Wee likkle laddies

 Hi all,

So, I went and did something dramatic.  As my last post indicated, I've been feeling a bit . . . disengaged from the historical side of the hobby of late, so after a bit of back and forth, decided to shake things up.

By trading away (almost) my entire stock of 15mm ancients.

Mess of unpainted Scots, plus a bunch of different cavalry.

Antigonids gone, Spartans gone, and a big bag of unpainted lead gone (to a good home).

What I got in return was a pile of Old Glory ECW stuff, mostly Scots, in a range of conditions.  Also, I have it on good authority that Santa is bringing me the Warlord ECW starter box and a copy of Pikeman's Lament (which my buddy Chris in NFLD has recommended).  The upshot is I've been reading a fair bit of Robbie Burns (out loud when I can get away with it), along with whatever I can get my hands on about the ECW, especially the Scots elements.

Also a mess of Scots in various stages of completion - but being based, I can get in some test games.

The Scots seem to have had an interesting arc through the wars, more or less fighting a) their own war, for religious and political autonomy, against whatever English authority threatened it, and b) their own civil war while interacting with the mess down south.  Which means, conveniently, the same troops could work against multiple opponents (and allies) depending on when in the war(s) you put them.

Closeup of the guys in back.  Some Scots, some in floppy hats and helmets, which suggests "not-Scots" to me.

This, of course, has me puttering about with rules, and figures.  The OG figs are wonderful - full of character.  Haven't had a chance to scale them with Warlord (as that's put away until The Day), but I have some ideas about that.  I've pulled out four musketeers for a test base, and am messing about with possible colours.  The Scots were distinct in the conflict in that they had a "uniform", although not exactly in the sense that we'd mean in later eras, with more standardized and industrial manufacturing.  Aside from weapons, etc., standard equipment included clothes of grey "hodden", and the ubiquitous blue cap.  My initial poking about, however, suggests that hodden is more or less homespun, or at least the most basic form of undyed wool cloth.  It's a simple grey cloth made by mixing white and black wool.

Some test minis - Scots musketmen

I think the approach I'll take to painting hodden is similar to what a lot of people do for USCW Rebel butternut - lots of desaturated brownish-grey tones, so that while individual figures aren't, in the Beloved's terms, "matchy-matchy", they do  "go together".  That lets me play around a little while painting, while the blue caps should tie things together nicely.  

The other issue with the scots is going to be the plaids.  Most of the OG figs have plaid wraps, and I'm going to need to find a way to paint them a) in a way that doesn't make me go blind, and b) in a way that makes bunched up cloth look recognizably plaid.  Been searching the interwebs, and found this excellent how-to, so might try it out.  Part of me wants to paint historical plaids that "fit" with the regiments I model, and part of me wants to stay sane(ish).  Stay tuned to see how that turns out.

Update.  I tried out the "faux plaid" technique.  Works pretty well for my purposes, given that there's more entertaining ways of going blind.

In terms of project planning, Marston Moor was a combined Scots and Parliamentary force (on the good guys side).  I have a good force of Scots, but some figs that can serve nicely as parliamentary troops, along with the inbound Warlord box.  Short term goals would be to use the already painted figs from the trade batch to try out some Pikeman's lament (post-Christmas), while painting a bunch more myself.  If I build towards an approximation of Marston Moor, I should end up with a mix of Scots and Parliament forces that can fight each other in small Pike and Shotte games at home, or be combined into a single early war side for big games with other players - and the rumor has it that there's at least a few people around with playable forces for the period.

FMB