Border Reiver Project 4: First wash

The next step was to apply an overall light wash - light in colour and light in thickness. Washes are easy to apply and gentle on brushes. I use a GW Wash Brush. In this case the wash is a light yellow-brown (Coat d'arms 228 Buff ) appropriate to the predominant 'uniform' colour which in this case are the jacks with which most of these figures are kitted.

Coincidentally, brown is also the best colour for leaving in the shadows although most of that will be contributed by the final stain. Brown is also the main colour of clothing, hair, and weapons, though I will probably be using additional, different browns to pick those out. Humble Border clothing was typically a dark 'hodden grey', but that was actually more brown than grey.

Now, I could have mixed brown into the gesso undercoat, replacing two jobs with one. The brown wash, however, brings the figures into relief and gives them more definition and this will make the detail easier to see. That's the theory. I'm not entirely convinced it's very significant. The initial wash is very light in colour because I want to be able to add other washes over the top of it.

As with the white undercoat, I go through the figures again to touch up the wash. I don't want to discover any white patches or specs at a later date. This is a good time to review the forces.

Reivers. Front row: Reiver Household (two units as Forlorn Hope). Dog handler with bloodhounds (personality figure). Mounted Reivers. Back row: Reiver Retainers (two units as Clansmen). March Warden (who should really be with the forces of law and order in the next photo).

Garrison and Militia. Front row: two units of Bows (as Shot). Second row: light gun and two units of Shot.  Back row: three units of pike.

Animals, Civilians and 'Tudor Rebellion' figures. Front row: sheep and shepherd, cattle and cowherd, assorted and pitiable Border civilians. Second row: Gentlemen Adventurers (including a Lady Adventurer), Rabble.

Some of the figures weren't quite dressed for the Borders so the project has grown into the area of 'Tudor Rebellion' - Protestant against Queen Mary or Catholic (or unprincipled opportunist) against Good Queen Bess. When playing Tudor Rebellion rather than Border conflicts, the Garrison troops will be split between a Royalist force and defecting militia throwing in their lot with the Rebels.

Comparison of 28mm Border Reiver samples

The 28mm Timeline Miniatures from Hoka Hey Wargaming will be forming the heart of my Border Reiver collection for playing Pikeman’s Lament as they have that true Border character but I will be supplementing them with some other useful Elizabethan models from the Foundry 'Sea Dogs and Swashbucklers' range which were said to match in height and bulk.

Before sending large orders I decided to get a sample packet of each just to check. I can now personally confirm that both ranges conform to the so-called 'heroic 28mm' size, i.e. they are really 30mm from top of the head to soles of the feet.

Top: Timeline. Bottom: Foundry

The Timeline Reivers were originally sculpted by the late Jim Bowen and are now sold by Alan Rudd. I had a minor query about horses which Alan kindly answered by phone. Foundry is of course a much more corporate enterprise.

Both ranges are nicely animated, clean, and robust, and this style is very much to my taste. I guess the Foundry ones are a little chunkier and deeper-cut but they won't be distinguishable by the time they are fully painted and based.

The seadog-style ‘shorts’ worn by some figures in the Foundry range may need a little conversion to better represent the more baggy hose worn by the 'lower orders' on land. There will also be Garrison troops, and everything may also double up as English Royal and Rebel armies if I want a change of scene.

Heigh-ho! Khurasan Elizabethan English

English High Command

It was way back in 2013 that I started playing Irregular Wars and began collecting 15mm figures for Elizabethan English and Irish armies. Although supplemented with figures from other manufacturers, the core of this collection was the superb Khurasan Irish. Since then I've eagerly awaited the appearance of the Khurasan English.

In 2014 I was heavily involved in playtesting the second edition of Irregular Wars, but this was with counters rather than figures. I subsequently completed Portuguese and Dutch armies using real lead, but the Irish have languished in boxes unpainted, awaiting their English counterparts.

The weeks turned into months, and the months into years with the occasional return to Khurasan's website to see if they were coming. I noticed the gradual addition of some Spanish and then, in December, the arrival of the English. Well, better late than never, but four years' wait is a disappointingly long time to say the least. The figures are again absolutely superb and I've already ordered my first batch.

Impetus: A rather telescoped Pavia

View from the main French force: Gendarmes,
arquebusiers, Black Band, artillery.

I've previously played a few games of Impetus but not with my own figures and not set in the gunpoweder era. It was thus a great if somewhat delayed pleasure to table my 25/28mm Early Italian Wars armies in a recreation of Pavia 1525. My armies were originally raised in the 1970s and have been supplemented with some eBay purchases, but they have not been used in a game for at least twenty years and probably longer.

I apologise for the look of the bases which are temporary card affairs. Rebasing has been a saga in itself. When I was first planning to try Impetus, I put the figures on temporary 80mm frontages (intended for 15mm figures) to give myself more real estate on the tabletop, but the three-base pike blocks ended up deeper than they were wide and that didn't look right.

Elizabethan Small Wars: Part 3: Irregular Wars - 30mm vs 40mm basing?

Galloglasses. Left: 3 figures on a 30mm x 30mm base.
Right: 5 figures on a 40mm x 40mm base.

Basing choice is a major bane of planning wargame armies. Irregular Wars calls for square bases. 30mm x 30mm is suggested for 15mm figures but 40mm x 40mm (using sabots if necessary) is allowed to accommodate figures already based for other rules, e.g. DBR. As I don't already have any finished 15mm pike-and-shot era figures I'm faced with a choice.

The figures in the illustrations are all from Khurasan's excellent new Irish Renaissance range. I'm planning to publish better pictures in a future instalment.

Elizabethan Small Wars: Part 2: Background Reading

I thought I'd follow this project through here in more detail, so I'll begin with the main references I have to hand. These are:

Irish Battles, G A Hayes-McCoy (Appletree)
From Clontarf (1014) to Arklow (1798) this is the best book on its subject.

The Irish Wars 1485-1603, Ian Heath and David Sque (Osprey)
Thanks to the old WRG range of uniform books, Ian Heath has been my staunchest authority for uniform detail throughout my miniatures painting career.

Armies of the 16th Century, Ian Heath (Foundry)

Galloglass 1250-1600, Fergus Cannan (Osprey)
This is a new acquisition. Ospreys can vary. This one looks good.

The Border Reivers, Keith Durham & Angus McBride (Osprey)
Another good Osprey with good illustrations of Elizabethan clothing. I may move on to the Borders later.

Renaissance Armies 1480-1650, George Gush (PSL)
An old book, but it still provides a good overview.

British Military Uniforms From Contemporary Pictures, W Y Carman's  (Spring)
Another old book but it may have some information of interest.

For more general background, I also have John Sturt's Revolt in the West and Anthony Fletcher's Tudor Rebellions. There are some other titles I might find in my book collection and I've ordered a few other books which I will mention later if and where relevant.

One clothing issue I've encountered already is the question of sleeveless doublets. Despite the assumptions of Hollywood as well as some re-enactors and illustrators, it appears that sleeveless doublets were rare. I guess that if you are going to wear a jacket it might as well have sleeves, and that shirts were regarded as underwear and not normally exposed except when doing heavy labour. This will be important when painting English and similar infantry.

Elizabethan Small Wars

I share the popular English fascination with the Elizabethan period, but it has so far escaped my attentions as a wargamer (except for the 1/2400 Spanish Armada and English ships languishing on my lead mountain). Currently averse to taking on any more large painting commitments, I was very taken with the scale of operations in Nicholas Wright's Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End.

Although open to change in figure scale and extendable to larger battles, the basic game uses a modest number of 15mm figures on a 2' x 2' table. The figures are mounted on 30mm square bases in numbers varying from 2 (skirmishing types) to 8 (pikemen). Armies consist of about 12-15 bases forming a battle. You can add additional battles and an extra foot in table width for each one.