ECW Project start

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Leon will get those in the post by Thursday, but probably have drips of white emulsiuon on them

[cudders]

 

Cudders

[DecemDave]

And I've run out of bases for the horse troops! DOH!

Having a bad day 

Cudders

You are not alone.  Took me 4 orders to complete. (assuming I now have) .   I asked Leon on a recent Zoom meet set up by the Phoenix wargame club what a typical order size was and he said around £40.   So obviously most customers either buy one army pack at a time  OR  have very expert and carefully worked out plans for big armies that don't survive once in contact with the minis.  With my next project I have created paper bases for everything first, so I can scribble exact needs on them and spreadsheet the order(s). 
Bound to fail.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Bound to fail.

We all love an optomist 

[mmcv]

Yeah I started an email "small custom order" to round out my ECW recently and by the end was three times what I'd intended 

Because of course I needed some sheep and cows and dogs as well as all those cavalry and command. And some paints. And I've been meaning to get a pack of those TB line Islamics. Oh and some horses and baggage. And....

This is the danger of sorting through your collection. I've already had packages from a couple of other manufacturers and have a basket full with another 

[DecemDave]

 

[cudders]

 

Cudders

[Poggle]

I'm looking to expand my ECW collection before long, and I just know I won't keep to what I planned...

[mmcv]

I'm looking to expand my ECW collection before long, and I just know I won't keep to what I planned...

I've given up on planning new projects and now just buy a few packs or an army pack to get started. In the early days I was carefully working out what all I would need and how I'd want them to be based and so forth. Then by the time I got them I'd revised the basing twice, then once more once I got them painted and set up, then had retweaked the army lists a few times over...

I have a Trojan War project on the go as well and I swear every time I look at the army list it seems to sprout a new unit or two and the already painted units are telling me they need more troop variety on them....

[DecemDave]

We all love an optomist 

Seems like the ECW attracts us optimists!   Although arguably we had to be optimists to think we could produce an authentic model of an ECW army at all.

In my case I start off with my Osprey type guide (actually Helion)  to reproduce the exact OOB with authentic uniform and flags for each unit in Essex's army in 1642 and its Royalist opposition only to find that so much is unknown (and unknowable).  But there is just enough hard info about to constrain you from making it all up. 

Then (this happens in other periods too) your authoritative wargamers guide source turns out to have relied heavily on some Victorian amateur historian who made unsourced assumptions which have since been accepted as fact and that the contemporary sources actually don't say what secondary sources claim they do.  [see mmcv and I on his miscellany thread on proportion of pike to shot in the New Noddle for an example] .

I'm still not even clear what colour Pikes were.  I went for a brown wood (as most do) , but there is a contemporary record of buying paint for pikes.  Which could be clear preservative, mahogany wood stain or match unit coat colours for all I know. 

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Dave remember that there are 3 types of knowledge, things we know, things we know we dont know, and things we dont know we dont know. Lots of contemporay sources don't metion something because at the time it was comon knowledge, so needed no mention. It is what makes reasearch fun. As to Ospreys they are normally pretty good, and last time I taught a course I told the students they could use Wickapedia but only as a starting point.

[DecemDave]

I totally agree     
I was trying to disclose my road to enlightenment and pessimism rather than condemn all Osprey guides.  I own lots of them.
And its not just unstated assumptions, mis-used sources and disputed facts, all sources were and are written by someone with  biases, a purpose, a focus on events/outcomes/moral lessons (not trivia to them like pike colours), a sponsor/paying audience to please and (in periods like the Commonwealth or Restoration) a need to be careful who they criticise.     


   

[mmcv]

To be fair I use the "pikes were painted or stained in different colours" excuse with myself when I can't remember (or run out of) what brown I used on a previous batch... 

I did experiment with painting them actual colours but it looked a bit off. I think there is at least one reference I came across a year or two back of some regiment (Cornish?) having coloured (blue?) pikes, though it was unclear if the pikes were coloured or they just had coloured fabric attached

[DecemDave]

or they just had coloured fabric attached :-

At Last! The true origin of Morris Dancers revealed 

[cudders]

I gave up with looking at the histories of colours etc as the vast majority are unknown.

Same with the flags.

I've just gone with generic coat colours of the period and contrasting flags. I'll be using labels once I start my campaign so can use any unit as required.

Life's too short IMO. Now where's that one hair brush for those butttons  :- 

Cudders