Some Light Cavalry.

One can never have enough light troops in the Renaissance period, Well that my justification for painting some more Stradiots. I found! these when I was looking for a suitable horse for a command figure. Anyway they will be a nice addition to the Venetian contingent that I seem to have created for my armies. I initially wanted to make these figures, 'dirty looking' but somehow they ended up as clean and sanitised as their compatriots. The figures are from the Perry range.

Some more re painted figures from the figures I bought from Rahul. These chaps are Mini Figs, with some Lamming horses thrown in. Before anyone says anything, I know they are Indian types, but as a unit of light Ottoman cavalry they look acceptable to me.They are a quaint figure which somehow appealed.

If I were a rich man.

 If I was a rich man, as the song goes, I would commission the top figure painters in Europe to paint figures for me. It wouldn't mean that I would myself stop painting, it would just mean that I had the wherewithal to have some extra beautiful miniatures from some really talented people.
 I am old enough to realise this will never happen, but I was also in the fortunate position to have a bit of spare cash [ if there is such a thing] to ask Tony Runkee to paint me a unit of TAG Spahis of the Porte for me.

 Ive banged on a bit about Tony in my other blog, but like all talented miniature figure painters he really knows about how to apply colour.
 Anyway I finally got my finger out and based the figures up. Naturally I am really pleased about how they turned out, Tony certainly put some effort into what is a really fine range of figures. The irony is that I have myself re painted/touched up a unit of Mini Fig Akinji, bought from an old wargaming colleague, Rahul Sarnak, naturally there is a big contrast between the two sets of figures, but I actually like the charm of the Mini Figs, and although they do look a bit like Hobbit cavalry next to my TAG Spahis, I really dont mind at all. Anyway thanks again Tony for some beautiful figures, now if only I got a lottery ticket every week.

Family Commitments.

 I've been tied up with family commitments for the last couple of weeks, so my wargaming and more importantly my painting schedule is all to pot. Still I was able to sneak in a bit of work and finished these figures. The two figures with shields are actually Hinchliffe figures that I hadnt seen before, the shields are particularly well done, in fact Ive a sneaking suspicion that Peter Gilder used a metal button for the original master, but I may be wrong. Still they make a nice infantry command base for my Turks. The standard bearer was a damaged painted figure with a new flag.

 Next we have a Spanish pike block, courtesy of a lot of painted spares given to me by Jason Willaims when he was re basing his units bought from the late Mike Ingham of the Wargames Holiday Centre fame. The back ranks also contain some really good figures that John Reidy had painted and gave to me to use. So really a mish mash of figures, that looks pretty good in my eyes.