ECW gaming and 3 influential armies

I am playing a few more English Civil War games testing out the use of activation cards to determine the sequence of play (see previous post). I want to say a thankyou to all those that commented and provided additional ideas and thoughts. I am still processing them and I am sure they will improve the end result.

A test game about to begin on a 4x4 foot table and 8 units per side plus artillery piece.

A last month I posted about three wargaming books which were influential on my wargaming (here) which was an idea from Nundanket's blog. This got me thinking about what are the three most influential armies in my collection and why? Well, here they are in no set order:

English Civil War (Mostly Hinchliffe)

English Civil War - Hinchliffe

The first that came to mind were my ECW armies, possibly because they were my first metal figures. I collected a few Hinchliffe miniatures at a time with pocket money and savings over the years, slowly building up Royalist and Parliamentary armies from the ages of 12 to15 years old.

I made two failed attempts at painting these armies. Eventually they were boxed up for decades travelling with me from the UK to Australia, then New Zealand, and back again to Australia. I finally cleaned them up and painted them in my late 50's. Getting these armies on the tabletop for a game always gives me a great deal of pleasure.

Warhammer 40K Tyranid Army (Games Workshop)

A selection from my Tyranid army

After doing no wargaming for some 15 plus years, I started again with a Warhammer 40K entry level box with my Son. I got the Tyranids and he got the Space Marines to paint. Not that I did much gaming, the rules were not for me. However, I did enjoy making, converting and painting the units and overtime have build up quite a few units and collection of armies. While rarely playing a game there was always the fascination of building units with their various armour and weapon combinations.

Of all the 40K armies, I must say those Tyranids remain a favourite and largest army, and are partially the reason for me getting me back into wargaming.

War of the Spanish Succession (Paper Soldiers)

When asked "what is your favourite army?" A perfectly acceptable response could well be "my last one." As is the case with me with my WSS armies, but not because they are the most recent addition. It is the opportunity these paper armies from Peter Dennis offer to go off and explore other periods you may well have never considered doing because of the cost.

I have 3 paper armies: WSS, Jacobite, and 1066. Periods I would not have normally explored were it not for these paper figures. I increase the size of the figures from 28mm to 40mm when making them.

So there you have it my top three influential armies, though not necessarily favourite armies as one of them could be replaced by one of my armies by Peter Laing Miniatures.