Tuesday 26 May 2009

The Tower Hamlets Trained band




This is my largest wargames unit: the Tower Hamlets Trained Band. Sixteen pikemen and thirty-two musketeers. I modelled this unit some years ago and chose the THTB for my first ECW unit as my first job in the City was actually in an office in Tower Hamlets (just!). The flags are from Body's Banners and the figures are all Renegade Miniatures.

I've actually used them in four games now but it is only as of this weekend, when I painted seven more, that they got up to their full strength of 48 figures; very old school!




Frankly, I think a pike block looks a bit weedy with less than 16 figures: the front rank still have tassets. There is a set of THTB pikeman's armour (with tassets) in the Royal Armouries.

Now there is, however, a fundamental flaw with my unit and that is that they are armed with normal matchlock muskets, whereas the THTB had firelocks. These they used to great effect at Cropredy Bridge (their only action) when they put lit matches on poles on the bridge for the Royalists to shoot at at night whilst they shot back from below the bridge with their firelocks. At the time I painted most of the unit you couldn't get figures with firelocks but now Bicorne do them so at some point I will replace all the musketeers with firelock men and use the musketeers as the basis of a new unit.

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