Saturday 26 January 2013

Queen's Regiment of Horse - Colonel's Troop


Another unit of horse comes thundering on to my blog! This time it's the Queen's Regiment of Horse, another famed regiment from the English Civil War.


This regiment was formed in early 1643 when Queen Henrietta Maria returned from the continent having pawned the Crown Jewels for arms.  Arms and munitions for 10,000 men came back with her, along with many French volunteers.  As the Queen passed through the North of England, many volunteers joined her and new units were formed. The Queen's Regiment of Horse being one of them.  Many of the French volunteers thought this a suitably attractive regiment for them to join also.  The Colonel's colour is appropriately adorned with the Fleur de Lys.


The regiment was well manned with volunteers and was one of the larger regiments of Cavaliers, maintaining a good 7 troops of horse even into late 1644. The regiment fought at many of the famous battles including First Newbury and Second Newbury, Lostwithiel, Cheriton and Naseby.  Though before Naseby the regiment had declined in numbers to about 150 men (source: R.Giglio, www.ecwsa.org/histqueenslifeguardofhorse.html).




Because of the original large size of this Regiment, I formed two wargaming units for this regiment, thus each unit equates to about 3 troops at a scale of 1:20. Each of my units has got one flag, in this case the Colonel's colour for these 3 troops. It looks pleasing to the eye and seems to work, although in reality each troop of 60-70 men would have a flag each.  The second unit will be posted up soon, this unit will have a Captain's colour.  For Naseby and beyond I will just give one unit a different command stand and turn one half of the Regiment into a different unit.





I painted up most of this regiment about 10 years ago.  It orginally consisted of random different bags of Bicorne figures as I just wanted to paint each set up to see what they looked like.  As I bought more figures and produced 'proper' formed regiments, I was left with a unit of odds and sods of a slightly over-strength nature. I hadn't bothered to form them into a proper unit because of the lack of suitable rules for so many years (you know how it is, you buy a new set and play test them...but your are convinced sometimes that it's just your lack of experience with them when they don't play well...so you persist for years and then realise about a decade later that the rules were cack all along!).  Anyway with 'Pike and Shotte' turning out to be superb, this has given me the incentive...so these cavalrymen are odds and sods no more.  I have painted the command stands this month, freshly based them and given them the excellent flags by GMB.  This over-strength unit now holds its proper place in my Royalist army.







Pay day being yesterday, I have already placed another order to Bicorne Miniatures.  This time for more personalities.  It's quite fun doing research on historical commanders to decide what 'Command Rating' they should be given. Several extended lunchtimes at work this week have been spent on Wiki and such-like!

17 comments:

  1. Great looking unit; they are very impressive together. Best, Dean

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    1. Hi Dean, Many thanks for your kind comment. I hope to post pics of the the Captain's Troop shortly.

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  2. Fantastic! The overall impression is great, and details really impressive with those different uniforms...very nice work!
    Phil.

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    1. Hi Phil, Thanks :-) I try to keep elements different between regiments, such as saddle-cloths and trumpeters, but I think I'll have to start repeating paint schemes soon!

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  3. Damn fine painting Jason, nice one!!!!

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  4. Stellar work here sir. The horses knock my socks off and your use of color is excellent.

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    1. Thanks Anne, I try to do my best with the horses, but I still have much to learn with them. I think I'm an infantry painter really! I have been painting 6 horses for some of my command stands this last two weeks, and adding lots of extra detail, because they will come under more scrutiny than common troopers nags!

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  5. The Queen would be proud to see her troopers so well turned out!

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    1. Thanks, I hope to have her next troop ready for action shortly!

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  6. Those look great!

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    1. Thanks for your kind comment. I'm trying to do as much ECW as I can paint right now, but having just seen the new plastic American Revolution figures on the Perry's website I'm trying to fight the urge to change periods!

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  7. Hi Jason:
    Terrific work all around. The colours are vibrant and the whole unit is full of life. I keep coming back to the trumpert in that fine red coat with white piping, that is very fine work right there.
    Bravo, sir!

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    1. Hi Mike, Thanks for the encouragement. I like to make the trumpeters and officers stand out a bit from all those buff coats :-)
      Regards,
      Jason

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  8. great work on a stunning looking unit
    Peace James
    Exiles Painting

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    1. Hi James, I have seen the superb quality of your work on your blog, so I am very pleased indeed that you like my unit. I just have to keep the standard up now! :-)
      Best wishes,
      Jason

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  9. Great looking figures, inspired me to get some more of my own ECW figures done.

    Regards,
    Matt

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