Work In Progress: Pendraken Musketeers

I've started painting the first of two units of 24 Royalist English Civil War Musketeers for my planned games of “Pike & Shotte” by “Warlord Games”. These models are based upon the usual 20mm x 30mm green plastic stands I use for all my 10mm infantry. I plan for these ‘two wings of shot’ to be made up of a mix of 10mm models from "Pendraken Miniatures" codes EC3 Musketeers, Cap and EC14 Musketeers, Hat. In addition I'll be using the lovely models from their code EC5 Foot Command to represent the Foot Battle line’s officers, drummers and standard-bearers. I don't though plan to have them actually carry any flags. 

As with the company’s Pikemen, all the models are going to be predominantly painted using “Vallejo” Heavy Red and Heavy Ochre; the colours of the King's Lifeguard. So once complete these ‘Lincolnshire men’ will form the first regiment of the Royalist Battalia of Foot.

I'm certainly happy painting up the Musketeers 'at rest' loading or simply holding their Matchlock Muskets  upright, and have already managed to get a fairly reasonable factory production line painting process going for them. Indeed, with their different head wear breaking up the monotony I believe they're one of my favourite 10mm models to paint. 

Unfortunately I can't say the same for those leant forwards firing their muskets. I spent three nights painting just one of the little fellows (on and off) during the week, and still don't feel entirely happy with the final results. Unlike their fellow Musketeers, I need to concentrate on painting these miniatures one at a time, thus I've turned to some 30mm plastic models (see over at http://fantorical.blogspot.co.uk) to keep me going whilst I wait for their paint to dry. As you can imagine this is making the Foot Battle Lines somewhat slow going, although I have been encouraged in that I only need 9 such models per wing.

Captain Robert Leven's ECW Command Stand

Painting is going really well on my 10mm English Civil War project but then they always seem to in the opening week. I've completed my first unit of Royalist English Civil War Pikemen, having finished basing a further two stands of Pike and the block's Command base as well. I've used three of the excellent models from "Pendraken Miniatures" code EC5 Foot Command to represent the Elite Pike Unit's officer, drummer and standard bearer.

The officer's colour scheme is based upon that of the King's Lifeguard of Foot officer depicted on the cover of "Soldiers of the English Civil War (1) Infantry" by "Osprey Publishing". As with the Pikemen the model was initially undercoated with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey, washed with Black Shade, and then had his armour and sword dry brushed with more Gunmetal Grey. His civilian clothing was painted with Vallejo Heavy Blue and then washed with Blue Shade. As apparently the fellow's sash should be in the 'General's colours' I painted it Heavy Red to show him being in the King's service. I picked out his boots  with Heavy Ochre and then washed them with Umber Shade.

Both the drummer and standard bearer were painted along similar lines to that of the armoured pikemen, with just a couple of variations. Those who've previously seen me 'wrestle' with 28mm Napoleonic French drummers will appreciate how I struggle painting the cording, drum skin etc convincingly with my preferred 'black outline style'. So I 'cheated' again by simply painting the entire instrument with Heavy Ochre. A wash of Umber Shade (which is quickly becoming my trusty "Games Workshop" Devlan Mud replacement) hopefully brings out the detail of the drum's ropes etc.

The standard bearer has had some minor conversion work done on his flag pole, in order for it to accomodate the rather large flag depicting the officer (and company) to be Captain Robert Leven. I originally purchased the range of 10mm flags sold by "Pendraken Miniatures" but found these to have a few gaps in their range, most notably King Charles' Royal Banner. In addition, although nice, they simply didn't do the job for me and seemed a bit small and fiddly. If there's one thing I like about the English Civil War its the huge flags that the men carried into battle. Thus I've turned to 15mm and although they are a tad larger than was probably normal, you can certainly see who is who on the battlefield.

Because of the larger size I did consider making my own, and there are some good websites out there that either offer free flags or provide detailed templates/guides for you to make them yourself. However I went down the far easier, though rather expensive avenue, of purchasing a page each of Royalist and Parliament 15mm flags from Richard Lowles and "Battle Flag". These flags look excellent, arrived very promptly and were extremely well packaged. But at just under a tenner a sheet they're a lot of money for essentially a page of printing. Doubtless you pay for the time it took to create the flags in the first place. 

English Civil War Royalist Pikemen

These Royalist English Civil War Pikemen are all from "Pendraken Miniatures" code EC1 Armoured Pike and have been painted to represent the King's Lifeguard. They were all initially undercoated with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey and then washed with Black Shade. I then dry brushed their armour, helmets and swords with more Gunmetal Grey. Their coat sleeves and breeches were painted with Heavy Red and washed with Red Shade. Their gloves were picked out with Heavy Ochre and their Pikes, stockings and footwear were painted with Heavy Sienna. All of these areas were washed with Umber Shade. Finally I used Heavy Skintone of their faces before applying a wash of Fleshtone Shade.

As I ultimately plan to use the “Pike & Shotte” rule set by “Warlord Games” for my English Civil War battles I decided to mount these models on a 20mm x 30mm base. With this in mind I’ve decided that a standard sized unit of 10mm Pike should consist of 36 models. As a result I plan to paint up another 18 Pikemen in order to complete the unit, although I plan for one stand to utilise some of the excellent Foot Command models “Pendraken Miniatures” manufacture in order to represent the unit’s leader Captain Robert Levens.

In order to represent an Elite Pike unit for “Pike & Shotte”, I plan for this entire unit of the King's Lifeguard to only consist of the armoured pikemen from code EC1. Hopefully that will make them stand out enough on the battle table.