+ And now for something completely different +
+ Historical miniatures? On this blog? Who would have thought? Today's inload looks at a sprue of soldiers from the Civil War, and casts a little light over historical wargaming from the point of view of a (mostly) sci-fi enthusiast. +
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+ Into the Civil War (with limited ambitions) +
While I've always had a love for history, that's never really translated into the urge to refight real battles. In general, beyond the usual Airfix kits and green/tan/blue army men, I've preferred to keep my gaming firmly in the realms of fantasy/sci-fi, where imagination can excuse pretty much anything.
So what's brought on this urge? In truth, sometimes you want an absolute clean fresh start; something that isn't related to anything else I'm doing, and can be self-contained.
I'm not really aiming to pick up a new game or start a huge new collection (our gaming group already have more games than we can readily play!); I've simply been reading a couple of books around the 17th century – John Aubrey's Brief Lives and The Siege of Loyalty House by Jessie Childs, and got the itch to paint up some models as a break from Titans [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+].
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Turns out that idle hands, enthusiasm and access to a smartphone is a dangerous combination. A cursory look online revealed an absolute smorgasboard of cool things.
I think it would be unusual to have an interest in wargaming for very long without at least being aware of historical wargaming – it is, after all, where the hobby originated – but as with a lot of subcultures, each different niche runs their own little race, and often has its own assumptions and language. Such is definitely the case here. Turns out historicals cover quite a lot of history (who would have guessed?), and so they're generally grouped into a few genres: stuff like Ancients, Napoleonics etc.
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| + A sprue of Warlord Games' English Civil War/Thirty Years War cavalry + |
The English Civil War – or more commonly today 'War of the Three Kingdoms' – falls into Early Modern wargaming, where it's often referred to as ECW. Even within this little patch of history there are lots (and lots!) of options.
What I've plumped for is a cavalry sprue from Warlord Games' Epic Pike & Shotte range – a peculiar 'not-quite-15mm' scale. Why this range, and why this scale? Well, as noted above, it doesn't need to go with anything, and since a nice cheap sprue popped up on ebay, I thought I'd snag one for a look in person.
Much like GW's Epic-scale ranges, the sprue contains various little groups of unrelated things; presumably to minimise the number of sprues the range needs. And it's a very tight little range. For those of us spoiled by GW, where you might get three boxes of various tank patterns, each with unique sprues, the entire English Civil War range is contained within a handful of sprues and a few extra individual packs. Even then, the plastics are shared with the Thirty Years' War range, as the aesthetics overlap to a great extent.
Pictured above are a selection of horsemen. My pop culture understanding of the Civil War had me assume that the chaps with the helmets were Parliamentary 'Roundheads', and the fellows with the broadbrimmed hats the Royalist 'Cavaliers' – but turns out that both sides were pretty much interchangeable, and the sprue can quite happily represent both sides.
... and this is a great relief to a dabbler in historicals. Whether in the pseudo-history of 40k or in historicals I very much appreciate the effort that people go into when they ensure their forces are accurate and fitting to the setting – regular inloaders will know I love following a thread and digging through details – but I always think that should be an optional thing, and that if people are happy with a looser, more freeform attitude to their hobby, then more power to them. Ultimately, I think historical accuracy is great, but it's not the be-all and end-all of enjoying your hobby. Quite apart from anything else, 'True History' has a habit of being reinterpreted as the facts are reappraised when new evidence pops up, so my aim is going to be to follow the history where I can, but not to the detriment of spectacle and painting enjoyment.
+ Shut up and show me the models +
To the uneducated eye, then, we've got some cavalry, a couple of guns and crew, and a handful of handgunners. I've seen some reviews on other Historical-themed blogs that flag up various errors or problems – good-natured grousing about details is clearly not limited to Warhammer! – but from an absolute beginner's point of view, these look fun.
In trying to dig out exactly what's what on the sprue, I'm finding that there's either a lot of assumed knowledge, or that – refreshingly to a coddled GW gamer – a lot of it is a bit freer, with certain models able to represent a couple of different things. As noted, I'm broadly familiar with the history and understand the difference between a dragoon and a pikeman, or a rifle and a handgun, but I wanted to at least know what the sculptor had intended things to be.
The excellent 'Keep Your Powder Dry' blog (KYPD) [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] has a great rundown of the contents of the sprue – which reveals quite how shallow my existing knowledge was! – so do have a delve through there. It's a fantastic resource, rich with history and well-referenced information. I'm sure I'll be coming back to the blog for guidance and ideas on colours.
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The sprue again. I haven't shown a picture of the base sprue, but it looks like the cavalry are intended to fit five to a base, the pegs below their feet getting them ranked up, and the guns – *quickly checks KYPD* a saker and falconet – are intended to sit on a single base with their crew.
The guns are neatly designed in three parts, with the crew moulded as part of the wheels. You'll get repetition, but there's some variety possible with placement of the extra crew, and – being plastic – they should also be easy to convert.
The infantry appear a bit different, and I think are either intended to go in a more freeform skirmishing group together on a base (they don't appear to have pegs to fit into the bases), or perhaps to be scattered about to add character elsewhere.
The infantrymen – 'commanded shot'; a term I take to mean a group of handgunners seconded to support a cavalry force, rather than fielded alongside protective pikemen – are fun little sculpts, with lots of character. Standing around 12–13mm tall (or half the height of a modern GW figure), there's a good variety of poses and details. I think these should be a lot of fun to paint; larger and more rewarding that my Legions Imperialis figures, but quicker and less fussy than 32mm figures.
A couple of the ones at the bottom have handgun stands. Apparently in the early part of the Civil War, handguns were quite unwieldy as a general rule, while later in the war lighter and more refined versions became available. Happily again, this is a general rule, and standardisation didn't really exist, so these figures can quite happily represent handgunners from almost any battlefield of the time.
KYPD notes that you can use these as a front line for the infantry handgunners who are on a separate sprue; so for the moment I think I'll paint them on-sprue while I work out how I want to arrange them. As noted above, I'm primarily interested in just painting some models for fun, but it'd be nice not to make any really obvious errors.
Wish me luck, and hopefully I'll have some laughing cavaliers to share with you soon!
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