"Which five ECW Regiments interest you most?" Topic

OK, so which five regiments are you most interested in, either as 'favourites' from history, re-enactment or on the table, or which do you want to find out a bit more about?

Horse, foot or dragoons, Trained Bands, highlanders, clubmen, Royalist, Parliamentarian, Scots Covenanters, Irish Confederates, English and Scots in Ireland, Scots Royalists, New Model, Bishops' Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate all welcome.

on the wanting to find out a bit more :

the queen's troops levied in france

irish wild gueese former members of spanish tercios

the last border reivers and their actions during ECW

most about the foreigners that fought in ECW , acting as individuals commanders or troopers aswell as units raised around them.

a list of the english , scotish and irish troops that previously fough in continental wars .

on the favorite ones :
dragoons
clubmen
foot
partizan warfare in the counties

Hmmm, good question. I'm not an expert on this, but do have an ECW project down on paper, so off the top of my head the two (or three) cuirassier units, any other armored horse units, and the Gentlemen Pensioners.

Chris

Sometimes in flux, but generally:

1. Okey's Dragoons in the New Model Army (and other Dragoon units as well). I've always been fascinated by tactical possibilities of mounted infantry.

2. Cromwell's Horse / Ironsides. Hard not to be interested in the unit credited with redefining cavalry tactics for the Parliamentarians.

3. Hopton's Cornish Foot under Grenville. Tough, ill-equipped, no-nonsense fighting men.

4. MacColla's Irish Foot. Who doesn't like this unit? Ragged, desperate men who could expect no quarter, and fought like devils. Forget the Highland Charge, these men gave Montrose his victories.

5. Hampden's Regiment of Foote. There's something in the tragedy of Hampden's early demise, and his unit went on to serve in the New Model. Plus, I have more figures for this regiment than any other, so I'm always looking for interesting scenarios to employ them.

How about you, Timbo W?

Steve

The Northern Horse: their exploits after Marston Moor read more like something from the ACW.

Rupert's Lifeguard, horse and foot regiments.
Grenville's Cornish
Newcastle's Whitecoats.

In no particular order
1. Newcastle's Whitecoats – Fascinating history and last stand.

2. Lord Brooke's Regiment of Foote
One of the few regiments that both the coats and the colours are known, and are known to match (purple).

3. Montrose's Irish Brigade

4. Colonel Richard Bagot

5. Colonel Leveson's Regiments of Horse and Foot took part in a number of significant engagements including:
Hopton Heath – March 1643
Siege of Aston Hall – December 1643
Newark – March 1644
Marston Moor – July 1644
Naseby – June 1645

Regards,
Matt
ubique-matt.blogspot.com

Top of my list…

Blackadder's troop of dragoons (real unit)

After that in no particular order…

Manus O'Cahan's Regiment
Thomas Lachnan's Regiment
James MacDonnell's Regiment
Lord Gordon's Regiment of Horse

King's Lyfe Guard of Foote

Tower Hamlets, London Trayned Bands

Rupert's Life Guard, Horse and Foote

Grenville's Cornishmen (as Stuart Reid calls them, "Cornishmen and true")

Hasslerigg's Lobsters

I'm a die-hard Covenanters fan.

But if you're looking for a specific regiment, I'd have to go with Newcastle's Whitecoats. A close second would be the wonderfully anachronistic Hasselrig's Cuirassiers.

Lord Brooke's regiment has to be up there because of the purple uniforms.

Cliché perhaps but I do like the King's Lifeguard of Foote – my first ECW regiment is nearing completion.

Plus whatever of Rupert's regiments described as the "blews".

Yes, Hampden, Hasselrig – both very interesting.

Rupert's Regiment of Foote
Rupert's horse
Tillier's Foote
Hopton's Foote

for me Fairfax's Yorkshire force of 1642/3

I'd like to know more about the Parliamentarian foot at Second Newbury – the remnants of Waller's and Essex's armies cobbled together with the Eastern Association foot.

It's a shame Brooke's didn't survive very long. I intend to paint them as a 'what if', imagining that they found their way into Essex's army and stayed with him throughout the war.

The Cornish regiments are probably the ones which interest me most overall, though they tend to be considered as one singular group rather than five separate regiments. Grenville's and Slanning's are the two stand-outs, I think. They have the right mix of quality and tragedy about them to capture the imagination. The battle at Stratton, fighting uphill, outnumbered, against a better-equipped enemy, for nearly twelve hours – and then to win comprehensively – is rightfully the stuff of legend. But it seems they were never quite the same after Lansdowne and Bristol, where their quality won through but so many of their inspirational commanders were killed, and presumably quite a number of the rank-and-file too.

Newcastle's Whitecoats have that same aura about them: an elite unit roughly handled.

Maurice's regiment of horse were, I think, the busiest regiment of the war, in action almost constantly throughout. They must have been quite something by the end. Their riding hell for leather from Devizes to Oxford to fetch a rescue party for Hopton, and then straight back again to Roundway Down, definitely merits a place in any such list in my book.

For sheer brass neck, Sir William Ashburnham's regiment. These might have been another group of Cornishmen, but missed out on the meat-grinders at Lansdowne and Bristol. Most notably, though, they were accidentally issued with an oversupply of muskets, which Ashburnham then refused to return. This made them one of the best-equipped royalist regiments of the war, but after 1643 they seem never to have fought a field engagement.

Purely personally, I am interested in John Giffard's regiment, as he is a relative, but almost nothing seems to be known about it.