After all the discussion about dragoons i had put the matter to one side for future efforts. At the moment i am starting the VC etc. But, wouldn't you know it, the dragoon mould needs re doing!
So there will be two new foot dragoon packs. Command and dragoons doing shooting etc.
So, the trick is for us all to buy so many figures that the moulds wear out, and then we get new and extra castings....?
Seems to be a cunning plan??
Mounted command and command on foot please. The all important drummer on horseback is essential.
Some dragoons loading would be rather nice too.
Not quite sure how you will fit all that in to just two packs though.
The dragoons are coming along fine. I hope to get some news out next week.
:)
Better late than late?
No rush here. I made command stands for my dragoons using a mounted dragoon as an officer, cavalry with hat standard bearer, empty horse from horse holder pack and an infantry pack drummer.
More dragoons are in order, but they would be joining a queue of a sconce, 5 regiments of foot, witches/werewolves and the like (Witchfinder General) and some more artillery.
I've started adhering to some rules - I can only buy a new batch of figures when I start basing the final figures of the current batch. So I'm guessing Vapnartak time or Salute if I'm being slovenly.
Having just prepped my new figures I am hoping to make a big dent in the lead pile over the winter months ready for a spring offensive (I.e. buying more figures!)
At the risk of sounding like someone in a ferrero richer advert..."but ambassador you spoil us" I notice four new dragoon packs have made it onto the shop lists.
Mounted drummer no less! Swoons.
Thank you Martin.
Just a thought, rather than two mounted dragoon command packs why not simplify it with just one pack consisting of an officer, drummer and a cornet? The generals pack has three figures in. Or if it bothers your four horsey chaps in a pack mantra add a mounted dragoon .
The only glaring omissions from the range now are marching pike (cast pikes and open hand variants), and lowland pike open hand
Glad this is good news.
When they are out, please spread the word, or put up some pictures of painted ones, thanks.
The new mounted packs each have two poses. Pack A= drummer + Officer pack B=standard + officer. This will allow players to not have drummers if they do not want them. In some rules dragoon units are very small. Thus players might want to maximise troopers and reduce command.
I do prefer to give 4 mounted figures per pack except for shorter production packs, such as generals.
I never like packs with 1 of something because any casting failures lose packs.
Once the mounted are done i really need to get on with other tasks. The way things often go is that gamers often observe only the range they are interested in. This is fine, but if their range gets too neglected, they too feel neglected.
My intent is to keep everyone happy...easy enough, surely??
Next jobs before Christmas are remade German WW2 heads, remade tchanka horses, figures for duel game, figures for pirate hostages, rebuilds of dollies 7,8 and 9, heads for VC, AK47 for VC, first packs of VC, sash cuirassiers.....etc.. then Mike must make the moulds and put them into production.
That needs to be done in next two weeks...
Mr Busy will be visiting the PP work desk!
You could do with some of Santa's elves coming to help. That's a long list of things to do. Hope you get some rest for the festivities.
Would an article describing the sculpting process be feasible in your spare time ? 😂 (that's a joke by the way!)
Don't worry Martin I wasn't cracking the whip for more ECW packs. I fully understand that you have to appease those ne'er-do-wells who don't play ECW (shudders). ;)
Of course I will put some pics of them once painted, both here and on my blog. I think my realistic goal setting will be Vapnartak time (can't buy more figures until I've painted the current box full). Will the PP pantechnicon be driving north for the show?
Interesting logic behind your mounted command rationale. Makes sense, hadn't thought about following rules parameters. I ignore all that unit size and basing nonsense, my goal is to make my units look like they stepped off Streeter's Plan. Rules then get tweaked to fit my units.(For those of you needing a lie down reading that I do, of course, apply some logic to my frontages, with regards to foot/horse/artillery.)
Oh my golly gosh! Someone has got all giddy sculpting dragoons. A fifth pack. Dragoons hurrying.
Radar - you now just need to place your order for 20 packs of each for Martin's Christmas to come early :D
That would probably equate to every dragoon who took the field during the first civil war.
Pics for the first three packs up now, and very nice they look too.
They are indeed very nice. I especially like the hurrying Dragoons. Eager to make that hedge before the enemy no doubt.
Clearly those new dragoons are levellers, as signified by the green dice.
How appropriate!
Mounted dragoon command have gone from 'soon' to having a sparkly 'new' icon, and there are new cuirassier (with plume and sash) packs listed as 'soon' too.
Clearly the elves at the Peter Pig workshop are being kept busy.
The new mounted dragoons are off to Mike in the workshop onTuesday. He will have them ready fr the end of the week. These are one piece sculpts once again.
Will get pictures done too soon.
Then on to VC.
Thanks Martin.
Now that the mounted command are out (very nice), I have worked out my order for Vapnartak. Presenting them on foot with horseholders and a mounted command stand.
Correct bases have arrived (am I alone in loving the smell of laser cut MDF bases?), flags designed/researched and arrived. Waller's (Parliament) and Sir Thomas Tyldesley's (Royalist) will be taking to the table sometime before Easter.
Just a small matter of 4 regiments of foot to paint now (I've drilled out the lowland pike hands, must be getting better 100% success rate and 100% of fingers/thumbs uninjured).
Well done Radar. Good to hear you have drilled them all out and you are uninjured!!
Think there is an article on the way about dragoons, paint, basing and making/useage of the units??
If I can find the info about how they were used historically (other than Okey's), and I am happy with it, then sure.
Just tried to place my Vapnartak order and noticed that the mounted command packs haven't got 'add to cart' buttons yet. Will they be available to purchase soon?
Email the workshop and ask very very nicely.
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bGsBa7C-8Zs/XGFPUm0wBfI/AAAAAAAABkw/LmOCj7LPQwIeZnoY5N-r8L92XC2IER8iQCLcBGAs/s1600/20190211_103236.jpg)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PXWBaPYCew4/XGFPxam50fI/AAAAAAAABk4/Dfl8P7lWxy0NmhTFyPma15xofrsJzkZvgCLcBGAs/s1600/20190211_103444.jpg)
More pictures, rationale, potted regimental history http://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2019/02/sir-william-wallers-regiment-of-dragoons.html?m=1 (http://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2019/02/sir-william-wallers-regiment-of-dragoons.html?m=1)
Also on the blog yet more baggage train additions and some new buildings. Only one more regiment of dragoons left to paint now from my Vapnartak swag bag
They look just the job. Nice to see the figures out there and doing their jobs.
Very nice - nice blog too!
Thank you Martin, very nice sculpts they are too.
And thank you Colonel. I am genuinely surprised that people actually read my inane rambling, but they must do as the blog has just notched up 20k hits (can't all be my mum)
Quote from: Radar on February 11, 2019, 05:19:57 PM
... I am genuinely surprised that people actually read my inane rambling, but they must do as the blog has just notched up 20k hits (can't all be my mum)
Hey, I never said I read it, but I liked the pretty pictures ;D
Well I for one subscribe to Keep Your Powder Dry, and as I am building armies for the Western Campaign I found the info on Waller's dragoons extremely useful. I also like the look of those hurrying dragoons, very purposeful.
Glad you are finding the blog useful Leman
And some more dragoons finally make it off the painting table...Sir Thomas Tyldesley's.
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1H3xiwIBRbQ/XIz5mpwdFSI/AAAAAAAABos/lsLyWEvfGa0Ros3-BjYrqLejzMI5wllNQCLcBGAs/s1600/20190316_132433.jpg)
More pics, some research into the regiment, and my thinking behind the coat and guidon guesses at http://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2019/03/sir-thomas-tyldesleys-regiment-of.html (http://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2019/03/sir-thomas-tyldesleys-regiment-of.html)
Think I'm regaining my mojo (loss due to dalliance with Napoleonics), couple of regiments of firelocks ordered for collection at Salute. Also thinking about League of the Covenant cavalry too.
Looking good. I really like the basing too, the grass gives a great effect.
Well they turned out rather well!
The research / rationale on your blog is interesting too, Radar, thanks for sharing.
Many thanks for the kind comments. From the picture it looks like I need to colour the edge of the guidon in. Fear not! I have already done so, it's just the way the light is reflecting off the guidon.
Quite interesting finding out about the regiment and Sir Thomas. I fear I may have made a new template for future blog posts on new units.
Nice going, Radar. 8) Think I'll have to order some dragoons, now! :D
They are lovely sculpts, my favourite is the mounted drummer.
Must admit, i have an Army ready to paint, all in a box. Hopefully i can start in December now, as my WW2 committments have taken over this year. Also have a half started Western "Confederate" force as well to finish off.
I want to do "Roundhead" force but not sure weather it should be an based on early or later type army as yet ? I know nearer the time i will be asking a lot of questions about what to do and dont when preparing this army.
I am really tempted to do them "40 mm" across on each unit as they do look much better that way.
As above.
The best bit about 'modelling' the Civil Wars is that we know so little about much of the fine details that wargamers get hung up on. You'll find none of the "but your figures have the wrong jacket turnbacks for 1809" here. So you can do whatever you want. Early/late the most obvious visual difference is the absence of musket stands. But who is to say that there weren't still some in use? After all are we not just simply trying to create a pastiche, or feel for an era whenever we represent an army?
So SM, go for it. The hardest part is picking your colour palette, but there are enough guides online. Sealed Knot and ECWS reenactors put loads of pics online, which are a great inspiration for colours. My only tip - go easy with the black paint. And good luck on finishing WW2 and the Rebels by December
Good points. I think part of the attraction of painting up ECW forces is the flexibility of uniform colours you can choose.
I really like the shading effect on the drum.
I've just trawled through a good chunk of the BCWProject site on civil war dragoon units (BCW Regimental Wiki) and only found one unit where they were able to describe the coat colour - but even then, it stated, "blue or red!" ;D
I do like the way that drums take a wash. One of the reasons there is an increasing number of drummers on my baggage train bases.
The BCW website is an excellent source of information, in particular the regimental wiki. Sadly most observers didn't report coat colours, and only occasionally flags. The best evidence we have are the records of spies - there was a big London muster which was reported (which explains why we know about the London Trained bands standards), and a report on a muster at Oxford (lots of white coated, and blue coated regiments). There are quite a few conventions which can be applied if in doubt - a lot of white and grey coats in Newcastle's northern army, Eastern Association lots of red coats.
So lots of best guesses, and none standard issue equipment. Would be a nightmare for a Napoleonic obsessive.
We are always to precious about our colours.
The colours of years ago particularly this period would have all been based on natural dyes so what today is called green would have been avery different colour the the green of our colour palettes.
We use in our modern paints and dyes all manufactured pigments.
This is an extract as to how dificult it was to make green. It would have been very poorly fixed and after being out in the weather most of the mans clothing would have been green with leached colour. So the man in new kit on a dry day would look very different to a seasoned campaigner.
If plants that yield yellow dyes are common, plants that yield green dyes are rare. Both woad and indigo have been used since ancient times in combination with yellow dyes to produce shades of green. Medieval and Early Modern England was especially known for its green dyes. The dyers of Lincoln, a great cloth town in the high Middle Ages, produced the Lincoln green cloth associated with Robin Hood by dyeing wool with woad and then overdyeing it yellow with weld or dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria), also known as dyer's broom. Woolen cloth mordanted with alum and dyed yellow with dyer's greenweed was overdyed with woad and, later, indigo, to produce the once-famous Kendal green. This in turn fell out of fashion in the 18th century in favor of the brighter Saxon green, dyed with indigo and fustic.
Soft olive greens are also achieved when textiles dyed yellow are treated with an iron mordant. The dull green cloth common to the Iron Age Halstatt culture shows traces of iron, and was possibly colored by boiling yellow-dyed cloth in an iron pot. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau in North America used lichen to dye corn husk bags a sea green.
Navajo textile artist Nonabah Gorman Bryan developed a two-step process for creating green dye. First the Churro wool yarn is dyed yellow with sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, and then it is soaked in black dye afterbirth. Red onion skins are also used by Navajo dyers to produce green.
Good info Leslie, thanks.
(Although the bit about 'black afterbirth' sounds a bit unpleasant).
I've used picking a colour palette as an excuse to visit art galleries looking at Renaissance paintings. Apparently Dutch paintings are a good indicator of colours used in Britain (similar dye sources and fashion)
Very good info there Les. Gives food for thought on how to paint some of the accepted colours with a hint of a bleached look about them me thinks.... so no strong colours unless they are officers and maybe Sargents etc.
Some of those olden days ECW dragoons from the House of Pig, with paint conversion command stands
Earl of Manchester's Regiment of Dragoons usual nonsense at https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/04/earl-of-manchesters-regiment-of-dragoons.html (https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/04/earl-of-manchesters-regiment-of-dragoons.html)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oo0Vo3OSpHo/XpcZDof7ZJI/AAAAAAAADWc/xbYBHBMvm_I8PYLpjjipFE3pnohkAokIgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20200415_152109.jpg)
Some more 'old' dragoons with kit bashed command stands
Wardlaw's RoD, usual history etc https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/05/colonel-wardlaws-regiment-of-dragoons.html (https://www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk/2020/05/colonel-wardlaws-regiment-of-dragoons.html)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nZqxRIV6ibY/XqwbsVO4sqI/AAAAAAAADbo/Q_T9lg1nf7UMgZSrkcOJ8VuRb4Xiau5zgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/20200501_133632.jpg)