February 2024 productions

 The end of January saw the painting desk with a unit of ECW dragoons about to be finished for the Battle of Cheriton, four more ECW/TYW cavalry regiments with primer on them, and two others at a pre-primer stage.  Rather than switch attention to a long neglected Roman Legion I decided to press on with the 17th Century stuff and am happy to be able to end this month with all seven cavalry regiments fully painted, varnished and based.       

The 'Red' dragoon regiment has already been reported on in the preparation for Cheriton.  It looks splendid but got carried away, along with much of the rest of the Parliamentary cavalry, in the battle.

The second dragoon regiment have been given green jackets.  The figures are a mix of Pendraken - two thirds of the mounted figures plus the empty horses - Lancer - the dismounted firing line plus the other third of the mounted figures - and Irregular - the horse holders.

The Croat light horse make a colourful show.  All the figures are Pendraken, with a flag for the Keglerich Regiment from Maverick Models.

One Regiment of Cuirassiers, all Pendraken but from a variety of sets, and one of cavalry in hats and coats, all Miniature Figurines apart from the command group that has a Pendraken officer and a couple of converted Lancer dragoon figures.  The flags are my own designs.

Then there are two big regiments - both in numbers and size relative to the others - one of hatted the other of lobster potted men.  All except the lobster pots' officer, who is Pendraken, are Lancer figures.  They just about go with the other figures but are definitely going to be the heavy cavalry reserve, brought out to make up numbers when needed.  They look less lively than the Pendraken figures and I did not find the Lancer cavalry as good to paint as their infantry figures.  Definition was less clear.

In the background of the last picture can be seen some of the trees that I have been basing up.  Some smaller ones have just been glued onto bases this morning.

All are from Sam's Trees, a local company that I had not come across until I found reference to it on Prufrock's fine blog.  There are still a couple of dozen to be based and I am tempted to make another order.  It is not possible to have too many trees for the gaming table.

Finally, last week I got round to basing up some Samnites that were painted early last year.  These were needed to provide an extra unit of Italian allies for the Romans in the fight against Pyrrhus.  Not perhaps historically accurate in appearance or use, but they brightened up the battlefield.  Quite a lot of Samnites languish in the lead and plastic piles and I have the aspiration to get them painted once I have got on with the Roman allied legion, which really would have been my next objective if my son had not suggested a summer campaign based on the Lamian War of 323 - 322 BC, pitting Greeks against Macedon on land and sea.  So, March looks like the season for rebasing, retouching and expanding Macedonian armies and launching some more ships.