Sir Arthur Erskine of Scotscraig’s, the Ministers’ Regiment of Foot - Completed

I actually had these four elements of pike men painted and based last weekend, but they were only just done late on Sunday night and then early (0400) Monday morning, my wife and I headed off to the airport for a short 4 day break in Sydney NSW - so I have only got around to posting these now...

As with a previous ECW unit, I was unable to fit all the elements into my "photo box", so as the musketeer elements have already appeared on their own, I decided just to cut them off in the first two group photos!

 Above are the command and three pike elements together

 The next three images are close ups of the command and pike elements

A final view of all four elements from a slightly different angle.

As far as I can work out, all these figures are Foundry/Perry designed, but there may be one or two form a different manufacturer - however, they all seem to work well together. They are wearing primarily black but I have added some blue and hodden grey for some interest, and the officers as usual have some fancier clothes, finished off with some plaid to indicate their Scotishness!. The flag is not necessarily the correct one but the Covenanters regimental colours are pretty much a standard design and a black based saltire seemed a reasonable choice (and in any case, I had already fitted it to the ensigns pole before deciding to paint this unit...!)

Covenanter "Preacher"

I have been struggling for motivation the last couple of days, mainly because I have very little in the way of unpainted lead!

I found this chap though, who is actually an Old Glory pirate but seemed to me to fit the bill as an armed Covenanting Minister of the Auld Kirk, reading from the Good Book to inspire my Scots troops to deeds of glory in the Lords name!

ECW Covenanter Regiment

Here are the four musketeer elements of my next Covenanter unit. These are mostly Foundry figures but with a couple of Front Rank included. I just happened to have 12 in total so enough for four elements of three figures each. I do not have any pike men so will need to purchase some, probably from the Perry miniatures range

I have painted them all on black, to represent the so called "Ministers Regiment"....

Sir Arthur Erskine of Scotscraig’s, the Ministers’ Regiment of Foot

Active	1643 to 1646
Country	Scotland
Allegiance	Covenanter
Conflicts	First Civil War
	Second Civil War
Type	Foot
Colonel	Sir Arthur Erskine
Area Raised	Scotland
Coat Colour	Grey or Black??
Field Armies	Leven 1644-7

Covenanter Regiment of Foot raised by the Ministers of the Kirk, forming part of Leven’s army in England

Service History

1643

• September: Begin to be raised

1644

• January: Join Leven's army
• April to July: Siege of York
• 2nd July: Battle of Marston Moor
• July: Siege of York
• July: Quartered in Yorkshire
• August to October: Siege of Newcastle

1645

• July to September: Siege of Hereford
• November to May 1646: Siege of Newark

1646

• May to January 1647: Quartered in Northern England

1647

• February: Return to Scotland and disbanded

Coats, Flags & Equipment

Allegedly the regiment wore black coats made from old clerical garb donated by the Ministers of Scotland.

War of 1812 - Completing the Glengarry Light Infantry

With the packet of 6 Knuckleduster GGLI finally in my possession, I have painted them up to make the sixth element for each of the Old Glory units.

Here they are

 Above and below =- the two elements painted to match the OG units I did a few weeks ago - one with green trousers and the other in grey

 Above and below - the Knuckleduster elements teamed with an OG element in the same uniform - I think they match up quite well, although there are some obvious differences EG the Knuckleduster ones do not have a bayonet fitted

 Above and below - both groups from a different angle

"Okko" Skirmish Game

On Thursday I had several games of "Okko" with my regular opponent Julian. This is a board game based on a series of adventure comic magazines as per below:

Okko is a comic book published in a series of mini-series, or cycles. Originally published in France by Delcourt, Archaia Studios Press started reprinting the series in English in 2006. This series is intended for Mature Readers; it contains adult content, graphic violence, and nudity.
Written and illustrated by Hub with colors done by Hub (Humbert Chabuel) and Stephan Pecayo. The English translation was provided by Edward Gauvin.

Premise

The action of the first cycle of Okko takes place at the far end of the known lands of the Empire of Pajan. Pajan itself is a vast and diversified island, surrounded by a multitude of archipelagoes. Its name is derived from that of its Imperial Family. Though the Pajans have reigned for a millennium, in the last few decades three major families—the Ataku, the Bashimon, and the Yommo—have called into question their legitimacy and now refuse to cease their batles against the Imperial Family. These power struggles have destabilized the Empire, and famine and catastrophes follow one another. This period of chaos is commonly called the Era of Asagiri (the Time of Mists). The Okko series begins in the middle of this tumultuous period, in the year 1108 of the official calendar. The way of life and various habits of the inhabitants of the Empire of Pajan are rather close to those of medieval Japan.

The game is played with individual Samurai type figures, each with a card describing their attributes, 4 "special" dice with symbols on them that you role to gain extra powers  or skills listed on the characters cards, and one normal D6 for deciding combats etc. The playing surface is made up of four base tiles, approximately 12" square each, giving a gaming area of 2' x 2' - or 300mm x 300mm.

I had a very successful night with the dice and ended up winning all three games we played - sorry Julian!

The games only take about 20-30 minutes each so I did not take lots of pictures and the narrative will be quite minimal on the games we played

Above is the only photo of game one - an introductory skirmish we played so I could get a hang of the rules - Julian's last demon figure is in the foreground with my two figures behind it

Two of the character cards with the special attributes and their ability stats listed

 Another one of the figures I had in my group on two of the three scenarios we played

A couple more of the figures Julian has collected for this game - both of these were from his warband

The rule book that came with the game

A card telling the players the outcome of combat rolls

Above and below are the two new characters I had in my war band for the second game we played

I started on the nearest base line - the only way to win this game was to kill the opponents main "leader" figure. My leader was Setzuka, a one armed female samurai. She is in the picture above nearest the camera. Of to the left is Julian's Ninja who tried to sneek around the flank - in the move after this pic was taken, Setzuka dispatched him with her mighty Katana!

A couple of moves later - two of my band take on two of Julian's....note in the top left my leader Setzuka has caught Julian's leader figure

Setzuka killed the opposing leader and that was game two done and dusted

Game three and my team had to get an imperial messenger from one side of the table to the other - card above was the messenger figure

The last three photos show the action from the last game - again, I had LOTS of luck here with the dice. At one point, Julian's demon used a power to "float" across intervening figures and through walls to end up behind the Samurai messenger. Even though he was 2 or 3 up on me in the combat, he rolled a 1 and the Samurai a 6; he lost by 4 and the demon was killed!

At the end of this game, I still had all four figures on the table and Julian had none - so the messenger got through and we live to fight another day!

Covenanter Brigade Completed

Great what an absence of anything to paint can do for your motivation ...in the last couple of weeks I have finished off three regiments of ECW Scots, that I have had lying around, some painted, the majority still bare metal, for about eight years!

I seem to have managed to create one extra command element, but that's no problem as I also still have a full regiments worth (12 figures) of musketeers. I just need to obtain an additional number of pike men to create a fourth regiment. Additionally, I have enough Perry ECW musketeers to create a fifth unit, so I am looking at getting some Perry pike men too!

And to end on a real high note, my missing Knuckleduster Glengarry Light Infantrymen, ordered on 10 May and dispatched on 17 July, finally turned up at my house today - so they will be painted up over the next day or two!

 Above and below, the four most recently completed Covenanters

 Above close up of the command element

 Above and below - I redid these twice and STILL messed it up - just noticed two of the shot elements on the right rear unit are not positioned properly - but I am not pulling them all out of the box AGAIN so these will have to do!

 Above and below - the three Covenanter regiments advancing through wheat fields...en route for Marston Moor perhaps?

Finishing off some War of 1812...and a few more Covenanters....

I FINALLY received a package from Caliver - not the missing 6 Knuckleduster Glengarry Light Infantrymen that I ordered on 11 May - but a compensatory packet they were kind enough to offer me due to the fact I have been waiting for half my May order for over two months!

So apparently the Glengarries were posted on 17 July and the US Infantry in summer field uniform on 22 July. The latter arrived about 2 August but the former have still not been seen!

Anyway, I painted these six up as the last element for the 14th and 22nd US Infantry regiments. Having found some references to a grenadier company with red plumes in some US regiments, I decided to paint these up to represent such a company for each regiment. This also helps cover up/explain the minor differences in the uniform EG the plume in the front centre of the shako rather than on the left side!

Below are some images of both, alongside an Old Glory element from the same regiment, for comparison. They do seem to be very similar in size and style, so fit together quite well.....

 First up is the 14th Infantry in tan coats with red facings - Old Glory on the left, Knuckleduster on the right

 Above - rear view of the two elements, again. OG left and Knuckleduster to the right

 And here are the two elements of the 22nd Infantry in the buff coats with green facings - OG to the left again

The rear view of the 22nd Infantry


Also completed this week are some more of the Renegade ECW figures I have had in a cupboard for about 8 years. Its funny how once you get going, you can rediscover an enthusiasm for painting a particular period - now I am looking at buying some more ECW Covenanters to expand my collection of these guys - possibly I will go with hard plastics from Warlord who do Scots infantry and cavalry in this medium

 Above and below - the two additional elements of pike men and a command element with the standard of the Earl of Sutherlands Regiment

 Below - the same pike elements with the standard of Balfour of Burleighs Regiment

 Above - command element with Balfour of Burleighs Regiment standard - below, command element with the standard of the Earl of Sutherlands Regiment. The flags both come from a blog called the Auldearn Project