For King and Parliament is on sale!

It's done! My latest Cobalt Peak Game Design commission job is finished and Simon has the rules on sale now in his BigRedBatShop. In Simon's own words...

TtS! “For King and Parliament” is a simple set of wargames rules for the Civil Wars in England (and Scotland and Ireland) of the mid-Seventeenth Century.

Written by myself and Andrew Brentnall, they use mechanisms that will be immediately familiar to players of the popular “To the Strongest!” ancient and medieval rules. Using For King and Parliament, a battle can be fought and won (or lost!) on a dining room table in less than two hours. The same rules, however, also support huge battles, involving thousands of miniatures and up to five players a side. The use of subtle grids dispenses with the need for measurement- and consequently play moves along at a cracking pace.

A unique activation system driven by playing cards or numbered chits introduces uncertainty; in some turns a regiment will fly across the battlefield; in others it will stubbornly remain rooted to the spot. The same deck is used to swiftly resolve shooting and melee; no dice, whatsoever, need be rolled! Special rules model the various firing systems used by the foot, and the occasionally uncontrollable nature of ECW horse.

The rules are written in plain English, and illustrated with appropriate diagrams, photographs and period images, sample army lists, examples of play and an introductory scenario.

Having read the rules in detail myself whilst doing the layout I can attest to the quality of the writing and attention to detail. Simon and Andrew are to be congratulated on delivering a streamlined, highly playable set of rules without sacrificing any period flavour. I was so impressed that before the layout was even half finished I'd already embarked on a new project of my own, all set up to play using For King and Parliament.

Thanks again Simon for the opportunity to be involved. As always it was great fun and tremendously rewarding to help you bring this to life.

Cheers,
Millsy

The Scottish Project

Ah, the heady delights of a new project! This week the last bits and pieces arrived so I can now begin work on [drumroll...] The Scottish Project! That's right, a new year and a new project. Not to say that the 55 Days at Peking project or the Warhammer Fantasy Empire project and going to be neglected, just um... "sharing my attention" with my new baby.

Like a certain play be Shakespeare I cannot speak it's name. Actually that's complete bollocks, but it was a good opening so what the hell. Anyway, my new project begins today - recreating the Battle of Auldearn in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in 10mm and using Simon Miller's forthcoming For King and Parliament rules.

The whole box and (quite literally) dice. Everything I need to get cracking

Miniatures

Fortunately for me Pendraken Miniatures have a comprehensive and quite lovely range in 10mm which fulfills all my needs to cover both sides of the conflict. I'm starting, as any loyal subject of the King would, with Montrose and his forces.

One of the benefits of 10mm is cost and I was able to source all the miniatures and most of the flags required for under A$130 including shipping. Last night I spent an enjoyable hour or so divvying everything up into units.

Orders of Battle

With Simon's help and plenty of reading I've assembled an order of battle for both sides. The units involved won't change much from here although the unit stats might get tweaked a little over time once I've seen how things play out on the table top.

The Covenanters are numerically superior but inferior in quality and short on commanders, meaning the additional units will be less effective overall and harder to manoeuvre as well.

Basing Arrangement

One of the strengths of For King and Parliament is the lack of off-table record keeping and I've stretched that to the max in how I'm basing and recording data.

Units will sit on a single 90mm x 50mm base, with miniatures occupying the front 2/3 of the base and the rear 1/3 reserved for unit name and dice holders for recording experience/hits, ammunition and dash (if cavalry). The right-hand (7mm) dice holder will contain the hits dice, green for "raw", yellow for "seasoned" and blue for "experienced". The one or two left-hand dice holders will contain the ammo and dash dice.

Basing Style

I want a really atmospheric highland feel for the bases so I'm going over-the-top on tufts and bushes. This is the look I'm going for...

Photo credit "Must See Scotland - Flowers of Scotland"
https://must-see-scotland.com/flowers-of-scotland/

Martin from Tajima1 very kindly did a custom order for me (in record time no less!) and created heather tufts in a matched purple colour using his "moss mix" tufts as a base. Combined with the same moss mix tufts I should be able to get a close approximation of the dense highland ground cover above.

And that's about where I'm at right now. Time to kick on and actually paint something!

Cheers,
Millsy

ECW AAR: Second Battle of Curmudgeon Moor

Today I had a couple of fellow Aussie bloggers visit Chez Millsy (Paul of The Man Cave and Alan of Dux Homunculorum). Between us we managed to have a cracking time using a fair proportion of my 28mm English Civil War collection to re-fight a battle I played last year - Curmudgeon Moor.

The scenario requires a Parliamentarian force to break through a blocking Royalist force. Paul played the Royalists and Alan took command of the Parliament forces. The sharp eyed amongst you will notice both sides flying Royalist colours... I simply won't have any rebels living in the house!

We used Clarence Harrison's (Quindia Studios) wonderful and FREE Victory Without Quarter rules and as they have before they produced a fast paced, entertaining game without sacrificing any period feel.

I won't go into great detail but I will highlight a few of the main talking points...

The Royalist gallopers made a strong showing in the face of enemy foot before refusing to charge home and eventually fled the field in disarray after some lethal volleys of musket fire. The shame!

The Royalist culverin did sterling work in seeing of a unit of veteran gallopers and then assisting in seeing off a second unit of the same with assistance from a unit of pike and shotte.

The Parliament dragoons made good use of their horses to flank the Royalists before being held up by a stoic defence by a unit of clubmen - the clientèle of Ye Three Leggged Duck Publick House.

Despite Paul fielding a unit of freshly painted Scots commanded shotte he was able to hold up the Parliament right flank and defend the church of Our Lady of Negotiable Virtue before retiring in good order. Who says fresh paint always means a sound thrashing for a unit???

The battle finished a draw as night closed in. Alan's Parliament forces were slowly getting the upper hand but Paul and the Royalists still held the road and were not in any mood to surrender of break off.

Here's the rest of the photos I took. I'm sure the Paul and Alan will have some more to share too.

Great company and and a load of colourful lead on the table. What's not to like?

Cheers,
Millsy

Paint Table Saturday: ECW Scots Foote

These last 16 miniatures for my ECW project have been lurking in a cupboard for a good long while now. Without any command figures I just couldn't see much point in painting them, however I found a reason early this week...

Tomorrow Paul (of The Man Cave fame) and Alan (of Dux Homunculorum fame) are visiting Chez Millsy along with one or two local lads for a big ECW battle. I spent a couple of hours last weekend lovingly crafting a scenario which I duly fired off to the crew.

Mid-week I set to working out which units I'd need and realised I'd goofed - I was one unit of commanded shotte short. Never one to admit I can't count (is this an admission?) I had to paint another unit sharpish. They're done now and I'm sure will embarrass Paul by running for their lives at the first enemy volley. Oh well...

Cheers,
Millsy

28mm Royalist ECW Army on Parade

The mighty army of his most Royal Highness Charles I,
by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

I've been promising for some time to get my entire ECW army out and photograph it so people can have a gander. Well, this afternoon I finally got round to it. Just setting things up took the best part of 90 minutes but when you look through the photos you'll understand why. Photographing something of this size without the benefit of a studio presents a range of challenges and overall I'm pretty happy with the images despite that.

In total there are 12 commanders (mounted and on foot), 68 horse, 252 foot, 4 guns and 12 crew. In unit terms it is 2 x lifeguard (1 in cuirass), 4 x regular horse, 1 x mounted dragoons, 2 x dismounted dragoons, 5 x pike and shotte, 1 x clubmen, 4 x artillery and a bunch of command including the King, Rupert (and Boye!), Edmund Verney, a Scout Master, Master Gunner and others.

The miniatures are predominantly Renegade and Bicorne but there's also Foundry, Redoubt and even a few Essex mixed in. Every single one was painted by me, many of them during Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge over the last 3 years. Cheers Curt!

Anyway, enough blather. Time to let the photos do the talking. Remember to click for the full sized images...

I hope you've enjoyed the photos. Please leave comments. The hits are all very nice but it's the interaction with our followers that makes this all worthwhile. :-)

Cheers,
Millsy