Nearly there now

 The warmer weather has meant the work on the Middleton Cheney model has moved on apace.

By Saturday I was able to finish the base colours on the ground mat, and black paint the exposed polystyrene round the edges. 

The weather was so good that I was also able to dry brush the whole set up with a light brown to tone down the green and accentuate the texture. 

I was then satisfied that sufficient of the heavy paint work had been done so I could generally tidy up and clear away the newspapers and the stray bits of polystyrene. Severe application of the vacuum cleaner was required to make Shedquarters even remotely presentable with lots of white granules everywhere..

I painted a corner patch brown and put on some of my standard ECW buildings to represent the village itself. If truth be told the church is a bit of a stretch. The actual church in the village is off table a bit, and it also has a spire, but I have this model and I like it.

I popped the figures on to see how they fitted and where they would stand upright.

To tell the story I am resorting to laminated arrows and troop labels. I've also stuck the name of the battle to the edge of the board.

This was how it was supposed to look in my head, more or less, but having put it all together I thought it looked a little bit bare.

I therefore repaired to the Wellingborough Road Model Shop, which I wrote about 5 years ago, and I'm pleased to say is still there. I had a poke round in the railway modelling section and chose some trees and a bit of hedging to add a bit of depth.

The problem is we know quite a bit about the fields in this area during the period. They hadn't been enclosed fully, and were mostly ridge and furrow farming. No copses or woods, nor any field boundaries with big hedges or ditches. The bottom of the valley is flood plain, and the Royalist cavalry charged across it with little difficulty.

I therefore decided to put a hedge row down each side of the lane behind the Parliamentarian foot. There's no evidence for this, but I think it's as likely as not. The hedging is that rubbery stuff from Javis you can cut into lengths. The nature of the board means it can be kept in place with a few pins. The trees are likewise Javis from their N gauge range. I'm considering taking their bases off and drilling holes into the board, but for now I'll keep their positioning flexible. 

I may get another bag or two of hedging for the other lanes, and possibly another tree or two. That top corner looks a little bare, so I may put in as compass rose or some other piece of signage.

Here's a shot of the village and the Parliamentarian forces.

Here's James Compton's men. I wondered about having them in a single rank, but I think this is okay, given the figure scale. 

The unit labels behind the other Royalist cavalry needs redoing so it sits flush on the table.

This is the Parliamentarian line from the other end.

I think it looks good enough to take to Partizan in May. I need to do some other signs and bits and pieces for an information board, which I can get done over the next few weeks. No need for any hurry, and I can clear the table and get on with wargaming.

This is an interesting little battle, but it is mainly a stop gap until Phil is fit, and we can get out one of his larger and more involved layouts for one of our better known battles.