Pike & Shotte Marksman & Master Gunner Fashion

Warlord Games are proud to release a superb new marksman model. Old Tom as his subordinates call him has been the squire s gamekeeper for as long as most can remember.

A skilled marksman, hunter and no friend to poachers, Tom rarely needs a second shot to fell any creature large or small.

Tom jokes that it is his steady eye and sobriety that ensures his unerring accuracy, but his young understudies think that it may have more to do with trusted and valuable long wheel lock musket and given one any fool could shoot as well.

Marksmen were rare in the Civil wars, but turn up in certain Swedish regiments in the Thirty Years War in a regular fashion. Marksmen were principally used in sieges, where they were employed in towers to pick off besieging gunners and specialists, or in the siege lines where they tried to do precisely the same thing back.

At the siege of Latham House in Lancashire, Lady Derby s small garrison held out against far larger besieging force. She used her gamekeepers to pick off unwary Parliamentarians.

Incensed by this sniping, the Roundheads built a wooden sow , an enclosed stout wooden box to advance in safety. Sadly the keen-eyed snipers merely shot them in the ankles and feet which were still unprotected. Poor Parliamentarian Lord Brooke was also assassinated by a marksman named Dumb Dyott who had placed himself in Lichfield Cathedral tower and shot him dead, and though we do not know what weapon he had it was an impressive shot by any standards.

So, here we have Tom, who has crept out early between the lines to take a shot at an enemy officer who does his round at the same time each day. He has spannered his wheel lock, loaded carefully and even used his hunting sword embedded in the ground to rest his piece. Now to calm his breathing, allow for that forsaken wind and squeeze the trigger.

Note: Models supplied unassembled and unpainted