Extra ECW Artillery

A small boost for my English Civil War army is a second gun and crew, all 3D printed and scaled up to 28mm from the masters in 15mm.

For ECW the difference in detail doesn't seem to matter to much.

Poles & Muscovites v's Ottomans big game

As is traditional on the day after Phalanx he Gentlemen pensioners mustered at Steve's in Salford for a big game. This year we were reduced in numbers with only five of us, but we had a great days gaming.

Poles/Muscovites to the left Ottomans to the right.

I took command of the Muscovite right wing up against hordes of Ottoman cavalry

At the height of the action

ECW - Burghill's Horse

One of the longest serving regiments in Sir William Waller's armes was Burghill's Horse, later commanded by Jonas Vandruske after Colonel Robert Burghill was wounded at the battle of Lansdown. The figures are all Warlord plastic.

In front are a few skirmishers to make my existing unit up to 12 figures.

Waller's Dragoons

Yet another batch of 3D printed stuff in this case English Civil War dragoons scaled up from 15mm to 28mm. I have painted them as Waller's Dragoons both mounted and dismounted. Regreatably there were no horse holders for the dismounted dragoons.

I may have to use them as two seperate troops of 6 figures so I kept the two types of hat separate for the cavalry, which also helped as there is very little variation in the mounted figures.

If I were to reprint them I would reduce the thickness of the dismounted figures.

Link to the dragoons on Thingiverse (link)

Cossack Horse Archers

The last of the Orion Ukrainian Cossacks have been painted up as a unit of Cossack Horse Archers

Above in closer order, below skirmishing

Cossacks and Pancerni

I had originally intended to use the Redbox Ukrainian Cossacks as Thirty Years War Croats, but given they dominantly have bows I have kept them as Cossacks. I have seperated out the dominantly armoured figures to use as Polish Pancerni.

Some interesting pictures of the TYW/ECW

Always funny what you come across in your travels. On the way back from holiday in Ceredigion we stopped off at Powis "castle" . In one of the rooms there were some familiar pictures, but when I asked the guide I only found out they were generic battle scenes. Eventually remembering the name of the Flemish artist Pieter Snayers and adding "powis" up popped the pictures and far better than I could see them high up on the walls at the stately house.

all said to be in the manner of Pieter Snayers (Antwerp 1592 – Brussels 1667). There is also one other in the National Trust collection so I'll have to pop down to Erddig, which is nearby to see it.

Bigger images can be obtained here

All for one

Or not finished for quite a while, my latest collection of King's Musketeers and Cardinal's Guards from Strelets.

The mounted figures

King & Musketeers

Cardinal & Guards

Various French "Gentlemen" with a General

The new cavalry merged with the old Mars version

The duelists

The rest of the foot figures

I added a couple of the Ultima Ratio Musketeers so I could make a complete musketeer unit for Pikemen's Lament.

There weren't quite enough for the Cardinal's Guards, but I'll just add the halberdiers in when needed.

Russian militia skirmishers

These are a selection of the Strelets bonus streltsi that I have painted and based up to use for skirmish games for anything from the renaissance to the Napoleonic wars
I still have 85 streltsi in the stash that I have to decide what to do with.

Renaissance Galleys

They've been a long time coming, but it has been a sequence of stops, starts and odd diversions that didn't work, until I had them close enough to call it a day. First up with Ottoman crews

They take my standard units based on 45mm square bases

A total of 5 bases, one command/crew, three sailors/marines and one gun

The Ottomans can be swapped for European crews

Similar crewing, but not as colourful

I haven't bothered with a rear awning as I haven't worked out how to do it and keep it removable and I'm also not sure whether it would be kept up during combat. If they furl the sails then I would expect the same for the awning.

basic construction is foamcore, with the edges covered by cardboard then planked, the ram is a left over piece of hard plastic, and the oars just matchsticks. The mast and spar are wooden stakes used for supporting small plants, with a kitchen roll sail. Hopefully I can use them with 28mm figures it it every becomes necessary.

Muscovite town cossacks

Some poor quality infantry to add to my Muscovite army. These were raised to defend towns, but occasionally used in battle ideally behind field fortifications or Gulyay-gorod.



Figures are Redbox Ukrainian Cossacks with a few Strelets bonus figures to make up the numbers.


To finish my painted 20mm collection has now passed 31,000 figures

Muscovite Soldatski

Two units of Soldatski and one of Strelets made with the Strelets bonus figures. With especial thanks to Peter from Benno's Figures Forum for trading figures so I could make consistent units.


The pikemen for the Soldatski as simple replacement of the matchlock musket with a pike, trimming off the apostles and painting on a breast and back plate.


Uniform colours are loosely based on the first and second regiments of selected soldatski but the flags are some suitable generic versions I found on the web.


A generic Streltsi unit i.e. not from Moscow


Typical, after taking the pictures I noticed that I forgot to run some paint around the edges of the flags

Shetland Baronial Castles

There are only a couple of castles on Shetland, both built in the C16 in the baronial style. They are not that well fortified, but defensible and more a statement of authority.

Muness Castle Britain's most northerly castle on Unst (link)









Its bleak surroundings


Scalloway Castle (on a rainy day) the old capital of the islands (link)










On a sunny evening