British Horse(s)

While still fiddling with the Serbs, I’ve taken the opportunity of a diversion by painting some more figures for the War of the Spanish Succession. Ukrainian manufacturer Strelets keep on making new figures for this period and I keep buying them. This latest box is title British Regiment of Horse (Late War). It features, charmingly, both horses and riders alike at ease and taking the opportunity to either chat, smoke, graze or whinny, depending on whatever takes their fancy.

The regiment I’ve intend to paint have green facings and, as I’ve seen depictions of British Horse at this time having saddle cloths matching the facings rather than the red of their coats, I’ve given the horses green garments. Here’s how my sedentary stallions have turned out;

I’ve painted a grey –

And also some dark bays.

Whilst still not perfect, I do think Strelets horses have improved significantly from their early efforts.

I particularly like their grazing pose, a common enough activity for stationary war horses but one seldom seen sculpted.

Another good choice of pose, horses pawing the ground impatiently waiting for some action!

I assume these are officer’s horses as they have not roll blankets. I’ve given the pistol holders a gold trim to distinguish them.

And the final pose, another one that I’ve never seen before, horses whinnying loudly!

So that’s the horses completed, I’m really keen to start on their pipe-smoking, chatting, dozing and gesturing riders soon.

Looking Back and Forward

This year has seen Suburban Militarism become distinctly less suburban with a move out from the suburbs and into the county. My armies (mostly) survived the move and after a hiatus in order to settle in, painting has continued more or less as normal. Another year in the time of plague at least provides an excellent excuse to immerse oneself in hobbies and here’s some of things I turned my sable brush to in 2021:

FEMbruary 2021

For this year’s FEMbruary I produced 5 of Bad Squiddo’s female WWII SOE agents, providing a brief biography of each.

The “Neglected But Not Forgotten” Painting Challenge…

For Ann’s challenge, I threw myself into clearing an entire two boxes (and a quarter) of some old Mars Saxon Infantry of the Great Northern War,

…eventually producing an entire brigade of six regiments! The entire process, interrupted by the disruption of moving house, took months.

I took time out on occasion to add to my 54mm Yeomanry Project, producing:

A sergeant of the Worcestershire Yeomanry:

An officer of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry:

An officer of the Lancashire Yeomanry:

Continuing with troops of the Lace Wars of the 18th century, I managed to paint a couple of cavalry regiments:

Schomberg’s Regiment of Horse (British) or Beust’s Regiment (Saxon):

French Horse Grenadiers:

I even managed to take a brief summer holiday for the first time in two years and sent a postcard:

I continued to nurture my slowly developing Ottomania! Project with some examples of Eyâlet infantry.

I expanded to (nearly) 1:1 scale with this submission into the local Scarecrow Festival. It was based on Michael Morpurgo’s WWI cavalry-themed book “War Horse”, or as our entry had it – “Straw Horse“:

I entered the Jazz age with a 28mm scale homage to singer Adelaide Hall for Black History Month:

I received a request to paint a large number of Serbian and Austrian infantry in 1/72 scale, a project which is still continuing slowly but surely!

And, as the year drew to a close I painted some more wintry-looking figures for my ever-growing French infantry retreating from Moscow in 1812…

…and finally produced two more regiments for my Christmas-themed Army of Advent. One, an entirely new regiment – The Poinsettian Rifles:

…And the other, the oldest regiment in the army, received their brand, spanking new uniforms – The 1st Noel Regiment of Foot:

Next year? I’m too wise to make specific predictions but I’ve no doubt that the old, familiar projects (see above) will make an appearance at some point. Often, though, it’s the unexpected diversions which keep the motivation high and I’ll look forward to more of those in 2022.

Hoping for a healthier and saner 2022, I send my best wishes and a Happy New Year to all Suburban Militarism’s visitors.

Marvin

Chevaux du Roi

Back to the 1/72 scale horse and musket era, so that means, ah, horses. Not just any old horses. Horse Grenadier horses!

If these equines are familiar it will be because I painted the same very recently as Strelets’ British / Saxon Cavalry from the War of the Spanish Succession era. Strelets have used the same horse sculpts for this French set.

This small herd wear blue-edged white horse cloths as can be seen on the cover French Royal Horse Grenadiers box. Illustrations show double white edges but I’ve gone with painting a single line as I value my sanity.

Box art from Strelets French Royal Horse Grenadiers

Their distinctively-dressed riders are well-advanced in their painting so hopefully should be united with their exotically attired human companions soon.

A Saxon Infantry Brigade

As promised in my last post, I present my entire Lace Wars Saxon infantry brigade.

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Below are the Kurprinz Regiment (yellow flag and facings).

To their right are Martiniere’s Grenadiers in the centre of the line.

Next are the elite Polish Guards with their white facings and red hat lace:

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To their rear, Zeitz’s Regiment with their distinctive olive green facings:

Reuss’ Regiment of infantry with their light blue distinctions:

And finally, the smaller formation which is Hayn’s Grenadier Battalion.

Well, that’s enough of the Saxon infantry regiments for now. I’ll be moving on to something a little different which I intend to post on shortly.

Saxony Soldiers VIII

A short post this to announce that my final infantry regiment in my Lace Wars Saxon Army by Mars is complete. A smaller group, Hayn’s Grenadier Battalion has red facings and mitres.

Family photo: Hayn’s Grenadier Battalion

The usual flag bearer and officers accompany 9 grenadiers.

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With all six of my regiments now complete, I’ll very shortly be posting the whole infantry brigade together which I think comes to over 90 figures.

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Lace Wars Cavalry

I have greatly enjoyed painting Strelets new War of the Spanish Succession-era British cavalry. In fact, I think this is one of the best sets I’ve painted of theirs for a while.

The sculpting of Strelets has gone through some changes over the years. Initially, their figures were considered a little ‘ugly’ by some but were infused with lots of character. More recent sculpting has seen their figures become much more anatomically and proportionally accurate but at the loss of some of that personality. This latest set happily seems to combine a little of both.

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My regiment of horse has black facings and white hat lace around the tricornes (except the officers who have gold).

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Having painted much Saxon infantry recently, I declared in a recent post that I’d paint them as Saxon cavalry – Beust’s regiment. This move was also inspired by my misplacing a key War of the Spanish Succession source book. I’ve now recovered it and have discovered that my figures could also possibly pass for the Schomberg’s Regiment of Horse (later in the century becoming known as the 7th Dragoon Guards).

There are four command figures, including two officers, a trumpeter and a standard bearer.

The two officers:

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For the standard bearer below I’ve provided a guidon freely downloaded from the Tacitus website. I’ve changed the colour to a black to match their facings. Lit by lamps and photographed, it appears a little grey in images. The flag bears a very good resemblance to the regiment’s black damask flag from 1788.

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The trumpeter:

Schomberg’s Horse had the origins of its lineage going back to December 1688 as one of a number of regiments of horse raised for William of Orange after he took the throne to replace James II. The regiment was present at all of the Duke of Marlborough’s major battles of the War of the Spanish Succession – Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

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Troopers at the trot or canter:

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Troopers at the charge!

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All in all, a fine addition to my Lace Wars project. I’ve a couple more boxes of cavalry to paint from Strelets for this era, so happily there are more to come!

Saxony Soldiers VII

Slogging on and finishing my fifth of my 18th century Saxon infantry regiments of the Great Northern War. This is Reuss’ Regiment of infantry, wearing the usual red coat and this time having light blue distinctions.

The principal figures used are the firing line figures. They are some of the more awkward poses to be found in the box. For starters, the poses are a trifle gawky and the kneeling figures are almost the same height as the standing. What’s more, they all seem to aim far too high. Perhaps charging cavalry are closing in or perhaps the enemy is marching towards them steeply downhill!? I’ve counteracted that effect to a small degree by tilting those figures slightly forward on their bases.

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The grenadiers and their NCO:

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The regimental flag:

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Some officers of Reuss’ Regiment:

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The musicians:

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I realise that these constant Saxon army posts must blur into one! I’d like to say that I’m working on something completely different – but I’m not. One final battalion to go and then it’s on to some Lace Wars cavalry which – err – also wear red coats…

Best wishes,

Marvin

Saxony Soldiers VI

My fourth completed Saxon infantry regiment of the Great Northern War is Martinière’s Grenadier Regiment.

The Martinière’s Regiment is one of two all-grenadier formations I’m creating which together allow me to make maximum use of the two grenadier poses in Mars Saxon Infantry box. There are sixteen figures in total for this regiment which includes 9 grenadiers, 1 NCO, 3 officers, 1 flag-bearing ensign and 2 musicians (a fifer and a drummer).

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The grenadiers and their NCO:

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The regimental flag:

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The officers:

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The musicians:

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I particularly like the blue stockings of this regiment but I painted the musicians with white leggings to provide for a little extra distinction for them. And then I got carried away and accidentally painted one of the officers with white stockings too. Never mind, blame uniform shortages in the stores.

Two more infantry regiments to go, one of which is well advanced already and I’m ploughing resolutely on with the final one too!

Saxony Soldiers V

Yet another infantry regiment is completed for my Lace Wars Saxon army, the third out of six for the infantry corps (apologies if I’m boring my more regular visitors). The Zeitz Regiment now has its full compliment of officers, musicians and troops.

Now, I say ‘full compliment’ but it seems as though the drummer and fifer – ah – forgot to make parade for the purposes of this photoshoot. Both are up on a charge.

Those who did manage to turn up for parade involve a front rank firing their muskets and another loading.

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The flag bearer I displayed in a previous post but as he made the effort to turn up – here he is again with a few extra views. As before, his flag is based on the elite Polish Guards flag but with a green background.

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The officers of Zeitz’s Regiment:

I’m already well into painting two of the remaining three regiments and I will share progress when they’re done. In the interim, I’m also pushing on with that Saxon regiment of cuirassiers, Beust’s Regiment, so plenty keeping me occupied with the brush of late. Spring very belatedly seems to have decided to put in an appearance lately, although so late as to be more accurately called early summer. Nevertheless, it is most welcome and when not hiding away from the nice weather painting toy soldiers, I’m out working on my new garden.

Back in the Saddle

I’m back painting cavalry again. The last cavalry I painted were Ottoman Sipahi back in November last year. This is the first cavalry regiment for my Lace Wars armies. The figures I’m using are Strelets new “British Cavalry” of the era 1701 to 1714.

With my 2021 being so focussed upon painting Saxon infantry, I immediately thought about painting them as Saxon cavalry. The Saxon armies infantry and cavalry colours being so similar to British regiments, figures could be easily used interchangeably on the wargaming field of battle. Once again, the glorious Tacitus website has lots of information on Saxon cavalry and after mulling over the options I’ve decided to paint them as Beust’s Regiment of Cuirassiers which had red coats and black distinctions.

I’ve started on the horses first and it felt good to be back painting them again. Strelets horses have not traditionally been rated very highly, their principal problem (I always felt) was that they were too chunky being very over-fed equines with seriously stocky legs. Strelets equine sculpting has certainly improved over the years, I think. These horses are very decent indeed and much better proportioned.

Strelets have mostly sorted the legs out. Always a tricky challenge for the sculptor, these horses are much better proportioned while the gait seems more natural and sensible than inn previous sets. I’m also particularly impressed with the detail on the horse tack, cheek pieces and bits being very clear and detailed.

At the moment, my horses are majority reddish bays but I recall Stokes over at The Grand Duchy of Stollen mentioning some time ago that he had painted the majority of his horses for a regiment as chestnuts because he recalled it being described as the most common horse colour in the Napoleonic era. So, with that in mind, I’m going to make a few changes to some to make the manes lighter or the same colour as the coats (i.e. true chestnuts). I may leave some Bays with dark manes and legs.

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The all-important riders are next and again Strelets seem to have done a nice job!