"And his Chariots were gleaming in Purple and Gold"

With apologies to Lord Byron...

I needed some more 2 horse Assyrian chariots for the earlier years of the Empire.

These are from Old Glory, and fit the bill nicely!

Once again assembly issues arose. the triangular piece above the pole is clearly designed to go the other way around (pointing down), but it just didn't fit!

So, I just went with it as it did fit!

We saw the Purple, so here's the Gold!

I di glue on the extr quivers on the side of the cab. 

The reigns were once again made from painted dental tape. 

In To the Strongest terms, these would be more "Chariots" than Light Chariots or Heavy Chariots. 

I used epoxy to fix the crew into the cab - always a challenge!

Here's the third and last Chariot. 

If you are in the US, it's hard to beat the value of Old Glory!

Chariots are a pain, but they always look super on the tabletop!

Rebasing project for my 45 year old Minifigs Assyrian army underway; the chariots are staying on their original bases - way to difficult to re-do them! Also seen are some new Foundry Assyrians from Richard to add to the army; it seems unlikely that I will get to them until after Historicon!

Rebasing done - nothing fancy, green bases, green turf blend flocking. Have I mentioned that I hate rebasing? 

Project Waterloo: Hanoverians... and (free) flags from Mal's Small World.

This project required 3 units of Hanoverian infantry. Perry makes a nice range of these troops, but I didn't really want to incur the expense of buying them (and the necessary time to paint them!). 

Roughly 25 years ago I bought roughly 100 very neatly painted Minifigs British from Jamie, who had brough them to Historicon in the hopes that I might want to purchase them. 

I had no British Napoleonics at the time, nor had I any plans to start a British Napoleonic army at the time, either. 

If I recall, he offered them at $1 per figure. At that price and with the very fine paint jobs, I couldn't resist... could I? Of course not. 

The troops were more than enough to make up 3 units of infantry in my scheme, but not enough for 4. The regulation Hanoverian Line infantry uniform was all but indistinguishable form that of standard British troop.  I realized that I could use the spare figures (and a few spare Old Glory command figures) to just add Hanoverian Command stands (just the flags, really). Then the three units could be used as either British or Haoverian just by changing one stand per unit. 

Jamie's original troops formed one unit of 30 in light yellow facings, and one in medium green facings. While I was at it, I changed the facing colors of the requisite figures  so that there is now a black faced unit, that once again can be used as British or Hanoverian. These wonderful flags are from Mal's Small World blog: https://mal4955.blogspot.com/p/mals-small-world-guide-to-flags-and.html

Among the gems there are numerous flags for the British Yeomanry units of the Napoleonic Wars, Foreign units in British service, ALL of the British Infantry units of the Napoleonic Wars (one of the pedants on TMP sniffed that devices are too large; he's correct, but really for our purposes the flags look much better and are more easily recognizable with  the exaggerated devices. In any event, if you don't like them, I'm sure your money will be cheerfully refunded (my standard answer to those who complain about aspects of thigs they didn't pay anything for!). 

Anyway, there are  flags for all three battalions of the Hanoverian regiments of 1815; it's likely the regimental (not the sovereign's) flags had fields in the facing color (and perhaps white for black faced regiments). Anyway, the flags I used, left to right, were for the Luneburg, Calenberg, and Verden regiments. 

But wait, there's still more vexillogic goodness on Mal's blog: Flags for all the Danish Napoleonic infantry regiments, eight sheets for flags for the Swedish Napoleonic infantry and cavalry regiments, flags for the Russian Cossacks and Opolochenie, far more than 100 flags for the Austrian Landwehr of 1809, the Erzherzog Karl Legion, and the infantry and cavalry of the Hungarian Insurrectio. Not satisfied? There a few dozen flags for the Tyrolean uprising, too! 

Still not impressed? How about flags for the Napoleonic Army of Mysore, the Sikhs, Rajput, Mehwari, Muhgals. There are flags as described by Kipling for  Jaipur, Lahore, Bikanir, Udaipur, and others. Still more sheets of flags are on the site for the Mahratta, an illustration of the flags of the French Corps of Hyderbad, flags of the Honorable East India Company,  the Bombay Native Infantry, Bengal infantry and cavalry in British service, and the same for Madras. There arter probably well over 1,00 flags on this site, and all are free!  Check it out; yopu will be blown away!

 

Knights of the Swan

 There were some of this figure in both the odds and ends of Bill McHugh's figures and those derived from Steve Gallagher.  

There turned out to be enough between for a six figure unit; perfect!

I employed a Bavarian inspired scheme, quarterly Azure and Argent.

I rather like these old school sculpts! I suspect these were meant to be "Not the Swan Knights of Dol  Amroth"; manufacturer unknown; perhaps Ral Partha?

Austrian Napoleonic Cuirassier Uniforms

I've had the outline of this post sitting in draft for a few years at least, and now seems a good time to finally finish it as an addition to my Napoleonic Uniform guides.

In 1798, there were 12 units of Cuirassiers in the Austrian Army dressed in the familiar white coats, front plate only cuirass, and crested helmets. The crests of the helmets became taller and more impressive as the years went by and new models were introduced. Each regiment at this time had 8 squadrons of 150 men.  The changes in the names of the cavalry regiments over time can be confusing, as they changed whenever the Inhaber ("proprietor") of the regiment changed. 

Austrian Cuirassiers, 1798 

Regt #	Inhaber	Facings	Buttons
1	Kaiser	Pompadour	White
2	Erzherzog Franz	Black	White
3	Herzog Albert	Pompadour	Yellow
4	Czartoryski	Dark Blue	Yellow
5	Zeschwitz	Grass Green	Yellow
6	Melas	Light Blue	Yellow
7	Carl Lothringen	Dark Blue	White
8	Hohenzollern	Scarlet	Yellow
9	Nassua-Usingen	Light Blue	White
10	Mack	Black	Yellow
11	Anspach	Scarlet	White
12	Kavanagh	Grass Green	White

By 1802, the Cuirassier arm was down to 8 regiments, each of 6 squadrons of 135men. 

Austrian Cuirassiers, 1809

Regt #	Inhaber	Facings	Buttons
1	Kaiser Franz	Dark Red	White
2	Erzherzog Franz Josef	Black	White
3	Herzog Albert zu Sachsen-Teschen	Dark Red	Yellow
4	Erzherzog Ferdinand d’Este	Grass Green	White
5	Marquis Sommariva	Light Blue	White
6	Moritz Liechtestein*	Black	Yellow
7	Carl Eugen Prinz v. Lothringen	Dark Blue	White
8	Prince Hohenzollern	Scarlet	Yellow

* before Aspern-Essling, Baron Friedrich von Gottesheim

Kürassiere reginet (K.R) #8, also named Grossfurst Constantin at one point,. 

These are Minifigs probably painted in the late 1970's. Far from my best work, but they have given good service for many decades!

Note the red crest on the trumpeter's helmet, That and the lack of Cuirass were about the only distinctions for the trumpeters in the Cuirassier regiments. 

The sheepskins were white in the earlier years, later black, often with a scarlet edging. 

At last I get points for the hand painted flags!

K.R #4, variously know as Kronprinz (Crown Prince) or Erzherzog Ferdinand d' Este

Actually, the metal of the Cuirasses should be blackened. 

The standard bearer's bandlolier often had a waxy design in the facing color down the front (seen on K.R #8 above). 

Although painted as solid facing color, the collars were in fact white with a frontal tab in the facing color only, piped white. 

Similarly, the turnback's on the tails of the Cuirassier coats were actually white with thick edging in the facing color, rather than solid facing color as I did for these veteran figures. 

Note the carbines!

K.R. #5, Marquis Hannibal Sommariva.

Their light blue facings are often depicted as closer to royal blue, as seen here. Note the facing colored stitching on the bandolier of the standard bearer. 

This unit carries an early commercially printed flag. 

For some  Austrian Cuirassiers using modern figures, see here and also here. 

Boxing Day Review of my Ancient Indian Army

 

Of course, we don't observe Boxing Day in the US, but it always seemed very civilized to me to havbe a holiday the day AFTER Christmas as well. With Christmas Day falling on a Sunday this year, most of us in the US had the day off work, myself included. 

Still, a fine day for a parade and review of my recently expanded and now "completed" Indian Army.

Here it is in all its multitudinous glory! 

In total there are 7 Elephants, 2 four horse chariots, 3 two horse chariots, 8 figures of Light Cavalry, 24 Medium cavalry ,and  12 Heavy Cavalry.

The foot troops comprise 24 Light Infantry (mix of Archers and Javelinmen)  and  96 Medium Infantry Archers, 48 Medium Infantry Spearmen, and 12 medium Infantry 2 handed Swordsmen (who could represent either of the two types after falling back upon their secondary weapons!). 

Finally, there are 2 mounted and 7 Foot command figures. Total for the army thus is 180 Foot, 44 Horse, & elephants, 5 Chariots, and 9 command figures; call it about 250 figures depending upon how you count the Chariots and elephants!

Left flank, mostly previously painted Minifigs. 

Left center, mostly previously painted Minifigs again, although they went substantial reorganization, rebasing, and some minor paint updates!

Right Center - mostly recently painted Old Glory and Newline Designs figures.

Right Center - a mix of Minifigs, Old Glory, and Newline Designs figures. 

That should be pretty much a wrap on these Mauryan Indians. They are a bit light in the Elephant arm for an Indian Army, though...