Guest Spot - London Lobsters

Steve Cooney was kind enough to send me photos of some more of his ECW troops last week.

He writes:

Thought you might like to take a look at a couple of photos of an ECW unit I just refinished.

It's Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s Cuirassier Regiment, the Heavy Cavalry of Sir William Waller’s Parliamentarian Army 1643. Figures are Hinton Hunt with a couple of recasts to make up the numbers; Officers and Cornet are Hinton Hunt conversions and the trumpeter is a Les Higgins conversion.

Steve is very skilled with his conversion work - a true master of the soldering iron. He has recently supplied me with a shed-load of French Napoleonic infantry; these are mostly old Der Kriegsspieler castings, which he has modified to lengthen the legs a little, to make them more directly compatible with Hinton Hunt. I'm working my way through these, retouching as necessary to freshen the colours and rejuvenate them a bit. Retouching is always a challenge - knowing when to stop is important, and I have the further benchmark of trying to make sure that the figures end up somewhere close to the quality of Steve's original paintwork!

Since there will be a delay before my proposed Bavarian project can start in earnest (I'm waiting for a shipment of figures, and have a lot more to order up), this job will serve to keep my eye in. Because I'm using many colours simultaneously, I've set up a proper (well, improvised) wet palette, which is a big help, saving time and cutting down the waste of paint.

These French troops will need a few weeks' work, and I also have to collect some suitable command figures for them, but once completed they will contribute most of another division for my Salamanca forces.

Thanks again, Steve.

Stripping & Grinding Dept - new kit

Well, it's here. With all due gratitude to everyone who provided advice and guidance, I ordered up a Proxxon rotary tool, and it has arrived, as have a couple of rather nifty little work-stand/clamp/things. I have the safety goggles, the bright lights and the Metallica teeshirt (all right, this last bit is a lie) - I am ready to set about those Bavarian plumes, as a kick-off project.

I'm a little nervous about the bulk and the weight of the tool itself - it's certainly more massive than a needle file or a scalpel. If I have difficulties I'll treat myself to the add-on flexible drive, which means you can leave the main tool on the desktop (or on your lap, as shown in a YouTube demo I was watching - that makes me a little nervous too, but OK). The flexible drive means that the thing you hold in your hand to work with is rather like a dentist's drill. I could carry out root-canal work on the Bavarian army.

Might make a start tomorrow, but it all certainly looks good, and the variable speed turns down v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w if you want - very quiet, no vibration. Now I need to work out the full details of my figure orders to 3 different suppliers, to make up my Stage 1 Bavarian OOB for 1809.

Busy-busy. Idle hands are the devil's playthings; an electric grinder in the hands of an idiot is kind of a dodgy proposition too, so I shall read the leaflets this evening. Onward and upward.

Can't Get No Grindin'

Such a device might be the answer to several questions I haven't even thought of...

Things are a bit overshadowed at present by another outbreak of Real Life. It is, inescapably, a time-of-life thing; further problems with the care of elderly relatives - this time my wife's family rather than my own, but it feels very much like more of the same. I hope and trust that things will be resolved soon in a satisfactory and comfortable manner, but the most obvious immediate difficulty (for us) is that the relative in question lives some distance away, so the Contesse is going to be driving long hours, and negotiating with overstressed social workers in yet another county. Having recently been through a similar episode with my own mother, we could have done with a bit of a break, I guess, but of course it is important that we help as much as we can. Blood, as you know, is famous for having a higher viscosity than other well-known liquids.

My Bavarian project has not yet made made much visible progress, but I am getting a feel for the available 20mm figures, and have a growing collection of samples, including a couple of very generous donations of vintage figures. In a few days I'll publish some size comparison pictures of what I have to work with. Really looks very promising, though - as you would expect with vintage castings - I am going to have to carry out some conversion work to provide sufficient command figures and - not a trivial point - sufficient variety of command figures. As discussed before, I'm happy to have entire battalions of crisply identical fusiliers, but having the self-same officer in every regiment is less satisfying.

Another issue requiring conversion work is the nippy question of plumes on Bavarian infantry. Only the grenadiers had plumes on the helmets (all right, the Jägers had them too, but not until some time later than my chosen 1809 context), so, for a couple of the brands of figures, a period of competent plume removal is approaching. Which (at last) brings me to the point of this post.

I was once the owner of a rather dinky little cordless Dremel, complete with accessory tools, some of which I never identified. I used it sparingly, to say the least. After about the fourth time I used it in anger the battery would no longer recharge, and that model does not allow a replacement part, and of course the guarantee had expired a small number of weeks earlier. Maybe the poor thing died of loneliness. More quality stuff in the landfill.

The Bavarians will require some conversion work, and I am freshly healed from a spell of very sore fingers after needle-filing epaulettes off a bunch of Spanish officers. I think I need to replace my Dremel. I checked out some cheaper brands - Silverline and Tacklife, for example - but the customer reviews were uniformly hostile, and there was a general theme to the messages: pay the extra, get something better.

Not recommended, apparently

So I need to get something small and hobby-ish, but it must be mains-powered, and I don't want to sell the house to fund it, but the cheapest brands seem to give problems - notably with the chuck attachment.

Anyone have experience of such a device, or a recommendation? I don't think that I shall require to re-machine motorcycle parts or anything - this will strictly be a device to assist a flaky dilettante like me with his toy soldiers. All views welcome. Anything which requires hearing protectors or similar is probably not what I'm looking for!

Care must be taken with all DIY projects

To revisit the title of this post, here is the Mighty Mr Morganfield - Muddy Waters to you - live in Germany in 1976.

Major Checkpoint

Time to have my yearly Sensible Look at what is on my list of projects - things that have been going on for a while, things which have crept in through a side entrance or otherwise jumped the queue (including Creeping Elegance items), and things that I want to start on, and which need a proper plan - or at least a better idea of what's involved.

A sanity check, in fact (or charity snack, as Cousin Dave would have put it) - always worthwhile, always throws up a few surprises and decision points, and sometimes gives an opportunity to start something fresh.

This morning's head-scratching produced the following:

Gaming (generally, like) -

Must make time to do some more ECW stuff, must set about organising another campaign (probably boardgame-based in the strategic department), and must do some more work on developing my in-house tweaked variants on C&CN, to allow for extreme ends of the action scale - i.e. smaller and larger than normal. For small actions, I'd like to develop my tactically-enhanced C&C package, in which units have a front and a formation, skirmishing appears in a more explicit form and there is even (perish the thought) a simple unit "quality" test to permit reactive changes of formation. For very large actions, I must have a proper look at C&CN Expansion #6, which deals with EPIC and similar multi-player games (all the more pressing because of the very welcome increase in the social side of my wargaming, in collaboration with Stryker and Goya); I must also do some more work on my Grand Tactical variant of C&CN, in which units are brigades, and weapon ranges and implied groundscale are halved (roughly).

One hefty byproduct of this is that I should also give serious thought to replacing my current battleboards with posh new ones in 18mm MDF - probably in a slightly larger size, and with the number of panels increased to allow games up to full EPIC or La Grande size C&CN. Daunting but probably worthwhile - however much work may have gone into repainting them, my present boards date back to 1972 or so, they are horrible (fragile) ½-inch chipboard, and life has not always been kind to them.

Organising and Painting Armies -

ECW - my armies are probably big enough, but because I bought in and retouched a load of pre-owned figures for Montrose's campaigns there is a proportion which is pretty scruffy - I mean scruffy enough for me to want to do something about it. This means getting in specific replacements for some dubious looking Scottish pikemen, and it probably means that I should get rid of a pile of spare lead which is not going to get painted. Hmmm. OK.

Peninsular War -

All Armies - I'd like to continue to progress my plan to change grouping and basing of generals and staff figures. Nice to do, but no rush.

French Army - I have enough figures for another Division for the Armée de Portugal - probably Bonet's - which will need to be painted and based. I'd like to get on with this, but it's not critical - nothing else depends on it. This is a conscious addition to the Grand Plan. There are some sappers and engineers to paint for siege activities.

This is the makings of the HLI - some fettling and puttying needed...

Anglo-Portuguese - I have the 71st Foot (HLI) on the bottletops to be painted. This may require me to add some more infantry units to make up a brigade to go with them. I'm thinking about this - I have stove-pipe figures which could become (for example) 50th Foot, and I'm sort of thinking about adding the 92nd Gordon Highlanders (don't have figures for these yet). I have a brigade of nice Portuguese infantry figures (4 line battalions and 1 of caçadores) from Hagen which need to be assembled (a bit) and painted, to fill a long overdue vacancy in the Seventh Divn. I also have some new Portuguese staff figures, which are interesting, and Hagen have also produced some splendid Portuguese cavalry - they haven't produced the command figures for these yet, but when they do I will be forced to replace my existing Portuguese cavalry (which are paint conversions based on Dutch-Belgian cuirassiers, as I recall).

1812 Spaniards - a couple more infantry battalions to paint up - nothing urgent.

1809 Spaniards - well now - I worked so hard to collect suitable castings that I now have far too many. This is tricky - it is very easy just to keep adding units to the OOB, but I need to stop this, and probably unload excess figures. I have two big Really Useful Boxes full of unpainted Spaniards, and they weigh a ton - probably a bit silly.

Form an orderly queue - Spanish grenadiers, and odd staff

I still have to finish off a battalion of grenadiers, and I'm also in conversation with Peter Bateman about replacing one of my hussar regts with a unit of converted Hinton-Hunts, which will be nearer the heart's desire.

Apart from that, from the existing lead heap, I have to paint up

- 1 further bn of converged grenadiers (Falcata)

- 2 bns of light infantry (mostly Falcata)

- 2 bns of Foot Guards (specially converted castings)

- 3 regts of Line Cavalry (Hagen)

- 1 regt of dragoons (Hagen)

- a group of infantry pioneers (Falcata)

- some more staff (NapoleoN, Falcata, home conversions)

- 1 more foot battery (mostly Hagen)

...and that's about it. Then I can get rid of the surplus figures, but this is going to hurt!

Something New - a Napoleonic Bavarian Army!

I've been looking at figure samples and swotting up on uniforms and OOBs. My intention is to aim at (as a first stage, anyway) a division of Lefebvre's VII Corps of 1809 - they can fight on the Danube and also against Andreas Hofer in the Tyrol (eventually, pending suitable figures - a campaign for which I have a strange fondness).

Thus my first effort will involve 8 line bns, 2 of jaegers, 2 or 3 regts of cavalry, 2 batteries and a few generals. I already have some figures - Ian very, very kindly sent me some surplus Hinton Hunts, with which I am delighted, and I'm working on building up a suitable stockpile. SHQ are suitable, there are some Hagen figures which look good (haven't got physical samples yet - as ever, size is everything). The Hintons are very nice - I like them - only slight problem with Hintons is that Uncle Marcus made all the Bavarian infantry with plumed helmets, which is only correct for grenadiers, so I would feel obliged to convert (and clone) deplumed fusiliers in goodish numbers. Art Miniaturen are a good source as well, but they are pricey and sometimes their figures are a little delicate for wargaming.

Anyway - early days, but I'm quite excited about this.

So much for sanity - have I decided what priority order these projects will jostle each other into? Well - nearly...

Better have a good rest, to gather my strength.

1809 Spaniards - Beremundo

The loneliness of command - under revised house rules, brigade commanders still don't get an ADC

Another senior officer for the Spaniards. This chap is a spare from a stock of Spanish cavalry I've had for a little over two years, waiting patiently in the paint queue. These are some of the figures I commissioned from Hagen - they paint up all right, I think?

This is Colonel Beremundo Ramirez de Arellano of the line cavalry unit Reina, who had the (brief) pleasure of commanding the brigade of cavalry at Uclés (13th Jan 1809).

Since he is a colonel, much of the prep work consisted of carefully filing off his epaulettes - hands are still sore this morning!

The Serial Turncoat

Always striving to get ahead...

This chap has been featured on this blog before. I bought him, a good while ago, as part of a job lot on eBay - he was sold as a mounted British infantry officer - apparently an old Hinton Hunt OPC, and I put him away in the spares box for a future refurb.

British officer - as purchased

When I had time, I had a good look at him, decided it would be best to strip and start again, and consigned him to the Nitromors (hand-remover). It shifted the paint, but also shifted his head...

Carrying on heedless

...and it became obvious that in a previous tour of duty he had started life as a Hinton Hunt Austrian general - AN 102 - like this one:

Origins - photo borrowed from The Hinton Hunter 

It seems a pity to waste a useful figure, and his Austrian origins, and consequent lack of epaulettes, suggested a possible conversion to a Spanish general officer. As is the way of these things, the headless horseman has been kicking around my painting desk for three years now, but I am trying to move my Spanish army towards some kind of complete state, and I am always short of generals and staff officers - in particular, I need brigadiers - quite a few of them - and since there are precious few suitable castings around it becomes a very attractive idea to produce some conversions. Not many things look as limp as a complete set of identical officers - a matching battalion is OK - I have plenty of those - but matching officers are not so cool.

Righto then - there was a pequeño uniform for Spanish generals - single breasted, like a French surtout, and I gave my adventurer a head from a miscast Spanish fusilero from my NapoleoN spares, who had a missing foot. Better and better - nothing goes to waste here, if I can avoid it. As always, he will win no prizes for beauty, but he is a unique figure, and I need all the characters I can get for my Spanish army.

Hola! (I think a brigadier would probably say "Hola!" in a suitably deep voice.)

By the way, you will observe that the base of the original figure has been built up with lead sheet, which is a bit serious for my collection - if anyone recognises this fellow - in any of his past personae, please do get in touch!

Grateful Thanks from the Wilds

Strange couple of days here - our local electricity supplier has seen fit to do some line upgrades, which is always a good idea, but the result has been that we were without power during daylight hours for a couple of days. We are, of course, in a very rural area - probably only about 14 or 15 households affected by this work - but why November? The first day coincided with the gales and freezing rain associated with the northern fringes of Storm Angus (which was a lot less severe here than further south). It also coincided with the day that Dod the Gardener was coming to trim down the top of the second of our juniper trees, so that our exciting new wireless broadband service may have an uninterrupted line of sight connection from the main transmitter on Traprain Law. The second day, probably fortuitously, prevented the broadband installation anyway, so Dod and the Broadband Men (I have all their albums) will get a second chance at all that tomorrow.

Why November? Is it just that we don't matter much here, or is there some ancient tribal vendetta at work?

Anyway, we've got through the two days. No, the downtime was not restricted to the promised hours - there was a period of overrun yesterday, after dark, when there was not much to do but sit and stare at the log stove (see photo), which is very therapeutic, in fact. Brandy helps, too.

I thought I'd take this chance to thank everyone who pitched in after my plea for help with some Hinton Hunt hussars (see here). Many thanks to Clive, Matt, Simon, Ian, Martin S, Chris and a few others for advice and suggestions, and especially to Roy, Andy T and Old John for providing castings. If I've forgotten to mention anyone, then thanks anyway - this has all been very heartwarming. The project to produce an actual unit of the Husares Españoles (to replace the unit which I currently have-but-hate...) will proceed with dignity and care, rather than speed, but I shall certainly see it through. The tricky bit will be the production of convincing command conversions. You will hear more of this, be sure of that.

Thanks again, anyway - very much indeed.

You may have observed that my previous post on the subject of Trumpo has now been suppressed. I was asked if I had been threatened or imprisoned or anything, and the answer is, of course, no. I thank everyone who contributed comments and balanced appraisal - I simply decided that if I am to be off-blog for a while, I would rather not have a post about Trumpo hanging around as a lasting legacy and reminder. I really don't find Trumpo very amusing at the moment.

1809 Spaniards - Digging for Figures

My 1809 Spaniards now have a total of 5 light cavalry regiments - 2 of hussars, 2 of cazadores and 1 which is sort of another cazadores unit. Now the dreaded Creeping Elegance rears its head once again. Problem is that 4 of these regiments were produced for me by the excellent Pete Bateman, using conversions of Hinton Hunt French cavalry, and the remaining unit of hussars very definitely was not - it is so far inferior to the Bateman regiments that I have vowed to try to replace it whenever possible.

I have been in contact with Peter, who is not in a position to do anything for me at present, but we have established that I need to drum up some suitable figures - we have some, but not enough.

Examples of FN317
- picture borrowed from the Hinton Hunter blog, which is the standard reference work

I need some Hinton Hunt FN317 - French Hussar in Mirliton cap - the official HH horse to go with this is FNH7. I probably need up to about 8 of these, but any odd figures - painted or otherwise - would be of interest. If you have any such chaps that you could spare, or would like to sell me, could you please get in touch? Send a comment (which I won't publish, if it is not appropriate) or email me at the address in my profile. Since these will be converted and painted as Spaniards, I'd prefer not to import collector-standard pieces!

Last time I asked for help with raising troops I was looking for S-Range Minifigs Spanish infantrymen for 1812, and I was so successful in obtaining reinforcements that my 1812 Spanish army is now large and formidable - well, large anyway.

All help will be very welcome!

ECW - Guest Spot...

Steve Cooney very kindly sent me a note with some more pictures of his ECW troops, focusing on conversions. As far as I am concerned, this is a key topic, since the illustrations show a mixture of 20mm Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins cavalry figures (of which I use quite a few), and Steve explains the steps he has taken to improve the compatibility of these two makes.

Steve writes:

"...thought you might like to see some figures I tidied up recently....

They are Les Higgins and Hinton Hunt ECW Royalist and Parliamentarian Cavalry, I have attached a couple of photos. I snip the joints between the base and the horses forelegs on the Higgins figures, raise the front of the horse, and re-solder it so that the finished figure is slightly higher than it was originally.  

That way the Les Higgins figures are very compatible with the Hinton Hunt figures and are lovely models in their own right.

Hope you like them."

Thanks Steve - informative and inspirational!

French Siege Train - Ramrod Enhancement

Ramrod salesmen really don't want you to know about this neat trick.
Kennington gunners in 1813 uniforms, all ready for sieges in 1810 - no wonder they are smiling.

I do have some OOP NapoleoN gunners available, but, since I need big numbers, and since the Siege Train is probably going to spend the vast majority of its time in its box, I am intending to man my French siege equipment with cheap and cheerful (and underrated, in my opinion) SHQ/Kennington crews.

I've still got one small shipment to come, but most of the figures are here, and I've cleaned them up and put them on the regulation bottletops, ready for painting. I also took the opportunity to carry out some modest conversion work, equipping half a dozen of the gunners with ramrods of a suitable size for the 24pdr behemoths.

My photo includes an unadjusted specimen, front centre, for comparison. A razor saw, a pack of needle files, a pin vice and some (accelerated!) superglue and I am a happy chappie - no doubt about it!


Separate Topic

Since today is the 204th anniversary of the Battle of Salamanca (that's Los Arapiles to you European fellows), I am feeling rash enough to do something naughty...

I'm not supposed to show anyone these, but here's a "leak" of some photos of the masters of some new Portuguese Cacadores I have commissioned (in 1/72 white metal) from Hagen Miniatures. In due course they will appear for sale on Hagen's website, but I thought I'd sneak in a quick appetiser. These are to be marketed under the Foy Figures name, to join the Portuguese Line infantry and 1809 Spanish line cavalry which are already on sale from Hagen. The website is here.

Special message to Armand (Tango01) - please do me a favour, and don't link this to TMP...

Artillery Wheels

Gentlemen - if you please, a small request for some guidance....?

Nice illustration of Vallière-system 24pdr from the 18th Century, which would
not have been wildly out of place at Zaragossa or Ciudad Rodrigo 80 years
later - picture by Christian Rogge, used without permission.

Now that I have a pile of new siege equipment, and am therefore running out of excuses, I hope to make rather better progress with my proposed French Napoleonic siege train. My scale requirements are what I like to think of as 20mm, but in fact they are really old-fashioned "true 25mm" - i.e. men about 21-22mm to the eye - which is, as near as you like, 1/72 scale in scientific money. No-one makes anything like a proper French siege gun in this scale, as far as I know, so I have been doing a little poking around. I fancied the idea of an overscale 12pdr cannon mounted on my size of wheels - I have purchased a test casting of a cannon which is actually made in 28mm scale, but it would pass for a Napoleonic 24pdr if I could get some better sized wheels.

Most of the French siege guns in the Peninsula, for example, were pre-Gribeauval - old Vallière pattern guns. My test casting would pass for one of these, but it came with 30mm, 12-spoke wheels - far too big, man.

According to the information I have to hand, the diameter of the wheels on the French 24pdr should be either 58" or 60", and the discrepancy may be due to the confusion caused by the pesky "Paris foot" measurement used by the French - 1 Paris foot is/was equal to 325mm. I reckon that at 1/72 scale I am looking for wheels of 22 or 23mm diameter, 12-spoke, pretty chunky build. Thoughts of Lamming come to mind, but I'm not sure of the size of Lamming wheels.

I still have some more research to do, obviously - does anyone know of a firm who sell suitable artillery wheels in white metal? If I could get my hands on an odd wheel of the right size (out of copyright, of course), I could probably commission a small supply for my French siege guns. It does seem to me, though, that a wheel casting is an obvious spare part for someone, somewhere to have in production as a stock item. Haven't found anyone yet, but I'd be delighted to get some ideas.

A Weekend Miscellany...

The Gothenburg, Prestonpans

First thing to note is that I found some missing photos from Wednesday's ECW game - nothing startling, but I'll tack a few on the end of this post. It seems that my camera had stored some of them in a folder I didn't know was there...

On Saturday I drove through to Prestonpans (yes - that Prestonpans), which is just down the road from here, to attend the Scottish Battlefields Wargames Show, which was staged upstairs in the Gothenburg pub. I was there early, since there had been concern that the small venue and the lack of parking space might by a problem - in fact, unless it picked up later, the attendance may have been a bit disappointing. Nice little show - there were a number of appropriately themed games, including some in which visitors might take part. I think there were about 7 trade stands, and maybe the same number of demonstrations, so there was a pleasant intimacy about the proceedings.

I liked this 10mm version of Flodden, presented by the Glasgow Wargames people, who
 - as always - were affable and enthusiastic and patiently informative

Some of the 10mm unsung heroes of Flodden

It was good to get a chance to speak to Graham Cummings, who was there selling his wonderful Crann Tara miniatures range (wow - these are seriously beautiful figures), and I was also very impressed by a new, Edinburgh-based venture, Supreme Littleness, which is Michael Scott's laser-cut MDF service. I've been sort of half-looking at MDF buildings for a while, and though they get quite a good press, I have not been convinced. Well, I think I am now. Michael does all sorts of interesting fortifications and buildings, in various scales down to 3mm - I was surprised at the scope really. He was inviting suggestions for new products and expansions to his range, and I intend to get back to him with some requests for 15mm scale earthworks, which he doesn't do at the moment. Here's my picture of some of the bits and pieces - from bases and game markers to medieval towers - which he had on show. I recommend a squint at his website (linked above). The 3mm village pieces are especially good.

Supreme Littleness - for those who have yet to be convinced about MDF...

It was also good to meet up with my shadowy friend Goya - I knew he was arriving when his security men and handlers came in to check that the CCTV was switched off. He brought along some impressive examples of his painting and conversion work to show me, and - just to give a glimpse of how the other half lives - I learned that he has found that the wire from champagne corks is perfect for fabricating replacement bayonets and sword blades in 20mm scale. The important point here is that Goya is teetotal - we may picture him ordering cases of Bollinger, so that he can pour the evil stuff down the sink and furnish enough sabre blades for his light dragoons project. Now that, you have to admit, is classy.

I took very few photos in Prestonpans, not least because I wasn't really speaking to my camera at the time, my confidence having been shaken somewhat by Wednesday's problems.

I got home to find that the postie had delivered my last two fortress components - a couple more gates, on which I have now daubed paint in the house style, so that they may take their place in the FORTS box.

One on the left is from JR Miniatures, the other is by Kallistra

And, finally, some more pics from Wednesday evening...

The Covenanters get a pretty clear run at the hill, if they can just get through that
pesky stream...

...and the capture of East Boldon didn't take long - more wet feet

General view, from the Royalist side, with the Scots getting their assault organised

Last effort from the King's horse, with Sir Chas Lucas about to be laid low for his trouble

Another general view, Scots on the left, just before the end

ECW - Guest Encore

Steve C contacted me again, with a couple of interesting pictures of extra Hinton Hunt-style figures he has converted and "mastered" himself - here we have his lowland Scots pikeman (pictured with a HH Royalist pikeman, for comparison), and a one-piece Royalist cavalryman.

Thank you, Steve!

ECW - Guest Appearance

Steve C, that noted collector, convertor and painter of Hinton Hunt figures, very kindly sent me some pictures of ECW figures in his collection, and I think they are so good that I felt I might wallow in a little reflected glory and share his photos here. I emphasise that these figures are not mine - I sincerely wish they were!

Steve describes them thus:

Royalist: four companies of the King's Lifeguard Regiment of Foote - Colonel Lord Lindsey's, Lt Colonel William Leighton's, Major Robert Markham's and a  Captain’s Company, with Charles 1^st at their head . 

Parliamentarian : Earl of Essex’s  Regiment. 

All are Hinton Hunt figures with a couple of Les Higgins conversions.