Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to my followers and visitors. I hope you’ve had a relaxing few days and got all the toys you wished for.

I managed to get a fair bit done this year:

– King’s Royal Rifle Corps
– Black Watch
– Mahdist Krupp battery
– Red rub
– Black rub
– 9th Bengal Cavalry
– cavalry brigade command
– Drummer Jones
– a large hill in three sections

With these I am drawing my Sudan project to a close for the moment. In future I’ll add mounted infantry to the cavalry brigade, an Indian infantry detachment, and then on to some Egyptians. Then there is the armed train project …

So … what’s next? Obviously I must get some gaming in now I have a pretty substantial collection, and post photos of the action. My new project takes me back to the fifteenth century and the dynastic struggle between cousins known today as the Wars of the Roses. Watch this space.

Brigadier-General Stewart, the 19th Hussars and 9th Bengal Cavalry.

9th Bengal Cavalry and Beja reinforcements

Today I finished basing the Indian cavalry, and very smart they look too. 

I have 16 Hadendowa to finish basing, the last of the plastic figures. There’s a handful of metal command types in boxes, so I am undecided whether to establish a fifth rub or expand the existing force, probably by adding two figures to each band. The latter would be the expedient, only requiring two crouching figures and six rifle-armed figures in addition to the 16.

Top-to bottom: One can never have enough Beja; Brigadier-General Herbert Stewart and his Brigade Major, Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor; Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Palmer and 9th Bengal Cavalry.

Mount-up for a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to my followers and visitors. Remarkably the page views have passed 17,000 … which seems pretty amazing to me. I am pleased my musings seem to have some reach, and I hope I have inspired some of you to venture into the Sudan for an adventure like mine. Thank you everyone.

Today I glued the Bengal Cavalry riders to their mounts and attached half of the pennons to lances … and now I am quite excited about getting this unit based.

I trimmed the Empress Miniatures’ pennons to half their height, coloured the edges of the red swallow tail section, and gently curled them around my smallest painting brush. After checking each lance for fit to a rider’s hand, I super-glued the pennons to the shafts. The double thickness folded paper of the pennon results in an edge with enough area to give adequate adhesion. I think these will prove to be robust, especially since I avoid touching my figures directly – instead handling them by the bases they are attached to.

9th Bengal Cavalry and the first six lances with pennons.

9th Bengal Cavalry lance pennons

I have been thinking about how to go about the lance pennons since buying the miniatures and a set of Empress Miniatures’ pennons. 

It seems that the wargamer’s conventional approach is to wrap the pennon around the lance, which, while giving a sound fixing, isn’t really authentic. Today I made a search on The Miniatures Page, and found thisthread.

I then made an internet search and found this auction lot, which shows a metal strip attached to the side of a bamboo lance, with the pennon attached to that. While there is also evidence that pennons were tied to lances, this seems more practical from a modelling perspective, so I have decided to attempt this, probably by painting the metal strip on to the lance first. Let’s see …

Top: a Victorian era pennon attached to a metal strip on a bamboo lance. Above: a Perry Miniatures Bengal Cavalry sowar, lances, and the Empress Minniature’s pennons, which are clearly way too large.

Varnishing the 9th Bengal Cavalry

I have had a bit of time this week so focused on finishing the Bengal Cavalry.

The horses have had their final coat of matt varnish and the riders have had two coats of gloss; the matt will go on tomorrow. I anticipate the task of adding the pennons to the bamboo lances will be a bit tricky … wait to see.

Gloss and matt … nearly ready for basing.

On the painting desk: 9th Bengal Cavalry horses

This week’s accomplishment has been painting the Bengal Cavalry’s mounts, which are now ready for shading, highlighting, then varnishing.

These sculpts are the same as the 19th Hussars’ mounts, so I think it’s good that there is not a grey amongst them.

I have also made a start on the Black Watch kilts … which I predict will be a very slow process. In fact I am inclined to think that I will have the Bengal Cavalry and the 15th Sikhs finished first … and I haven’t even ordered the Indian infantry yet!

9th Bengal Cavalry beginning to look the part.

9th Bengal Cavalry on the painting desk … finally

I have had these miniatures since April last year, and have been looking forward to painting them since. They are destined to join the 19th Hussars.

The 9th began training with lances in February 1885, going into action for the first time at Hashin on 20 March. No mean feat given that the lance usually requires a protracted period of training to master.

An even complement of Muslims and Sikhs plus three command figures, they are accompanied by the detachment commander. They will join the Black Watch on the painting desk, the last of the Empire metal miniatures to be painted … tartan and turbans will be the challenges. 

9th Bengal Cavalry looking a bit pale.

9th Bengal Cavalry turban colours

A correspondent on Facebook may have come up with a reliable reference for the turban design and colours.

‘Earl Cardigan’, a member of the Colonial Wargaming group, found a splendid reference on the Royal Collection Trust’s web site. The turban is blue with a striped section of gold, blue and white.

Left: Rudolf Swoboda’s portrait of Risaldar Nadir Khan, 9th Bengal Lancers, painted around the time of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1887. Right: Illustration by Michael Perry from Go Strong into the Desert.

9th Bengal Cavalry

Waiting in boxes, unopened, are fifteen Perry Miniatures’ castings destined to represent a detachment of 9th Bengal Cavalry.

Clad in khaki, most of the uniform details are easy to determine. The turbans are another matter, though, and I have a few posts on Facebook groups and a couple of forums asking for help about this.

9th Bengal Cavalry at Suakin in 1885, from Brian Robson’s Fuzzy Wuzzy.