Dragoons and Hussars for my 15mm SYW project

Here are the last of my cavalry for my Honours of War 15mm imagi-nation, The Grand Duchy of Überwald.

First, a brigade of Dragoons, with their brigadier;

I decided that the Dragoons, because of their roots as mounted infantry would wear the standard grey coats of Überwald infantry regiments but with orange facings. The Dragoon regiments would be distinguished by different coloured breeches and the trim on their horse blankets. Here, I have given one unit yellow breeches and the other has light blue ones.

Obviously, by the time of the SYW these dragoons would be classed as medium cavalry, rather than having a dismounted role.

My last set of cavalry are the Hussars;

I've given both regiments green dolmans and pelisses, but different coloured breeches, boots, fur trim and busby bags (which match their breeches). I decided that all Hussars in the Überwald army would have red shabraques edged in white, but I'm not really planning to paint any more regiments of Hussars, mainly because they aren't really dealt with properly in the Honours of War rules. The rules make it clear that if you want useful cavalry they have to be heavy ones, which is a shame. Hussar uniforms are always so striking.

I had a couple of spare figures left over, so I decided to rebase two of my brigadier figures to add an extra figure on each base;

I think that this looks a lot better than just having one figure and I might have to look around for a few spares to improve my remaining brigadier bases.

Anyway, I've now finished off everything I bought up front for this army. If I want to add anything different, I'll have to spend more money with Essex Miniatures.  I do quite like the idea of a Freikorps brigade, maybe a couple of battalions of line infantry and one of skirmishers, perhaps with a squadron of cavalry of some kind. I'd also like to do some allied heavy cavalry, based upon the Essex SYW British Horse Grenadiers. There is no rush, though.

Here is the second part of my Zanzibari Arab project.

In my last post, I showcased leaders and Baluchis with jezails. Here I have some Zanzibari Arabs with muskets, various Arabs and more Baluchis, this time with with swords and to finish off, two more Arabs with fearsome double-handed swords.

These are all, once again Wargames Foundry figures.

I don't have any immediate plans for using them, but at least they are all now finished and packed safely away for use at some unknown time in the future.

Back in early 2018, I started off a project .....................

.............. but I abandoned it, half painted. Over the years I did a few bits and pieces but it stayed in a box, mostly forgotten.

However, while I've been painting other things this year, I've gone back to the abandoned project while waiting for things to dry and brought my earlier efforts up to a better standard, as much as possible.

The project was going to be a Zanzibari Arab slaver band for Congo, but we stopped playing those rules and I couldn't see much point in carrying on at the time. Now, though, I can see how the figures could be useful for all sorts of things, In Her Majesty's Name, for example, or Pulp games in general. So, without further ado, here are the first few figures out of the completed total.

These figures represent a variety of characters and leaders. I particularly like the two on the left, especially the one in the red turban with a double-barrelled shotgun and also the one-eyed piratical guy on the far-right, with his pet monkey sitting on his shoulder.

Next are two groups of Baluchis (now known as Baloch) with jezails;

I think I overdid the Army Painter strong tone a bit on the two guys in green, but I don't think it really matters.

As far as I have discovered, Baluchi people spread out around the coasts of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf and ended up in East Africa when the Sultanate of Muscat controlled large parts of the East African coast. 

As you can see, I went for a much more colourful palette for the clothing of all these figures, mainly because I wanted a kind of Hollywood style for them, but also because I didn't want to paint up and endless series of figures in white. Yes, I know, I've recently been painting Napoleonic Austrians, but when I started on this in 2018 I was less confident about painting large areas of white.

There are plenty more figures finished off, so I'll post the rest of them over the next week or so.

Three units of heavy cavalry for my SYW imaginations project

So, it is time for the cavalry part of my Uberwald SYW army. First, three units of big men on big horses, i.e cuirassiers, the armoured fist of the mounted arm.

These are the Garde zu Pferde, resplendent in their blue uniforms, led by their Brigadier and a trumpeter.

Next are two squadrons of line Cuirassiers, wearing buff uniforms.

These units could all be brigaded together or I might use them as shock troops to be supported by Dragoons and Hussars.

Lots more (18) Perry plastic men-at-arms on foot

I actually painted these a fair while ago but never got round to finishing off their bases. Then, when I did get the basing done, the atmosphere was damp, so I was worried that the varnish would go all foggy. Here are the first group;

Their flag, according to the Perry insert in the box is a French one, but it doesn't really matter what it represents. I chose it because I think the dark colours on the flag suits their dark armour quite nicely.

Here are the other half-dozen I finished off;

I now have a ridiculously large number of heavily-armoured dismounted men-at-arms, easily enough for several retinues for Lion Rampant, but it does mean that my 15th century army looks pretty impressive in overall terms, and it also means that I can field forces for very large games, probably enough for both sides!

18 Grenzers and two leaders

Well, It stayed dry and I varnished my Grenzer skirmishers! There are three groups of six, plus an officer and an NCO as leaders.

First. the group with the NCO:

Next a group with an officer;

And finally a third group;

These are all Perry 28mm metal figures and will provide the skirmishing capability for my Austrian Napoleonic force. They are equipped with muskets rather than rifles and will therefore be cheaper in Sharp Practice terms than Jägers with rifles.

As they have red facings and yellow buttons, I have chosen them to represent Grenzregiment no. 5, the Warasdiner-Kreutzer regiment.

As a first for me, I have given these chaps movement trays. I don't usually bother for skirmish groups, but I bought some cheap trays at Colours recently, so I suppose I should at least give them a go.

 

A detour into Black Ops

 I've been working on painting Austrian Napoleonic Grenzers, but I am waiting for their bases to dry. While working on them, I've also been painting some Special Ops troops on the side.

First up; three unit commanders;

And then two Fire Teams. First, one with a Designated Marksman;

And the second with a grenade launcher;

Both teams have a leader with a PDW, i.e a new generation sub-machine gun, two grunts with assault rifles equipped with UGLs and one with a Minimi-type LMG.

These are all Copplestone figures from the Future Wars range of military types.

I decided to go for a fairly muted, grimdark colour palette and also give them gravelly bases. They will make a good backup for my Infiltration Team I painted a while ago.

Like my Grenzers, these still need to be spray varnished but the weather is pretty damp so I don't want to risk fogging, so the varnish will have to wait until we get a dry day.

It will be nice to see them on the table at some point. I just need to paint their opponents.