Redoubt Enterprises

ECW or 30YW Battalion Guns

Review By Terry Gore

This particular pack included two ‘Battalion Guns’ and four crew as well as buckets, swabs and tools. The figures are on the large side of 28mm, 30mm actually, and are of medium heft (Barrett scale). They seem to fit in well with the larger figures from Foundry and Old Glory.

The crewmen all have separate heads. In some ways, this is good in that you can place them at different angles to give your crew an individualistic look. If you are rough on your figures, however, you may have a gun crew resembling King Charles I after his beheading. The two crew figures I received had one standing and one kneeling. Both wore wide pantaloons, a full shirt and leather jerkin. The heads both featured clean-shaven faces and shoulder length long hair.

I glued a head wearing a very wide-brimmed hat to the standing figure. He then looked very much like a character out of the old European and English engravings of the period. This figure had open hands, so he received a cannon swab. There was no flash on this figure, a definite plus. The second crewman had both hands around a powder barrel and he received a cap with a front brim only. This is an interesting hat, and it gave the figure a very different look for the period.

The cannon is very nicely molded, with wood grain on the wheels and carriage. The barrel is tiny, making the gun a 3 pounder perhaps at most. The cannon swab could have been made a bit smaller as it looks too big for the gun barrel, but this is easily fixed. The cannon comes in four parts, but the wheels fit nicely on the carriage, something that I appreciate, having dealt with pieces that do not in the past. Once mounted on a stand, painted and flocked, the battalion guns are a nice addition to armies for Renaissance Warfare.

Available from Miniature Service Center, 1386 Portofino Drive, Yuba City, CA 95993 (530) 673-5169. Price given was in pounds sterling (10 pounds per pack of two guns and four crew), but U.S. prices are available on the Redoubt web site at www.redoubtenterprises.com

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