Persian Heavy Cavalry

It's been a while, since with the good weather I have had to concentrate on the garden and repainting the conservatory. These are the HaT Persian heavy cavalry, this time I have kept the mix of armour over/under the tunic.

Russian T26 with antennae

Only 5 years late! I painted the ordinary version about 5 years ago and it's taken me to now to add the radio equipped version. This was partly because this version was quite difficult to find and eventually I ordered them from China.


Generally the S-model version goes together well, except for the antenna which is very fragile and a P.I.T.A. to seperate from the sprue

Persian medium/heavy cavalry

These are the Hat Persian medium cavalry and they split into two poses with and without visible armour, so I decided to organise my units using just one type even though it reduces the variability.


So "mediums" to the left and "heavier" to the right, three units of each.

Covid reading

Got a delivery of books yesterday from Naval & Military Press, as my reading pile was getting low and they had some interesting and useful titles in their Easter sale.

I've started on the "Moscovy's Soldiers" as it might guide me in painting my Soldatski and in deciding which of the new Redbox cavalry to buy.

persian heavy infantry archers

It's taken a while to finish these figures, I've assumed that units are relatively consistent in appearance


Ideally I would have put the helmeted figures in the front ranks, but the posture was wrong and I couldn't be bothered with so many head swaps

2020Q1 progress against plan

Nearly forgot to do this. I managed to paint 559 items broken down as
WW1 241
Medieval 190
Ancient 96
Modern 19
WW2 13

Looking at the plan in detail

• An Achaemenid Persian army, I've about 200 items already purchased - managed to buy extras at York and now underway with one unit finished, the rest of the ancients worked on were rebasing
• Cruel Seas - British/German/US flotillas of 6 boats each, plus some merchant ships- not started yet
• Black Seas - a small Dutch fleet (something a bit different from the norm)- not started yet
• Medieval – More WOTR longbow/bill units, mounted archers, cavalry, Scottish cavalry and extra Crusader foot- completed the WOTR bill/bow units and extra bits for Tannenberg including the Scottish cavalry pretending to be Lithuanians
• Renaissance – Russian Stoldatski, etc. using up the Strelets bonus figures plus Galleys- not started yet
• WW2 – bits and pieces (I'll try to avoid buying more)- just some snipers and a limber
• SYW – More (French?) Cavalry, British guns- not started yet
• WW1 – increase/rebase Germans for 1917 and add some French - Completed
• 28mm – “skirmishing” WSS figures to provide more opposition for my pirates and Spanish- not started yet
• Terrain – more buildings, fences, balkas/wadis, vines, etc.- not started yet
• Organise the forces for the Lance and Longbow games at York, which will be Tannenberg 1410 and possibly Montgisard 1177 at Recon- successfully ran Tannenberg and we had agreed to run it at Phalanx in June, but who knows if this will actually happen

WW2 German winter limber

I've had a spare Revell German horse drawn limber hanging around for quite some time and I've always planned to make it a winter version. By a stroke of serendipity the head donors for my WW1 French MMGs were a pair of HaT WW2 French Artillery outriders so they received in their turn a couple of German helmets. The limber riders are a couple of HaT German motorcyclists.


This completes last months painting output

WW1 French MMGs

While hunting for something else I came across a pair of Matchbox WW2 Japanese MMGs, which look close enough to the Hotchkiss model 1914 used by the French. A head swap and a couple of other suitable figures and I have a couple of MMGs to support my WW1 French.

Russian and German Snipers

These were acquired at WMMS so they are quickly off the painting queue. The Germans are really nice as each figure has their own sculpted diorama base with a boring collective base for game use. The Russians still have the usual plain individual bases and the game base is a mini-diorama, so I used this for two of the figures a sniper and observer.

Soviet BTR-80s

Three more 4D kits bought of ebay for less than a tenner including postage. I've painted them up to represent those in use by the Black Sea Naval Infantry.


Thanks to Dave W for the figures

On the Workbench - April 2020

Usually I would be away for one or two weeks in April, but obviously this year I can't. So there will be more time available to paint/model than usual. But I'll try and create a bit of variety to avoid getting bored with painting Persians, there is also quite a bit left over from March, but I started more than I planned.

• 4 units of 16 Persian Kardakes - stalled as I can't find any suitable decals for the shields
• 3 units of 16 Persian archers - well underway
• 6 units of 6 Persian medium cavalry - well underway
• 2 x Russian T26 tanks - just started
• 2 Napoleonic Bavarian limbers
• 1 Napoleonic Wurttemberg limber
• 2 units of 28 Russian Soldatski
• Start work on some terrain - as the weather is warming up I can work in the garage while "Tidying it up"
• Then work on more Persians

keep safe

More SAS

Some oddments recently completed, a couple of characters in NBC suits from the Esci Nato Pilots set plus some more SAS