20mm Crimean War Wargaming and Other Stuff

 I have had a box full of plastic Atlantic ancient Egyptian chariots and never got around to doing anything with them.  By way of a test, I assembled two and painted them, just to see what they would be like.  They are not very accurate representations of Egyptian chariots and the crew compartment is too small for the figures, however, I cut the figure bases to just a sliver and by placing them at a slightly odd angle I managed to squeeze a driver and an archer figure in.

I am quite pleased with the result and I would have thought that 10 or 12 of these would look quite good, painted and based:

 In a recent batch of figures I found four light infantry figures with broken weapons.  They are by Miniature Figurines and are North African troops.  They are still in production and I obtained two more to make up a unit.  I replaced all of the javelins to make a useful little ancient unit.  I just love the hair style!

 This turned out to be quite a challenge.  I was given three badly damaged Prussian, 25mm Cuirassiers by a friend.  The figures had lost their swords and were bent out of shape.  The horses were even worse.  However, Phil is a collector of old Hinchliffe for his wargames armies and I asked if he would like them after I had renovated them.  I also found three more on eBay, which were also broken.  

After quite a bit of bending back into shape and the addition of new swords and some reins on one of the horses they were ready for painting.

Here is the result:

A useful little unit.  I am also working on some British Fuiliers from the same manufacturer.  These are in reasonable condition, with most bayonets intact, but not well painted.  The officer is an old Lamming figure, but since the picture was taken I have acquired a Hinchliffe fusilier officer:

 Another refurbishment, this time some 25mm Ancient Egyptians.  I bought them secondhand and they had simply been sprayed white and were missing their weapons.  Once again I have used Warlord metal spears. cut down to size.  The figures represent heavy infantry with hardened leather helmets and body armour.  Shields are animal hide:

My next project, close to completion, is a unit of Hinchliffe 25mm Prussian Cuirassiers.

 I painted this figure some time ago but never got around to posting the picture.  The Young Pretender is encouraging the troops, originally from the Bob Black collection.  The 54mm Bonnie Prince Charlie figure is from Steve Weston Figures and is painted using Speed Paints.  

I got rid of the original horse and replaced it with a Britains Deetail show jumper mount:

The tartan trews and cloak looked a bit of a challenge, but I borrowed a technique seen on Youtube, that emplos crisscross lines and spots.  It worked quite well.

 I acquired some rather sad looking Hinchliffe Persian infantry (AP6) that had been poorly painted and were missing their weapons:

I thought it would be fun to give them a new lease of life as there were enough to make up a unit:

Another fun project.  The spears came from Warlord and I cut them down to size.  A word of warning, they are sharp!

 I acquired these figures in a rather poor state, with no weapons.  I thought it would be fun to do them up, giving them some spears and a lick of paint.

They turned out quite well and are off to join my Egyptian army: