The English Civil Wars - Part 1 - A Very Uncivil War.

The English Civil Wars 1640- 1660

When I decided that I wanted to build a collection of toy soldiers for this period,  initially I was put off. This was back in 2007 and as usual when I begin to build up a knowledge base about a period im interested in I bought a bunch of books about the war.

And as is the case I got some heavy text to get into the social and political environment.

Starting with "Civil War" the Wars of the three Kingdoms: 1638 -1660" by Trvor Royale, I then read "The Great Civil War" by Alfred H. Burne and Peter Young and quickly added to the list "Old Ironsides: The military Biography of Oliver Cromwell" by Franl Kitson.

So Far I had waded through the politics of the period,  got an insight into how the long drawn out and destructive wars in Europe (Thirty Years Wars) had up to that point not impacted on the three kingdoms and reaslised that the Cromwell did not look as good as Richard Harris and that Charles was not the spitting image of Alec Guinness and that as usual Hollywood made some dramatic changes - well in fact aside from the names of the characters it was pretty much off on allot of things.

Wargaming the English Civil War and a new Direction

Well another long pause in between posts and here I am back again with some new work and a new project.

The Dark Ages armies have been moving along nicely and I should have some updates for the Vikings and even the beginning of the Saxon project soon.

But something new is afoot as the title of this post should suggest.

The English Civil War. 

Picture from : http://iron-mitten.blogspot.com.au/2012_01_01_archive.html

Recently I have started to plan a career change, with a view to return to university and rather than the last time round and spit out with a business degree, (which has done allot for me admittedly) this time im going to follow my passion.  So I've take two steps so far:  Step one is to enroll in a course on the English Civil War that is offered by Oxford university via distance education, and  I have applied to enrol in  the graduate diploma of Military History at the University of NSW - and then all things going well - complete a Masters and then PhD in the field.

Viking King! Vikings Part 5

A weekends worth of work and I have a Viking King to lead my growing hoard.

Vikings Part 4

So its been a while in the updates and I say that allot ! but there it is-  I usually go into a bit of focus and work at getting units painted and i stop posting.

Vikings Part 3

Shield-frame will be smashed,

the maid’s eyes flash across this district at the thanes’ maimer, sword-lord. 
There’ll be for all soldiers,

for each man here many a spear, before the great storm

of steel appears.

  

"The Saga of

Half & his Heroes" 

Reaver Titan - Fourth Post

Tremble foes of man for the wrath of the Omnissiah is upon you.

Say what you will about GW but for everything they aren't Forgeworld is! Having just received my certificate from them this morning for my Reaver Titan express post, Gratis mind you! I am again reminded how they will go out of their way to help the hobbyist!

In other news the Titan build plods along, with whole sections ready for assembly it now falls to me to design and build a terrain for it to stride upon, once I have the ground work down I will have the legs built forthwith and in my next post I will cover this in full, until then Viva Le Forgeworld, Viva Le MCCXXVII.


In so much space

Reaver Titan - Third Post

So work continues on with the Reaver, while mostly in the planning phase there has been a little action.For the most part I spent the week planning on how to make a screw action for the waist joint, while at the same time removing unwanted flash and repairing miscasting (of which there was a bit on some parts but none really major)

So having planned it it was time I did it! The original idea comes from the guys over at Blue Table painting, I merely put my own spin on it. spin... screw... oh I crack myself up.