"Flags for generic ECW armies?" Topic

I'm building one generic army for which I will be able to make up both sides for any period for PP regiment of Foote.

I calculate about 50 bases musket, 35 pike, 60% painted Red (so I can get a NMA, plus some royalists) 30% Blue, the rest various colours (green, grey), organised into basic units I can interchange. However to start I am just painting in ratio 2:1, rather 10:7, to about 45:22, so units will be 4 musket, 2 Pike, and as I add more then makes the army combos more flexible

What do I do about the flags? Do I just stick with same colour as the uniforms (even though that is not necessarily true historically)?

I you want them to go both ways you'll want generic flags. Might as well match coat & flag except for the large number of Redcoats you indicate.

Flag colour generally had little to do with coat colour & if anything matching colours & coat would have been the exception. If you've got multiple regiments with the same coat colour then contrasting flags will help to distinguish them. (eg Blue coats, yellow colours, which is sometimes seen in contemporary accounts). Infantry colours in particular were sufficiently vague that much of the time similar flags were probably seen in opposing armies. Mine are fairly generic.

Cavalry colours could be more specific, with political cartoons etc but they won't be visible in 15mm anyway.

I agree – go with the generic "red", "blue", "yellow" etc types. You can be sufficiently vague to pass of the unit as almost anything.

You can be sufficiently vague

it appears I already have been (if the answers aren't what you are looking for it is usually because the question has been asked badly)!

I am not going to paint to a specific regiment- it will be 'red' 'blue' etc. What I wasn't sure about is whether to vary the flag colours (a la Huw), or do as Shagnasty suggests, and match coat and colour.

I've decided to paint some with Colonels colours, some Lt-Col and some Major, so I can differentiate Veteran, Trained and Conscript (and because I LIKE the cross of St G in the Canton!)

Shagnasty what do you mean by

except for the large number of Redcoats you indicate.

is there a historic reason not to have to many red flags? I am unable to find any examples of NMA flags

Regiments with flag colours the same as coat colours were the exception rather than the norm. Have you read the Partizan book on ECW flags? If not get a hold of it before you start painting flags.

ECW Flags and Colours 1:
English Foot
Stuart Peachey & Les Prince
July 1991, March 2001
ISBN: 0-946525-84-6
116 pages
(A5)
£8.99 GBP

That's the chap you might like to have a look at…I can't recommend it enough.

Pete

How specific are these books? I'm a bit shy of shelling out for a book to paint just 12-15 flags (a total surface are of maybe 30cm sq for both sides) for a generic army- £9.00 GBP will buy a complete unit of 10mm (4 bases of musket, 10 figs each, 3 x pike at 16 figures)