"The King's Gentlemen Pensioners Ride Forth!" Topic

I have had these figures painted for a good while now, but due to other projects taking up my time I hadn't finished the basing or attached the flag. This was remedied just before Xmas and happily they turned out fine, as I was expecting anyway as they are Warlord Games figures and really easy to paint. As I am the only flag making company that do the Gentlemen Pensioners flag I thought it only appropriate to ensure that I had a small unit of them in my army, as to whether or not they had cuirassier armour is open to debate but it doesn't take much persuading to field Warlord Games cuirassiers even in such small amounts as this.

I had to do a slight amount of conversion work on the lance as for some reason there are no tassles on the metal lance like there is on the lances with their plastic cavalry. This was a simple fix by cutting off the tassles off a plastic lance and gluing them on to the metal lance once the flag had been fixed in place.

More pics on my blog:
wargamesdesigns.com/ecw-blog

Very nice! That is a great way to show off your banner

Looking great Steve, the GPs banner was a TMP facilitated discovery at first, so very nice to see it here.

Very nice

Aren't they a bit young to be pensioners? If they can ride that well, surely they are capable of finding gainful employment?

:-)

Well they have been going since 1509, which is nearly tea time….

Gerard, you're confusing "pensioners" with "old age pensioners." All a pension means is that the government pays you regularly and it's not wages. Lots of people taking the government's money in the 17th Century were capable of finding gainful employment.

Very different today, of course.

A splendid looking unit as befits such a fine banner. Who would dare stand before such an imposing unit?!

I remember they were a ‘free' unit in the Warhammer ECW rules
if the King commanded. What a bargain.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Tim, the flag was indeed a great find and one that I think looks great on the battlefield.

Somehow I ended up with about 40 or so cuirassiers so I decided that they could be used as lifeguard units and officers/personalities here and there.

Brilliant! They look fantastic!

Re Cuirassiers,

tricky to know what to do with 40 once you've finished Hesilrigge's, unless 30YW, or including the odd one or two here and there.

For Parliament there are Lifeguard troops of Essex, Balfour and Bedford, and at least a hint that Brereton's own troop were too.

For the Royalists, the GPs might or might not be as you know, but Blagge's troop at Wallingford were described as Cuirassiers in one document. Also an outside possibility of a troop in Lord Percy's rgt (the captain being commissioned to raise a troop of cuirassiers for a regiment that never appears to have been raised, then serving in Lord Percy's).

For the Scots possibly Argyll's Lifeguard and definitely one of the Gordon troops in 1639.

In Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant's troop (Earl of Leicester) and Ormonde's. In 1646 Parliament raised a regiment for Lord Lisle for service in Ireland which was supposed to have a cuirassier troop, but unsure whether it did actually get one when sent under Col. Temple.

Possibilities of more widespread use by the English horse in the Bishops Wars, certainly the Lord Chamberlain's regiment in 1639 (Lindsey's, effectively the King's Lifeguard) had 2 cuirassier troops and 4 carbine troops.

Certainly the Trained Bands had plenty of Cuirassier armour in 1638, at least 1,568 sets according to musters.

Oddly the official strength of cuirassier troops usually seems to be 100 rather than the 60-80 more common for ordinary horse.

All really good points Tim and very interesting indeed.

I currently use Pike & Shotte wargames rules but funnily enough I don't use their cuirassier rules, instead bodyguard troops I simply add +1 to their morale to reflect better morale or better armour or a mixture of both.

Having said that there are only so many bodyguard units you can field at any one time so I may still have to get more creative with them or heaven forbid sell some of them.

Very nice indeed! The clubbed pistol is a nice detail.

lovely brushwork sir

cheers
Matt
Herce Salon de Guerre
Mayenne
France