Elizabethan Small Wars: Part 4: Irregular Wars - Mere Irish

I've been collecting 15mm figures for my Irregular Wars 'Mere Irish' Battle. 'Mere' is today a slighting term but originally meant 'pure', i.e. it designated the native Gaelic Irish. Galloglass and Kerns are compulsory in the army list before 1600 and Pike and Shot after 1600, but all types are usable across the divide. In 'set piece' battles there are 5 additional options which take the form of x1, xD2 or xD3 etc companies. So for any option you have to allow for more units than you might actually get to field on the table.

I'm currently planning the following units. Each unit is a company/base. Most of the figures are Khurasan Renaissance Irish, but others will be conscripted where required. I decided in the end to go with the standard 30mm square bases as I felt that larger bases would crowd the battlefield too much and alter the game. I could increase the playing area to compensate for larger bases but I want to keep the game compact and not too demanding on painting time.

2 Pike

2 Shot

3 Galloglass

4 Kerns

4 Horse

3 Bonnachts

3 Kern marksmen

2 Redshanks

1 Priest

I was also going to add some Spanish Targeteers but I think I'll postpone that and do a whole 'Spanish Expeditionary Force' Battle once Khurasan have released their Spanish range. For each extra Battle, you add a foot in width. Given that my club like multiplayer games, it will be good to be able to deploy a couple of Battles per side.

Pike. All Khurasan. The end figure is an ensign from the command pack.

Light box for photographing miniatures

I thought it was time to improve the photos of miniatures used here so I knocked up a simple light box. There are loads of articles on how to do it if you Google for them.

I used an old cardboard box. I cut widows in the top and sides and covered them with tracing paper. This diffuses the light. The white card inside is curved and produces a continuous bottom and back surface. I suppose this took me about an hour to make.

I already have a desk lamp with a daylight bulb which I will use to light the box from above. Ideally I would also have lamps at the sides. This should provide a good environment. Improving my photography will require more study and experiment.

Hexon Assembly with Kallistra

A very useful video from Kallistra about the right way to set up Hexon terrain. Sally demonstrates how it should be done with the utmost efficiency.

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.

Maurice trial with counters

As expected, my trial Seven Years War game of Sam Mustafa's 18th Century Maurice rules confirmed that they are dramatic, exciting and fun. It was also a trial of my MDF counters, so figure manufacturers may wish to look away now! 

Each side had a team of two players whilst I acted as a less than perfect teacher and umpire, having read but not played through the rules before. But the players were quick to pick them up and play was smooth despite necessary checks for confirmation and detail.  This was a tribute to their clarity and user-friendliness, and a great deal of cunning design beneath their apparent simplicity.

As this was an exploratory game to try out the main mechanisms of the rules I restricted the armies to Trained Regulars, put down just a couple of woods for the terrain and dispensed with Scouting. No advanced rules were used. Otherwise play proceeded as normal, or, at least, as close to normal as I could discern from my limited understanding and experience.

I advised both sides to deploy historically. The Austrians were in defence with 6 infantry units, 4 cavalry and 3 artillery. Splitting the artillery was against my advice! As this was only a training game I didn't provide an objective, but I added it later in case the Prussians showed lack of aggression. I didn't really need to worry on that score.

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.

Warfare at Reading and the other sides of Kallistra

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Warfare at Reading for the first time. It's a fairly typical wargames show. On the plus side the bring-and-buy area was unusually well organised and accessible. On the minus side the games tables were unusually crowded  together and inaccessible.

The trade area was as per normal and I had an interesting chat with Paul and Sally Kerrison of Kallistra. Kallistra's Hexon II is a well-known and, indeed, brilliant system for transferring the digital precision of boardgaming to the analogue world of miniatures. What seems to be surprisingly overlooked, however, is Kallistra's range of miniatures and its Hexon-orientated rules.

It's not a race

This blog has now reached 20,000 pageviews - thanks for looking. I hope you've found things of interest or use.

For my own part I find blogging a useful way of thinking aloud, especially when mapping out new enthusiasms. In fact, blogging about these has proved to be a great substitute for actually spending money on figures and models which would most probably just end up on the lead mountain! Although the virtual lead mountain of declared but unfulfilled intentions is more public and equally embarrassing, it costs virtually nothing and doesn't require any physical storage space.

I've even found a parallel solution to cure my rampant book buying. I now add books to my Amazon Wish List instead of hitting the Buy Now button. Before I get round actually to ordering them the respective enthusiasm is most likely to have been replaced by a new one.