

Iron Willus

The might of Imperial Rome!

Pictures of the Week

This picture of my old friend as the Celtic Warlord, Kirkaticus, just doesn't get old for me. It always brings a smile to my face.
Secundian General Flaccus holds the line with the 12th Legion.
Two Centurions meet at the battle of Narona.

Hadrian's Wall Live!

Being a huge fan of Hadrian's wall I was delighted to find a brilliant Blog by fellow gamer and model maker Paul Darnell. It's called Hadrian's Wall Live, check it out. http://hadrianswalllive.blogspot.com I loved the place when I visited a few years ago and there's nothing like feeling the cold wind on your face when looking over the wall into Pict land. It was really easy to imagine what it must have been like for the Roman soldiers garrisoned there.
So I'm pleased to see I can keep tabs on the wall from the warmth of my house, although a trip to the site is highly recommended!

Sweeping the deck

It's a new year, time to finish all those old figures that have been clogging up the work top for months. I just have a few bases to flock and those Celtic cavalry to finish then I'm done.

Come'th the hour...come'th the MG P117 (The PIG).

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody, here's to the next one, cheers.

The Celtic Cavalry challenge

After messing around with fiddely uniforms and referencing colours for days, It's nice to be able to sit back and make a load of stuff up. I'm going to try and paint and dip a whole load of Celts in my time off over christmas. Using the Army Painter method I'm sure it can be done. Those Romans had better watch their flanks that's all I can say.

New Toys

I treated myself to a new camera for Christmas after seeing it as deal of the week on Amazon. It's basically a newer version of the one I had already which was starting to die slightly, so when I saw it I jumped at the it. I always go to Amazon first now when looking for anything like this, I find their prices unbeatable.

Some shots of French Generals again as I try out the new Camera, well they look so much more colourful than the drab WWII lot who could blame me. It was all about being seen In those days...how things would change with the improvement of weaponry..

Re-enforcements

Good old Military History channel! As my eyes are down painting most of the time I tend to listen more than watch, however the stuff I miss I tend to catch as they repeat the programs on a three hour cycle. If you're really lucky...you might even catch a Roman day!

Quick March!

Here are some extra Tommies painted in record time using good old dry brushing and Ink washes. It's now that the little black book with all It's colour notes really comes into It's own. Once you know the colours used before for the rest of the Platoon, you can dry brush your way through hordes of re-enforcements. Although I took my time on the others, it is impossible to tell them apart from the new guys. Lesson learnt!

After reading lots of figure painting books about shading and layering techniques It can be quite hard to relax and speed up, I think Army Painter has shown me the light in many ways and brought a lot of joy back to painting. I'm planning on speed painting a load of Celtic Cavalry over the Xmas break with the dip method, I find it really rewarding and fun.
These images are taken with my new camera, which has a great manual focus and more mega pixels...joy!
Mind you there is no rushing insignia and uniform details.

Corgi tank size comparison

After using the die cast Corgi tanks for the ROE game I was interested to know exactly what the size gap is between 1.60 (corgi) and 28mm (1.56), well here is the deference. Not that bad and to be honest the figures work well with the larger scale. At any rate the Corgi's do make excellent battlefield scenery and debris. I gave the Corgi Churchill tank a wash of black Ink to bring out the detail. If I decide to use it as a gaming piece I will work into it more.

Merry Christmas!

You can take the man out of Germany, but you can't take Germany out of the man...Centurion Servius loves the snow, It reminds him of home.

Merry Christmas everyone from Iron Mitten.

Private Atkins