Romanov's Roll Forward

I've made good progress this weekend on a new Parliamentarian unit (Romanovs TYWs) and a squadron of Royalist cavalry (S&S)... (yes, astute readers will note a box of Ogre SF minis in the background...but since this blog is so far devoted to ECW...I'll pass in silence)...so far primer coat and the base colors laid down. As far as priming and the first coats go, I'm a big believer in the "triple threat"...Krylon Specialty Camoflage "Earth Brown" spray paint (a very dark brown), followed by Citadel Foundation colors and Vajello Model Colors. The Earth Brown Spray has a little less harsh contrast than the usual Flat Black, and for anything from the dark ages through the 1700s works great to produce a dark leathery background for the rest of the figure's colors. It also gets horses to a dark brown quickly ready for further colors and highlighting. The Krylon is designed to paint trucks and hunting equipment....works great on metal and is really flat. I get it here in the states at my local hardware store.

I think this unit is going to represent the Tower Hamlets trained band. I'm loosely basing the two armies on the Cropredy Bridge battle since Clarence's "Quindia" website makes such a good case for doing so and because I have a good order of battle from Bob Giglio's essay on the battle (link). The London Bands apparently had a higher proportion of "buffcoats" since the townsmen could afford it, but the Romanov's are mostly in wool coats. I'm not too worried about it though since gaming is the one place in my life where I'm "in charge" and...well...I don't have any 40mm pikemen with buffcoats so I'll have to make do. I'm going with more mixed colors for the coats, unlike my other units, assuming the Trained Bands would have just been called up in their civilian clothes.