The Loose Association of Wargamers

Having had a bit of a breakthrough getting satisfactory results with the Contrast Painte, I’m seriously considering jump-starting a long dead project: 28mm ECW.

I had bought a ton of these back before Warlord as as big as it is now. So many that I had some sort of special customer status back in their early days.

Thinking the dip would enable me to paint all 1000 of them in a weekend, I got quite a few of them. Sadly I didn’t care for the dip, nor did I enjoy painting these early plastics conventionally. To many undersized undercuts, etc. that said, for the time, they were good.

Now with CP, I seem to have found a method that is speedy and delivers a result I’m satisfied with.

My question: Which early battle to build
Forces for? Discuss...

Aren’t they all largely interchangeable....?

Not quite, the early regiments are a bit flouncy, the arrival of the New Noddle brought a dourer professionalism and then you’ve got the Scots. But you can get away with a lot of interchangeability.

I’d start with the First Bishops War and work my way up but I’ve seen Edgehill done as a demo game and it looked like a lot of fun, cavalry all over the place.

There’s an excellent set of scenario books done by Partizan Press (author Robert Giglio) which covers the smaller to middling engagements and you could probably do them on a 1:1 basis with 1,000 figures.

Played Edgehill a couple of times. It’s a good ‘un

One of our local groups put on Marston Moor in 28mm on a 16' X 5' table with a couple of thousand figures. Most impressive.

Another vote for Edgehill. You have a few uniformed regiments of foot(e) on the Parliamentarian side, but almost nothing on the Royalist side with everyone still in civvies; horse pretty much all looks alike right through the war, ranging from almost totally unarmoured (maybe a secret worn under the hat) to a big-wig's bodyguard in near full on cuirasser armour. This then works to your advantage as you have a lot of chaps who can change sides at the drop of a hat (or the swap of a flag, to be more accurate) and, as Mr Troop rightly points out, you have the holy grail of ECW wargaming - a 1:1 Big Skirmish with endless capacity for friendly fire due to the similar appearance of both sides.

Much appreciated. Been nearly a decade since I did any research on the period, which isn't so well-known here in the land of Old Glory. But knew I wanted to do a pre-New Model battle, Edgehill fits the bill. Obliged, gentlemen.

Also C F Wesencraft, with Pike and Musket, has loads of battles and oobs for the period as well.

Ok, now I'm thinking First Bishop's War.

Battle of Newburn, August 1640- your chance to sack Newcastle!