Uniforms

Royal cavalry approach a hostile Somerset hamlet - the villagers are assembling on the GreenThe Battle of Sedgemoor, July 6 1685 stimulates a variety of responses when discussed amongst wargamers. I almost added - and the wider population  but realized how unlikely such an occurrence might be! Who actually knows much about it? (or cares!)Those infamous 'Lambs' Kirke's Tangier veterans used for rural pacificationWhether you subscribe to the point of view of King James II/VII as religious tyrant backed up by a brutal army and vicious judiciary or, that James Scott was what might be called in west of Scotland vernacular - a wee chancer - the campaign was the opening act of a much bigger play interestingly dubbed 'The Glorious Revolution' by the winners.One of Trelwaney's musketeersWas Monmouth's short campaign a 'Peoples' revolt' or, political agitation by disaffected men of power using a gormless figurehead to test out the country's appetite for overthrowing the monarchy? A tune-up game as Americans might

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Janissary dress and equipment changed little from the mid 16th to the mid 18th century. The units featured here could easily be from The First Battle of Mohacs in 1526, part of the all conquering armies of the 1500s or, from the forces who fought at the Relief of Vienna 1683,  Second Battle of Mohacs 1687, Battle of Zenta 1697 and Pruth River Campaign 1710-1711 . Most of the work was done as a commission by Rob Goodyear. I have based each unit and flagged them. What I like about the way these have been painted by Rob is the interesting mix of colours he has used in each Orta. I used the blend of colours as the inspiration for the banners I did for each. The Orta above mixed blue, green, a soft ochre-green and red pink. This suggested to me that a large, bold and simple green and yellow banner would suit well.The orange which features prominently in the Orta above together with a chocolately - wine shade inspired a very bold flag with arabic writing. I choose a five layered orange field with a c

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I have always enjoyed building Command vignettes. These three are the very first and utilize models from packs OT01, OT05 and OT06. The rank of the officers is non specific although two hve standards whilst the central base features two full dress Janissaries - a senior officer and his bodyguard.I don't often use purple in my warming units but fancied doing a small personal banner for this senior officer. The base also features an interesting section of dead tree - bleached and burned by the searing south eastern European sun.Traditional Janissary symbol of the two tongued sword on this personal standard of yet another senior officer. The rocks are toned down with a sepia wash.This colourful senior officer has an equally colourful bodyguard Janissary at his side. The base is smaller than the other two featured here.A couple of shots at slightly different angles and orientations. Ottomans certainly draw you away from traditional palette colours.Soon we'll be previewing 10 new Ottoman Command models which are v

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Part of one of my own painted unitsWell, this is somewhat of a bling post but I just enjoyed myself so much doing these flags that I thought I would share. I decided that any Ottoman unit I got the chance to  paint and/or base was going to get one of my old style linen flags.The Terry's Chocolate Orange Orta - The men listen intently to their Bolouk!Once I started it was hard to stop! Sometimes its a bit messy but in the end the results justify the effort. I have made and painted probably 250 to 300 of these since 1986 when I first developed the technique. It has changed a bit since then but fundamentally its the same labour intensive process.Bold and striking colours set off the Janissary OrtasI know a few people have tried to industrialize/commercialize it since then but I always felt there was something missing from these. Printing directly onto material does not work and any flags of that sort I have chanced upon seem a bit insipid and lifeless.A very commonly used symbol in the Ottoman Army - 

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A very large Malplaquet game I organized and ran about 10 years ago - spots the Minifigs!The War of the Spanish Succession (WSS) may appear to have been some sort of enormous elephant in the room for Warfare Miniatures but not so. Rather than being a conflict which I have no interest in, the Nine Years War is a conflict when has voraciously consumed my interest leaving little time for anything else.WLOA9 - These grenadiers can serve in several armies 1700-1714Notwithstanding, Warfare Miniatures has quietly being building availability of forces for the WSS over a long period. Since the entire 1670-1720 period was one of military evolution and transition, it can be robustly argued that the original codes offered by Warfare were adequately suited to at least the 1701-1707 span of the WSS.It is likely that for the fist several years of the 18th century - the tricorne did not abound!Pikes, floppy hats and matchlocks continued to appear both in contemporary illustrations and on campaign. Those who would have us bel

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This was a hoot! 1693 and riding roughshod over the French but it's 20 years on.. can the Turk be vanquished too?I very much enjoyed the German Grand National 1693 game which we ran at Tactica and elsewhere in the first half of 2018. The competition between four German ally states against a common enemy was colourful and fun and even spawned an X rated version which I think was called the W hores? Race which a friend of this blog rand successfully over the summer.Saxon, Prussian and Dane - all fighting for the Empire against the TurkWith limited time to paint large forces we decided to do three things. Try and finish some BLB style Ottoman units ourselves. Sub contract some painting of Ottoman units to our highly productive painting partner Rob. Muster some Donnybrook forces which would do the fighting.It is unlikely that Kurassier will be used for the extraction - it's an infantryman's job!The BLB style multi based units will form the 'lines' of the opposing armies but not move on the day. The single based m

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The Panzer Division will watch from the sidelines whilst the infantry slug it outThe scenario for CRISIS 2018 is called Brahms & Liszt. It is set in 1713 on the south-eastern frontier or, north-western if you are Turkish! This is twenty years after our previous show effort of 2018 at TACTICA which also involved Imperial forces racing to over run the French in the German Grand National 1693.Prussians, Saxons etc in action on the Rhine 20 years before (Tactica 2018)Unlike the previous effort which used The War of Three Kings and was a participation game, Brahms & Liszt is a Donnybrook tale in which a little vignette is played out in front of the main forces. Lined up against each other are a large Imperial cavalry force which is on the offensive and an Ottoman infantry force protecting prepared positions.Jolly Friars and their religious and kunst treasures - regrettably acquired by the enemy.The Ottomans have once again been acquiring plunder and this time it happens to be in the shape of treasures

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LoA North American Chapter - Clarence did ALL the work for this one at Historicon 2016Being a Team of two, you have to make decisions which are inevitably a compromise. I have captained some productive groups since starting on the Event Trail around 1992. Sometimes we were two, occasionally three, many times and for several years, I flew solo.Don't be 'leg-ist' please!I don't envy larger groups but they do offer a division (rarely equal) of labour and the opportunity to game-explain-shop-rest-travel in a proportion, permitting all the bases to be covered and preventing burn out.Epics of this nature are hard yards for a two man team. Great to see but very challenging from a logistics perspective.This is often forgotten when comments such as 'well nothing seems to move on that table', 'it's just a static display', 'why didn't they engage with the public?' etc are bandied. Not a complaint I hasten to add and of no matter to the punter, but significant as an influencing factor nonetheless. You can't do it all esp

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Janissaries on campaign - two thirds of a unit minus CommandThey arrived at 1600 and are on their way to all the pre order customers tomorrow!Which one wasn't speed painted? 2 x 45 minutes, 1 x 90 minutesHere is a taste of what is coming your way in the post. Codes OT001 - OT004 nearly sold out in the first batch so we are barely hanging on with those till we get reinforcements.A base of Janissaries in actionReverse view of another baseThe painting is an iterative process and some progress shots accompany this very brief postShaping up very nicelyOpponents!

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I've managed to get to a fifth in the series of Warfare painted miniatures from the brushes of excellent painters whilst maintaining the quality!Here we have some super, stylish Saxons from the very prolific brush of Roger Castle. Roger can be found evangelising about the GNW on several fora at the moment. His work output is high and he has done a wonderful job on his Warfare minis.Friend and fellow enthusiast Mark Shearwood is also highly productive and creative in his output. His interests are broad within the period and he has substantial quantities of NYW and GNW models.A popular subject - King James's Foot GuardsThese are Jacobites I believe but could be many different troopsMark Shearwood's dragoonsRichard Hampson Smith is producing some great work right now such as:dragoons for Ireland I believeThe very popular Jacobite Foot GuardsTyrconnel's HorseAn array of WilliamitesTruls Fjell is a talented and prolific painter and collector from Norway and has completed these excellent GNW era units:Swedish Life

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Managed to complete one full code - Campaign dress Janissaries loading/primingOK - the big job - prepping 90 models for the production moulds has been done this week, Scraping and filing castings which are not going to be painted is a very tedious job so I punctuated that by quickly painting a few more of the new castings.One more figure to add to the Campaign dress firing codeThese are speed paint jobs - white undercoat, flat colours will only occasional highlights, some washing with inks and 'wash mixes' and then flat varnishing.trying lots of colour combinations using the quick painting styleI have tried to bash through although some of the models really deserve that little bit of extra love even on a quick paint job.The washes tone things down nicelyHanding them over for production moulding at Partizan on Sunday which means, they should be commercially available by the end of August/ beginning of September as planned.Enjoyed doing this wee fellaThe campaign dress Janissaries are done in deliberately mixed

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