RP No 132 15mm FIW - Rangers & Indian Canoes

More figures that I've had for far too long sitting in my unloved figure draw are this bunch of canoes and rafts for the French Indian Wars. They are mainly from Irregular Miniatures with a spattering of Matchlock Miniatures.

For the British side there are 10 canoes and 6 rafts, while the Indian which of course can be used for both sides have 22 canoes, ( a bit ott, I know??) They're not the best or most detailed 15mm figures out there, but when I bought them they were the only two companies who sold them. But they work fine for me.

I have loads of scenarios all planned in my head to use these figures, one problem I found was the lack of unmanned canoes that are for sale, so I based all the figures for the canoes on coffee stirrers out of McDonald's, some needed a little trimming but the fit in quite snug. 

So when the Indians land I'll take out the figures and leave the canoes on the beach, for the rangers to find and either hole them or pinch them!

These were part of my last sandbagging post on Curt's painting challenge, I'm not sure what points they earned me as Curt combined the points for a few entries.

Lastly....Is anyone else having a problem when posting? My and Fran's posts have taken around 3 hours to register up on other bloggers Blog Rolls?? I posted this at 1037 its now 1347 and still nothings came up???

RP No 131 Henry VIII's Pikes & Demi Lancers

These are some of the figures I bought many moons ago for my 1513 English Flodden army, BUT the figures are dressed a little late for 1513, so they'll be used for Henry's later adventures in Flanders and Boulogne.

There are two units of English Demi-Lancers

And two units of English pike. The English were a little late in using the pike, preferring to hire German mercenaries, but I've already got stacks of them, so thought that'd look nice with  

the flag of St George flying high.

This little lot was painted up and was part of my last entry into Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and earned me 128 odd points

RP No 130 Killiecrankie Commanders & Lokis Givaway

Originally myself and Reject Richard agreed to paint up an army each to play the rules Beneath the Lily Banners. I was to paint up the Flanders army for King William III while Richard would paint up the army of Louis XIV of France. As I get quite a bit more painting time than poor Richard, my Flanders army was soon complete, while Richard was lagging behind a little. So I came up with another plan. Paint up the jacobite army of King James, these can then be added to Richard's French to fill out the ranks, of course it didn't stop there, I had to paint up the Williamites as well, why i just couldn't use the English I'd already painted up for Flanders I don't know?????
Now that army is nearly complete, I've painted but not posted the last regts I need for the Irish campaign, so feeling a little lost I decided to cross the Irish Sea to Scotland and paint up the Scots Jacobites for the Battle of Killicranckie. The Scots are painted and have already been posted, here. Now once again I could have used the Flanders or the Irish commanders for Killiecrankie but being the fool I am, I bought more and painted them up as well and here they are!!!!!
They were entered in the Analogue Painting Challenge, earning me 69 points

The Williamite CnC, Lieutenant General Hugh Mackay

The Williamite 2nd in C - Colonel Bartholomew Balfour

3rd in C,  David Melville 3rd Earl of Levan

Jacobite 2nC, Col Alexander Cannon 

Sir John McLean

Sir Ewan Cameron

Sir Alexander MacLean

And lastly the Jacobite CnC - John Graham, 7th Laird of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee

Also Andrew over on Lokis Great Hall is a fantastic Blog Birthday Giveaway, so if you're after any free stuff get yourselves over there and join up or don't as it'll give me a better chance to win!!!!!

RP No 129 Battle of Flodden 1513 - Scottish Pikes

A this year is the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden, in 1513 I thought I'd have a crack at getting some figures painted up for the Battle. my original plan was to refight the Battle at the Broadside Wargames show in June, but I won't get all the figures painted up in time. My initial plans were to use the army lists from the excellent ruleset "Warfare in The Age of Discovery". This called for approx 17 units of Scottish Pike, so the said figures were duly ordered from a various number of companies. BUT after reading the Osprey's "Battle of Flodden" Order of Battle I decided to extend the armies slightly.........ok a lot!!!

So the first 15 pike units will now just be for King James IV's Battle, comprising 15,000 men and here they are below....

Lord Irskine and the Earl of Morton's pike blocks

The Kings Houshold troops and Lord Home's pike blocks.

(Lord Home's pikes were not part of  the King's battle, they were in their own battle)

The Men of Edinburgh and the Earl of Rothis' pike blocks.

Keith, the Earl Marishal and Lord Borthwick's pike blocks.

Hamilton, Lord Innerwick and more Kings Household pike blocks.

Lord Sempill and Lord Maxwell's pike blocks

The Earl of Cassillis and Lord Seton's pike blocks.

Lord Ross and Lord Herries' pike blocks.

Lord Home

All the Pikemen are from Peter Pig's WotR range, while the front rank troops

are a mix of MY minis, Frei Corps, Feudal and Essex

The Edinburgh regt

Once again the front rank are mixed manufacturers, this time we have

Frei Corps, Peter Pig, Feudal and Frei Corps again

These troops were entered into Curt's Challenge, where I was accussed of sandbagging 

again, oh the cheek of it!!, They earned me a massive 546 points!!!

Most of the flags are downloadable from my blog, here!

RP No 127 NYW - Col John Mitchelbourne's Foot

Mitchelbourne's foot was originally raised in approx 1688-89 as Viscount Massereene's regt of foot as a regt of Ulster protestant volunteers, they were commanded by the Viscount's son and heir the most excellently named Clotworthy Skeffington. Then later in 1689 they were sent to garrison Derry and were merged into a newly-formed garrison regiment under the command of Colonel John Mitchelbourne.

John Mitchelbourne served at Tangier under Percy Kirke, 1680-83, he was commissioned as major by Prince of Orange, 5 Feb. 1689 and  was involved in Carrickfergus landing of William III, he commanded Skeffington’s foot at Cladyford and in the City of Londonderry. He was made the deputy-governor by of Londonderry by Henry Baker, on the 17th June 1689 and  acted as military governor throughout the siege, becoming governor with George Walker at Baker’s death, and sole governor after the relief of Derry in 1689. He also apparently refused a bribe of £10,000 from the Jacobite leaders to join their fight. His regt fought at the Boyne and at the siege of Sligo in 1691.

These troops were entered into Curt's Challenge back in the beginning of March with some other Nine Years War figures and earned me a combined 126 points. The flags and uniform are both pure conjecture, but I'm quite pleased with them!