"Epic" Pike and Shotte for One Hour Wargames

Okay. Yes. They came free with Wargames Illustrated. Talk about a gateway drug. I love the English Civil War (or the War of Three Kingdoms) and became interested in the period for gaming during my first tour in Europe. I have an extensive collection for King and Parliament in 28 mm so when the Epic Pike and Shotte came out from Warlord Games, I thought they looked cool but I was not going to start another large army for the same period, no matter how good it looked, in another scale. Then the free give away and I thought, I love One Hour Wargames and I was looking for a new period to do with the rules. Ta-Dah!

Here is a quick and simple painting guide. I painted these figures over two nights with a combined time of about 4 hours (not counting priming). For me, the smaller the scale, the lighter the colors so the unit does not look like a dark blob at gaming distance and can be distinguished from other units. Here is what I did:

1. Prime the figures white. I decided to paint them on the sprue.

2. I used Citadel Contrast (CC) for most of the colors.

3. CC Darkoath Flesh for the skin.

4. Clothing is CC Space Wolves Grey.

5. The hat is CC Ultramarine Blue.

6. Paint the pikes CC Skeleton Horde.

7. Straps, pouches, scabbards and anything leather use CC Snakebite Leather.

8. I painted the blanket rolls (?) using Vallejo Flat Green, Yellow Ochre, Flat Red and the Sergeant's sash Dark Blue. The fringe on the halberd was also painted Flat Red.

9. The arquebus and musket rest were painted with CC Gore Grunta Fur.

10. The gunpowder "apostles" were painted CC Ultramarine blue. I did a second coat of the hats with CC Ultramarine Blue also to b make them darker.

11. The pike heads, halberd blade and sword hilts were painted CC Black Templar. Hose was painted Vallejo Flat White and the shoes were painted with CC Black Templar. I also painted the hair various colors. I also gave the pikes a second coat of CC Skelton Horde as I noticed I had missed some spots and it ended up looking better.

12. Below is a cruddy picture but I attempted to make some of the blanket rolls tartan by adding some stripes. At gaming distance they look like tartan and up close they look like crap! But we are going for gaming distance. I glued the figures to a 3" x 1" wood precut base from Litko. After I glued them I realized that the back of the first rank is obscured and the front of the second rank is obscured. So . . . if you make any mistakes there, don't worry about it!

One rank of musketeers and one rank of pikes will represent one Infantry Regiment of One Hour Wargames.

13. I put watered down white glue on the base and dipped the base in my handy dandy small sand tub.

14. I put splotches of watered down glue on the sand when it was dried and dipped the stand in green static grass. Doesn't look too bad and it (bragging) looks good at gaming distance.

This unit was a test to see how the figures would paint and it was a success. As I have other projects in the work right now, I am going to take a pause on getting the rest of the army painted and will do them later this year.