Warlord Games Pike & Shotte Cuirassiers

Although the Royalist were not known to have many fully armored cavalry units, went ahead and gave them a conjectural Royalist flag. Hope to get a box of Scots Lancers to oppose them someday.

They painted up fairly quickly being mostly armored, except for the musician. 

In keeping with the rest of the Royalist cavalry, their saddle cloth are painted blue with white trim. This simplifies identification of units on the table.

I've been using a brown spray paint to basecoat the horses, and then brush on varying browns over it. This really speeds up painting cavalry. I vary horse tails and manes with black and buff.

Building back up my ECW collection is a longterm project, which I am not in any rush to finish. It's enjoyable, and a sort of hobby within a hobby.

Thank you for your visits and kind comments as always. Best regards to you all.

Back From Hawaii

Just got back from visiting my family in Hawaii early (1:30am-ish) Wednesday morning. I spent the two weeks there nursing both my 94 year old mom, and her elderly and ill little dog. My older brother, who lives with her, called me several weeks ago thinking my mom was on her last leg. She hadn't been eating much, and staying in bed almost all day. I made her breakfast every morning and she was eating all of her meals. By the time I was leaving, she had improved dramatically, both physically and mentally. We also started in home care service for her a few times a week - starting today (my brother just called, and he said it went very well). Anyway, I spent most of my days at home, which is only about 10 minutes walking distance to Waikiki. I found souvenir tiki keychains like the ones I bought off of ebay - at a very inexpensive price, in one of the numerous ABC stores along Waikiki.

The lighting gave them a washed out look in the photo - they're a little darker in person.

As you can see, the two new tikis and the .49 cents ABC store shopping bag were less than $10 total.

Green Stuff for the tikis' foundation base, and prior to drybrushing; the earlier two tikis are above them.

According to Ancient Hawaiian religion, there were four main gods - Kāne (the god of creation and the sky), Kū (the god of war), Lono (the god of peace and fertility), and Kanaloa (the god of the ocean). These four tikis can represent them guarding a sacred area, which can be a victory condition for an attacker to reach, and take some sacred item there.

In addition to the tikis, I based and primed the Warlord Games Pike & Shotte Cuirassiers and several mounted commanders.

All in all, I was happy to help get my mom back in good health, but it was very hot and humid the whole time there - and they don't have central air at the house. Also, I was a bit worried about my flight back to Washington as a downgraded hurricane with heavy winds and rain blew in a few days before I was to leave. On the gaming front, I'm scheduled to host an Imjin War naval game next month at Fort Steilcoom's Fix Bayonets game day. I was supposed to host this game last week at the Veterans Memorial Museum, but had to cancel due to my unexpected trip to Hawaii. Thanks again for stopping by, and wishing you all the best.

ECW Pike & Shotte Project Update

The project is up to 6 units each of pike & shotte and cavalry, thanks in no small part to my buddy kindly gifting me back two units each of those - including my dear Scots! I had kept my King Charles vignette and Prince Rupert and Boye command stand. My buddy is into Thirty Years War, specifically the Swedish phase, and not into the ECW, anyway.

In addition to these painted figures, I just received a couple more  boxes of foot from ebay, as well as a big order (for me) from Noble Knight Games. The Noble Knight order includes the Ordanance battery, cuirassiers, another box of foot, a saker gun, and several mounted commanders. I will have to hold off on painting them for a few weeks, as I'm heading to Hawaii in a couple of days to visit my family. 

I may update the blog while in Hawaii if I stumble into any hobby-related stuff, but I'm actually going to help out my brother whose been taking care of our 94 year old mom by himself. Until next time, wising you all the best.