"Elizabethan Small Wars" Topic

Some musings on rules, figures and painting.

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Yeah Khurasan Irish are the way to go. QRF have some good figures too. For mailed New Scots Redshanks try the old Feudal Castings range they have two figures that will match Khurasan very well.

Essex Elizabethans are good and Khurasan are making some too.

Yes, I noticed that mailed Redshanks were one of the gaps. Another might be unarmoured Bonnacht axemen.

Doc: I have been playing Irregular Wars at my local club for about a year, the rules play great. I have Colonial Spanish, English Adventurers and Iroquois painted. I also have Irish (Khurasan, QRF, etc.), Muscovutes, Poles, Caribs, Mound Builders, and Portuguese unpainted. I plan to buy a bunch of Khurasan's Elizabethan English for an army to fight the Irish and dastardly Spanish in the old world.

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The above link are my Adventurers, mostly QRF with some Grump mixed in for good measure.

@Prince Alberts Revenge

Thanks for the link. Excellent work and an inspiration.

Where is my 'stop button'?…!

Doc: the beauty and curse of IW is that you don't need to paint many figures for your armies, even with the optional companies…so it's very easy to want to buy and paint all of the armies in the list!

QRF do a nice bunch of Bonnachts with axes.

I'm hoping if Khurasan do a Scots Flodden army we will get mailed highlanders with claymore and bow. That will fill the gap nicely.

Do you know of a tutorial in painting with washes and stains for the figures used in Irr. War? I've always done DBA in 6mm but want to go to a larger scale. My main problem is to figure out if I can use a basing system that could be used for both interchangeably. But what a rich poppouri of armies. In my most grandiose fantasy I have at least 15 armies to build and paint. Already have the painted makings for Moghuls, Ottomans, Spanish, Polynesia, and Aztecs; and the figures for Portuguese, Tupi, Incas, Indonesians, and Pirates. I thought a New World league and a Asia League. Will need Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Dutch, Huguenots, Adventurers and more! I'm trying to decide between 30mm or 40mm square bases. And when I get all those done I'll head for the British Isles. Irregular Wars (Wars at the end of the World) is a clear and fluid game play with just enough randomness to make each encounter unique. Wish it had a higher profile. But if you like the 16th century on a global scale try it. Would be worth a glossier rulebook with all the bells and whistles. Any advice anyone who is already into it has to share would be welcome. I would add Naismith figs (Navwar) for a very large range of conquistadors and native opponents that are kind of slim and old school but go more or less OK with the ranges already mentioned.

Only thing I can think of for basing would be to use sabot bases or stack two DBA bases (when necessary) for one IW base. With my three armies, there is no one dominant army (Colonial Spanish have probably won the most). The English Adventures need to use their "adventurers" intelligently, they can shoot decent and melee better than most missile armed troops. They are susceptible to charges by Spanish horse in the open and Indians in the woods. The Spanish are lethal but can be beaten if ambushed or caught in bad terrain. I have seen the Iroquois chop them to pieces.

I've added a short list of references/background reading…

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For 15mm 40mm bases are much better especially fpr cavalry and guns.

They will absorb/need more figures, but I think you're right about the 40mm bases.

Thank you DocPhalanx, PAR and JamesWood for your positive comments about Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End. I (the author) have been a bit distracted this year with family stuff and ancients projects and the game has perhaps not received the attention from me that it should have.

It would be great for the game to have shinier book but that requires time and money, as well as the attention of a more mainstream publisher than I currently have. Martin at Vexillia is awesome to work with though and I know he plugs the game wherever he can. Given the resources available, I hope that the game presents itself well and am delighted to see it being discussed = )

I have my English and Irish battles currently being paint-stripped so that they can be merged together and then I hope to raise a fresh Irish battle from Khurasan's nice new range. Next year should (hopefully) see much more action on that front.

Links for anyone interested:
Irregular Wars at the Vexillia webstore – link
Irregular Wars on the author's blog – link

@OB

The Feudal Castings range is now owned by Sgt Major Miniatures. These seem to be the two castings suitable for Redshanks:

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They would be useful but postage to the UK is several times the cost of the figures! Viking Forge, however, do a mailed Redshank and they are available from 15mm.co.uk. It's MR-19 and pictured from both sides here on the VF site:

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Thanks DP I have all those, nice figures.

I've been in touch with Sgt Major Miniatures and they said they would work something out about the postage to the UK. The amount shown is for express delivery and they are limited as to what they can put on the website.