The English Civil War, or ECW, always has had an appeal to me ever since I started gaming with historical intrests.


I always say when they ask me my favorite period, the "era between the two civil wars, namely the English and the American ones".

There just is something about those ranks of muskets marching on the table that catches my fancy, the at times sheer amateurism of commanders, and literally at times a regiment drawn from the local pub or hamlet.

And as such, this ruleset by Baccus was actually my first set of the Polemos series that I obtained recently, never having tried the rulessystem before, so let's have a look at them and see if I "get" them.

The first part of the book handles the "generics" like how to base your models (60x30 as is seemingly the most common way in Polemos systems I have been told), troop types and qualities, how to identify and brigade your units (a single base is a unit, and there are pointers on how to base pike and shotte intermixed for ease of indetification) all up to how to deploy armies.

Then we move to the actual rules of the gamesystem, which is based around a system of "Tempo Bidding" to see who grabs initiative, and what one can still do in that turn with his units and brigades.  Not everything will be able to activate, so one must choose wisely.


Movement itself is expressed in "Base Width's or BW), which means in general 6cm normally, and 12cm in march column for most infantry, and double that for cavalry.  As you can see, these short movement ranges make the game actually suited to be played on a small or normal size table, and still give the impression of large crossed distances and grand manouevers.  Especially as they are doubled as long as they end the move outside 4BW of known enemies.  As usual in most rulesets, changing formations and terrain has an influence on the move rates.

Ranged Combat was nothing to write home about in the ECW, as muskets where fairly new technology in those days, and the rate of fire was poor, as was the range.  Now, charges are also resolved in this phase, to represent the fire at the moving troops closing in on them.
Ranges themselves are pretty short, again to represent the era, with short range being 3cm and maximum range being a measly 6 cm aka a BW.  Players then crossreference their Offensive and Defensive base value on a table, and add a d6 to it as well as some other modifiers to get the combat result.

Close Combat follows the same procedure, although with a different table, as Ranged Combat, and the results might be just that bit bloodier due to multiple units being in combat with each other.

Army Morale, the next section, is of course the decider of victory or defeat, asthe army starts to fall apart as bases are removed from the game.

The third part of the rules cover Terrain, as well as Optional Rules.  The terrain itself is split up in either Area terrain like woods and settlements, or Linear like rivers, all of whom affect the movement rules.  A handy terrain generator is included to roll for the layout of your table for those random battles.
In the optional rules we also find things like Defensive points, Ammunition Supplies and a heap of other stuff to add an extra layer of detailing to your games.

The fourth part is, from what I have been told, the bread and butter of Polemos gamerules: the Army Generators.  These allow you to first generate the number of brigades in each arm of the army, depending on the year.  A second roll then decides the morale, strength and either armament (for foot) or tactics (for horse) of your troops.  The generators also include the Polemos equivqlents of the historical forces present, to give you a good start on what force to assemble and paint.  Something I'll be definitly looking towards when I start an army soonish.


The final part of the rules brings about the scenario's, as well as some information of the ECW and the Designer's Notes, and includes some lovely colour pictures of painted Baccus armies in the field.

A great looking book, and the rules don't seem to complicated for an old fart like me.  I will definitly be building and ECW army in the future (after first completing so many more other projects for the scale), and then I'll see if I can find an opponent / convince one or more of my posse to start the period as well...

Now to only pick a side...

Well, a bit of a mixed lot for this weeks entry, as I did some work on a project I had put aside for this challenge... as well as one that probably will be in boxes stored until challenge 9 should I manage to seduce me a spot then.

So let's travel the world!

The first batch of the entry are more 10mm ECW from the Lancer Miniatures range, this time in the form of a complete infantry regiment.  Mixed pike & shotte, the regiment is supported by a demi-culverin for some extra deterrent towards any opposing forces.


I really like Kieran`s sculpts, and think this was one of those "gems" sometimes hidden on Kickstarter.  With more and more big companies using Kickstarter as their pre-order platform, there are those small operation on it as well which at times churn out lovely figures for a good price, or even some oddities that you just want to have.

The pikes themselves are metal rods, and I can say first hand they hurt like hell when you accidentally put your hand on them...

The second part of my entry is this 28mm Chariot from the Shang-Zhao range of Curteys Miniatures, now under 1st Corps banner.  I think I bought this almost 12 years ago or so, and I don`t actually know why anymore, probably some fantasy project or such.

But as we get older, our intrests start shifting, and I bit the bullet that I will be building a Shang dynasty force for Mortem et Gloriam (well, if their chinese army lists re-appear on the site, then I know what to order because while they are in the index, the actual lists aren`t in the pdf's) and try and introduce those rules over at my club.


I really like the facial expression on the charioteer to be honest, he has that whole "umpf, you posh dandy" look next to the noble...

So points-wise, if I counted correctly, this should mean for this week:

31 infantry models in 10mm (12 pike, 16 shot, 3 crew) @ 1 point each
1 crew handled cannon in 10mm @ 2 points
and 1 vehicle in scale 28mm with 2 crew @ 25 points

This should further add a nice 58 points towards my challenge goal... and keep me on schedule.

Talking about the schedule, I might better start tossing down some "points bombs" of around 100 points minimum for one or two weeks, that way the target gets well in reach and more or less secured in case I should miss a week of entrying.  At my current speed, I`m more or less safe with my 25 - 50 points averaging on a weekly basis, but I don`t have any margin for error...

Thanks for watching!

On this most jolly of days, I had the benefit of being able to paint the whole afternoon and get a third entry done for the Challenge.

Not that I`m a painting maniac, those small scales tend to paint quicker then large models, but the GF is knock out from last nights foodfest, and the fact she is a night shift nurse... so I`ll have the coming night all by myself as well with Gettysburg and the Dr Who special on the tele, and my brushes to keep me company.

But I get lost in chitchats... this entry is upping the scale a bit, as I went from 6mm of my previous entries to 10mm this time.  Around july I supported a Kickstarter from Lancer Miniatures, for a force of 10mm English Civil War models.  It got funded with a nice margin, and when it arrived I decided to put it to the side (like, about all my Kickstarters actually) just for this challenge.

You know, in case I would ran out of miniatures otherwise *cough*

The first unit I painted as such for the army are these Dragoons, 4 to a base and 16 in total.  I am going to make the whole force for the New Model Army, yet decided on a failry generic Parliament flag in order to not restrict the Dragoons to a specific battle or scenario.

It are rather lovely little sculpts in my opinion, and they are a great joy to paint.  I`m taking the Challenge as a way to get some forces either rounded out (my epic for example), or to start and perhaps even finish other project, like these little guys.

On to the next batch of models... before the time draught hits and my turn-out will invariably suffer from it ;-)

Welcome to another Haul Report, and what a week it has been as my library pile was extended by no less then 28 new additions.

But that isn`t everything I obtained, so bear with me...

The main haul this week came of course from the Boekenfestijn event past friday, a huge fair where you can grab new books for a fraction of the price.  These are books from, well, end of lines, failed sales, or just plain overstocks, and my purchases averaged less then 3 euro per book.






You can see more about those particular books in this YouTube video I made for it:

But those weren`t the only books I obtained, as my second part of my AwesomeBooks order arrived past monday, with three more novels for the reading stack...

Of course, reading requires a certain style, and my parents already gave me my birthday present 1.5 months early.  A new vaper, in the form of a pipe, to vape in class now :-)

The final haul where miniatures, a Kickstarter pledge by Lancer Miniatures.  A small campaign to "pre-launch" there new ECW range, I take a more detailed look in the unboxing video below.

So a lovely week for sure, and now I`m off to go and have a read ;-)

Finally started painting on my ECW 28mm forces, and trying to puzzle out a `main regiments` paint scheme

In the end, I went for Skippon`s lads, as the combination of red vests ties in with the New Model Army and green banners that contrast well with the red and buff colours



In the end, I`ve decided on one regiment of Philip Skippon, two of Saye & Sele`s and probably some New Model style forces, mainly for the more specialised troops like the firelocks