All Your Polish Cavalry Are Belong To Us

Here's all the (so far) planned and painted Polish cavalry for my 17th century big skirmish games.

Alfred Von Richthausen's Rote Reitter

As promised in my last post, I checked my new phone camera and it does a-okay. So I took the opportunity of fair weather today, and reinforced with camera flash, took photos of my freshly completed Warlord Cuirassiers.

Although I'm Hungarian and it's sort of against traditions, I like the concept of heavy cavalry in all of its forms. After attending a presentation on the subject before Christmas, I promptly got this box on my wish list. The Mrs and Santa coordinating their efforts, the dozen reiters were under the tree by the right time.

When I started painting the figures I had no clear concept in mind other than having one half with swords and one with pistols done. In good 'Cossacks: Back to War' tradition (where by default one faction is red and one is blue) my Imperialist infantry has a red/orange theme, so I chose to go with that. The rest is history.

Then the >>you know who<< arrived...

I managed to complete the full Warlord Games winged hussar box, eight metal figures in total. Most of the time was spent waiting for the paint and then the first layer of varnish to dry - I always do a double matt varnish on metal figures.

I think they are quite splendid, maybe a bit more for the 1683 and onwards campaigns, but I'll just use them for the earlier 17th century anyway. I'm not sure I could do the same with the TAG or Foundry hussars wearing chainmail (that is use them for the later periods).

The rank and file comrades are in two groups, one in yellow/buff and one in red garbs. I used the pennons sparingly, because the long lances should be broken to pieces on the target, so what's the point throwing those expensive cloths away?

TYW Imperialist Infantry - Warlord plastics complet'd

Great news everyone! A long time ago I got a bunch of Warlord plastic Pike &Shotte infantry sprues on one of their regular sprue sales. Well I'm proud to announce that I painted all of them. That's three sprues so 39 infantry, plus I added one from an earlier batch.

Italian Wars - Milanese Horse and Landsknecht Arquebusiers

Continuing the Italian theme, this is the group of 28mm figures I managed to finish this month (including basing them): eight Warlord plastic Landsknecht shot and four Perry riders in Milanese livery.

Hakkaa päälle!

These are three Warlord plastic cavalrymen, with minor conversion work. For my Pikeman's Lament (or other skirmish) games I wanted some sort of cavalry other than your usual harquebusier/cuirassier, badly equipped, untrained but motivated, all in all, something like the Finnish horse serving under Gustavus. 

Of course there must be a way then to discern these from their more respectable colleagues, so one of the figures received a Bloody Miniatures head swap with a fur hat, and the other two got copies of the same fur hat instead of a helmet or soft hat. The back of the figures' heads did have the end of a lobster tail sticking out (which the soft hat would have covered), so I put some extra green stuff there to cover it.

I think they look fierce enough, and will do their duties well until I can get some Cossacks or Croats. They have no pistols, and wear a basic brown buff coat.

TYW Cuirassiers

Here are a few snapshots of four recently completed 28mm scale mounted figures, two Empress lobsters and two Warlord plastic demi-cuirassiers. I mixed them up to make a three-figure unit in Pikeman's Lament, with one extra rider. I have six more Warlord plastic riders, three of which will be mounted Mousquetaires and three Finnish/Swedish galloper cavalry.

Light conditions aren't optimal for photography right now, but I tried my best.

Warlord Sprue Sale Loot

Not necessarily in the order I've painted these, just wanted to humble brag about them. I scored two sprues of infantry, two cavalry, one firelocks and one foot command during the Warlord Games sprue sale a while ago, and I actually managed to paint up most of the figures by now.

First I hesitated between these and the Marlburian range, but then I thought if I do 18th century I'll do pitched battles with large battalions, so 1/72 is still the way to go, and for skirmishes the ECW/TYW range is more suitable.

Handbüchse

I just realized I have not yet shown most of my 28mm Renaissance collection here, although I have painted many figures. This is the Warlord metal set of a baby cannon and two Landsknecht crew. I made the pavises from 1mm plasticard.

Royal Retinue

Here's a bunch of elite men-at-arms for my fantasy/renaissance project. Most of these are Perry foot knights with additions from their WoTR infantry and mounted sets, and a few Warlord Landsknecht heads. I wish there was at least another head with the crowned sallet, but this is it.

I'm doing batches of six figures which will, in some cases, eventually be filled up to a dozen and then used for Lion Rampant / Pikeman's Lament.