Wild Irish

It has been a lot longer between Irish regiments than I originally planned, almost 4 years in fact! In the meantime I have been living and working in India with my family. Apart from a little work on this unit the Royalist half of Project Auldearn has essentially been in mothballs while I was in India. I returned to Texas about 6 months ago, and finding a house, moving and unpacking took me through to January. I then spent some time setting up a gaming room, built a couple of gaming tables (but that's for another post) and eventually got around to setting up my painting table. After working on some terrain and a War of the Ring Army for my son, I finally sat down earlier this year, and finished up this second regiment of Fightin' Irish.

Shot Sleeve led by (Perry) Seargent

Looking along the line

There were three Irish regiments in Montrose's Irish Brigade; (1) Lt. General Alexander McDonnell's Regt, commanded by Major Thomas Laghtman as McDonnell had pulled a sickie and stayed at home, (2) Colonel Manus O'Cahan's Regt, and (3) Colonel James MacDonnell's Regt. The brigade was led by Major General Alisdair MacColla "The Devastator". As a result of severe attrition (desertion, sickness and battle casualties) the Irish Brigade is thought to have mustered only around 800 men at Auldearn. Of this a detachment of 140 was under direct command of MacColla, serving as his lifeguard (more on this unit soon).

Montrose leads his Irish to victory again

Both regiments together with Montrose

My latest regiment represents MacDonnell's Regiment. At 1:10 figure to man ration, it is over-strength for Auldearn, but I have painted larger units than I need to facilitate gaming the other earlier battles, as well as fictional scenarios.

Unfortunate covenanter infantryman is run down by the Irish

Left Shot Sleeve

Pike and Command

Right Shot Sleeve

The figures are mostly Eureka Irish, for the most part selected from various 'charging' poses. As with the first Irish regiment, I have added the occasional scots bunnit using greenstuff, and the highland targes (shields) are from the Old Glory ECW range. Casualty figures and Sergant are from Perry. Selecting good command models was difficult for this unit as Eureka do not make 'charging' Irish Command figures, only 'standing' command. Fortunately I was able to use Perry ECW command models from their English Command Advancing pack.

The colours

More on the flags soon

Pikes are 8cm steel pins from Foundry. I was tempted to equip this unit with 'half-pikes' as suggested by Reid in his various books on the subject, however they just didn't look right so i reverted to the full length pikes. I may still equip the third and final Irish regt with half-pikes.

CHARGE!

Another close up of the colours

The unit is based on Litko 3mm plywood bases with self-adhesive flexible steel bottoms. The bases are textured with wood-filler, sand & gravel, primed black and then painted GW Scorched Brown. They are then dry-brushed 3 times; (1) GW Graveyard Earth, (2) GW Kommando Khaki, (3) GW Bleached Bone. The painted bases are finally decorated with Static Grass, adhesive tufts, and finally clump foliage (occasionally topped with purple flock to look like heather).

Hold the line!

The Eureka 'charging' pike models are superb

Flags are prepared in photoshop by hand and printed on good quality paper. The are then hand-painted over, cut and glued onto a 6cm steel pin (Foundry) using super glue and a Pritt Stick. The flag is folded when the paper glue is still wet and when dry, final highlights are applied. The flags were then attached to the ensign models, and the flag staff was painted. Careful placement of the ensign and pike models was required on the bases to avoid the flags and pikes from interfering with each other.

The Irish were painted using mostly Foundry paints, with some Games Workshop and Coat d'Arms colours. Colours used were mostly drabs, greys, browns and other muted colours. I can provide the exact palettes used on request.

NEXT UP for the Royalists - MacColla's Lifeguard.