“The Great Rebellion” of bourgeois politicians (bias……. nah!) is used to describe the period of the English Civil Wars between 1640–1660, in which glory seeking Parliamentarians challenged King Charles I’s authority, engaged in civil conflict against his forces, and ommitted high treason by executing him in 1649. This was followed by a ten-year period of bourgeois republican government, the “Commonwealth”, before the monarchy was at last restored under Charles’ son, Charles II, in 1660.

Now I am not a monarchists by any means, and would love to see Australia a Republic, but the Great Rebellion was about money, nothing more, nothing less. Politicans worried about money? Who could have guessed?

Anyway I am going to have to stop tidying up the Aladdin’s Cave because I keep seeing bright shiny stuff that has been hidden in boxes for ages.

I originally had a small group of English Civil War figures painted for me by Brian Hall from Hall of Ancient Warriors. Brian has been a one time work colleague and long time wargaming one. This was so long ago that they figures are the original Minifigs 25mm.

As I said the figures were painted but in need of minor touch ups and basing. In the box was also a set of rules in mint condition called “Sword and Pistol” written by Richard Stevens and produced by TTG in 1985. For a set of rules that are older than some of my kids they are not that bad. They have the usual weapons factor bias and not skill based and are overly complicated. There are different movement rates for crawling, walking, jogging, running and charging rather than say, cautious and attack. I haven’t seen them let alone used them for 36 years, so it is unlikely that I ever will, but they are a nice piece of wargaming design history nevertheless.

The figures consisted of three small groups of Royalists, Parliamentarians, and a smaller group of Scottish to use on both sides or to fight either. In this post I will concentrate on the Scottish.

I have based all of these figures on 25mm rounds for normal infantry, 40mm rounds for foot officers, 50mm round for mounted officers and 25mm by 50mm rectangles for cavalry. This will make them useful for a number of games systems we use giving them a better chance of being used in anger.

The Scottish Contingent

Scottish column with flank guards

Scottish column with flank guards

Scottish or Irish Pike marching down the road with their officers

Scottish or Irish Pike

Musketeers, archer and Officer

Officer with piper

Officer with drummer

Musketeers and officer

Musketeer loading

Archer firing

Officer with claymore

Tomorrow those dastardly Parliamentarians.