Their blood shall flow like vodka

To remind people that BarbarianJ is not the only person using this blog, and to fill up the time between his projects which are as plentiful as they are varied as they are violent, here are some Russians, of the Soviet type for connoisseurs.

I'm starting a modest army. More on that story later.
Here are 2 SU122 self-propeled guns.

Bit of a problem on opening the blister pack.
But with a bit of this...

And a spot of that...

Sorted.

Painting may commence.
Some black.

One green.

2 green.

Mud. LOTS of mud.

Nice motivational slogans. Here, "For the Motherland" and "Onwards to Berlin".

Just the red stars left to do. Or buy...

Shiny shiny!

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. As many a wargamer before me, I have succumbed to the illness that haunts us all; shiny object syndrome. Whilst working on my Pike & Shotte troops, I started painting The Green Knight, until a new chimera entered my den... 2 F.o.W. German Marder III Ms and a battery of 3 Nebelwerfen (=""smoke thrower"), knicknamed 'Screeming Meemies' by the Allies. Fortunately, Marders are fairly quick to assemble and paint, so I should be back on track with my other two W.i.P. by the end of the weekend. Natürlich, some photos will also be up soon.

A German WWII Marder IIIM

Gentlemen with high standards: Pike & Shotte command

After an almost unforgivable lapse of time without posting, here are some pics of my Lieutenant-Colonel and standard bearer for the company of the Earl of Manchester's regiment of Foote which I'm painting up. The standard is still very much a work in progress, so please forgive the sloppiness of it. I opted for blue as my Lieutenant-Colonel's suit. This will let him stand out from the grunts, whilst tying him in, as blue is the colour of the ribbons the foot soldiers were in my company.My understanding is that officers could wear pretty much what they liked. As I got into E.C.W. after reading a book on Marston Moor, I've sculpted on a band around the Lieutenant-Colonel's hat, into which is sculpted a piece of paper; it was reported that many of the soldiers in the Parliamentary armies present at Marston Moor wore such tokens, in order to distinguish themselves from the enemy in the heat of battle. Indeed, when Sir Thomas Fairfax, in his characteristic manner, got too far ahead of his cavalry corps and found himself caught up amongst an enemy horse regiment, he is said to have removed his white token to slip back through the lines to the Parliamentary side.

I opted to dress the ensign in black, so as to avoid his detracting attention from the Lieutenant-Colonel and the flag itself. The ribbon in his hat is white, following the same logic as with the Lieutenant-Colonel. I've not managed to find any detailed info on Manchester's flag, although I believe it was blue. As I understand it, the standard system for the flags within a regiment was as follows.

• C/O: plain field colour
• Lt-Col: Field colour with St George’s Cross in canton
• Major: As above, with addition of a device or wavy pile (which looks like a streaming line coming down from the corner of the canton towards the centre of the flag).
• Captains: As major, with increasing amount of devices or wavy lines to denote rank (the more wavy piles, the lower the seniority)

However, some nobles appear to have elected to use a device from their coat of arms on all their flags, using wavy lines. This could be understandable with some coats of arms. Manchester’s arms contain 3 lozenges and therefore it wouldn’t look particularly good to use the lozenges to denote rank, as heraldic devices in 3 could have a special significance. I therefore took example on the Sealed Knot and used the lozenges as standard on Manchester’s flag.

As always, comments & constructive criticism are welcome.

Joe