Slitherine

To capitalise on finding my figure painting mojo again I'm thinking of starting a 15/18mm ECW army - specifically an English Royalist one, but obviously a lot of figures will morph

So looking for recommendations or suggestions for which figures to go for.

I'm thinking of not using "the usual suspects" and branching out to a manufacturer or manufacturers I haven't used before, or maybe just for the occasional purchase. So, through no fault of their own, I'm not looking at Essex, Donnington or Testudo figures. I prefer figures that tend to the 18mm end of the scale, but am OK with those close to the 15mm end - eyesight and old age are a factor here

Some specific things I am looking for in the figures are:

Cavalrymen using both pistols and swords and not just swords
Dutch pots for cavalry helms and not English 3 bar ones (well, maybe the odd one or two)
Some infantry in montero caps (as the Oxford army seems to have been issued with these at times)
Musketeers without musket rests
Pikemen not in armour other than a helmet


All suggestions gratefully received.

Matchlock Miniatures (now part of Minifigs) do a number of options in their ECW range that might work for you. For example, there are 30 variations of pikemen and 32 of musketeers.

Given that they were supposedly designed after consultation with leading ECW re-enactment groups, I would add a second vote for Matchlock - especially given your other stated preferences.

In the light of your liking for cavalry figures with pistols, and if you don't mind horses with backsides that would make JLo stop and stare, Minifigs might be worth a look. Be aware though, absolutely no infantry in monteros other than the odd drummer, and no pose variation.

RonanTheLibrarian wrote:Given that they were supposedly designed after consultation with leading ECW re-enactment groups, I would add a second vote for Matchlock - especially given your other stated preferences.

As they appear to have virtually no pictures on the web site it is a bit difficult to judge them ... pictures are a pretty basic thing to have these days, no real excuse for not having them IMO.

Means I'm unlikely to bother with them.

In the light of your liking for cavalry figures with pistols, and if you don't mind horses with backsides that would make JLo stop and stare, Minifigs might be worth a look. Be aware though, absolutely no infantry in monteros other than the odd drummer, and no pose variation.

Rather rubbish then

Re. pictures - you can see quite a lot of Matchlock figures (albeit painted, and often not well) if you go onto eBay and type in "15mm ECW"; I can highlight a few for you if you want. Otherwise, I agree with you entirely about not having them up on the website. If you can "see past" the crap paint jobs, they are actually quite nice figures.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-ecw-16-c ... SwLzdWSNQ3
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-ecw-8-ca ... SwIwhWSLUn
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-ecw-36-i ... SwkZhWSNX9
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-ecw-16-i ... SwkZhWSLNx

Re. Minifigs - to be honest, they aren't the worst of the 1980s "remakes" and (despite my comment) the horses are waaaaay better than the Napoleonic ones. You can actually see those on http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Cat ... tegoryID=8 - go for ECW and Early/Mid 17thC Europe. I'm not sure how accurate the descriptions are, the original individual figures (c.1977 - and much nicer, IMO) seemed to just be an exercise in covering every clothing combo, which is what you want..... except they didn't do monteros for some reason (in either case, or either range).

Just found some unpainted lots:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-Matchloc ... SwHMJYDg16

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-Matchloc ... SwA3dYDgzm

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15mm-Matchloc ... Sw44BYDg5d

Peter Pig?

RonanTheLibrarian wrote:Re. pictures - you can see quite a lot of Matchlock figures (albeit painted, and often not well) if you go onto eBay and type in "15mm ECW";

Thanks for all those links

Must admit they don't look too bad at all.

vexillia wrote:Peter Pig?

Some of those look to be the sort of thing I'm after.

Do you know what sort of size the figures are? I seem to recall their WotR range was a bit smaller than Essex so am thinking the ECW may also be.

PP are definitely close to "true" 15mm. However, they do have horse with pistols (and swords), and foot in monteros.

These look interesting - http://www.bluemoonmanufacturing.com/in ... cat_id=170

IIRC Old Glory UK carry Blue Moon.

Matchlock are very nice, and may well work with PP. they are both 15mm 15's

I have a unit of them on my site linked from the manufacturers index

The Totentanz figures are nice too, but not sure if they are ECW enough for you. Hey are quite big so may be a match wig Blue Moon

Cheers, useful info

I am tending to the Peter Pig figures at present - something about them appeals even though the cavalry don't quite have exactly what I am after (missing Dutch pots basically, but I can live with that).

Nik
If you are using ECW or TYW type figures and idea is to give the standard bearers fine brass tubing. Then put your standards on fine piano wire, give the wire a small kink 1/2 way down an then insert into the brass tubing. The kink stops the flag moving with the tilt of the figure.

Them you can make as many flags as you want and the troops will follow!!

The tubing is SPECIAL SHAPES ROUND BRASS TUBING: 1/32 - Code number: TT61
The piano wire is: .015" Code KS498
Drill METRIC 0.85mm or 1mm will do.

I wish I could take credit for this but no the idea was from Ray Boyles who has some super ideas!!

For figures I like Museum especially their cavalry.

Peter Pig do separate heads e.g. with lobster helmet open. It is section on their main page.

http://www.peterpig.co.uk/heads.html

titanu wrote:Nik
If you are using ECW or TYW type figures and idea is to give the standard bearers fine brass tubing. Then put your standards on fine piano wire, give the wire a small kink 1/2 way down an then insert into the brass tubing. The kink stops the flag moving with the tilt of the figure.

Them you can make as many flags as you want and the troops will follow!!

I wondered about something like that for my TYW figs - but in the end just went with extra bases with different flags on

Well I've gone with Peter Pig. Ordered today and 80 mins later get an email saying they are in the post - can't fault that sort of service

May well paint them up as Newcastle's army - well, as far as one can within the limitations of the evidence

Dip them in whitewash...

Then paint on the black stripes...

LOL!