English Civil War.

It may not be a surprise to regular readers of my ramblings that I'm an ECW fan. Of all the periods I've collected its probably the one I've fiddled with most over 40 years- though medivals of various types may run it a close second. I first had ECW armies in 1977 indeed they were my first all metal armies- mostly minifigs but later with generous helpings of Garrison and Hincliffe. These are long gone now and my current ECW Armies are all Old Glory 25mm or increasingly Romanoff/Jacdaw/Sash and Saber/ Drabant 40mm . With these last I tend to mix the bits up to get precisly the figures I want. However with the 25mm - or 28 if you prefer- It's the standard Old Glory range- I have a few redoubt- which I like and some Foundryand an entirely separate- and small- collection of Les Higgins 30mm Jason but I don't really count those as part of my armies. Should the happy day come when Bluemoon do and ECW range in 18mm(I'm not saying never here it has been discussed- but no timeline) then I'll do some of those too doubtless. However this group of pictures are from a few years backand show some of myECW Units

From the Top Kings Lifeguard of Foot - as they probably appeared in the summer of 1643after they were reclothed by Thomas Bushell. The unit is 48 figures strong 16pikes 32 Muskets. Middle The Earl of Essex regiment of Foot- summer 1642- I did these as "Textbook perfect" so the Pikemen all have armour and the musketeers have rests. In all likelhood only Essex army eveer approached textbook perfect at the beginning of the war. The unit is deliberately large 96 figures32 pikes 64 muskets. Bottom- Royalist Horse again in 1643. You can never have enough Royalist Horse- some of their armies were more Horse than Foot- especially toward the end of the war and a fifty- fofty split was by no means unusual- Wargames armies tend to be under horsed. My 25/8mm forces are for the first Civil War- 1642-46 though my 40mm collection tends toward the Second Civil War of 1648 and Cromwells invasion of Scotland in 1650 and yes there are subtle differences in the appearence of the forces involved- the 2nd and 3rd Civilwars are of course dominated by the fearsomly efficvient New Model Army.