David Bickley's Wargames Blog

The occasional ramblings of an average gamer, journeyman painter, indifferent modeller, games designer, sometime writer for Wargames Illustrated and host of games in GHQ.



Friday 23 July 2021

The Bhyklawar Horse Artillery

 Creeping ever closer to the culmination of my Tales from Pendawar project the latest elements to successfully make it across the painting desk and into GHQ are a battery of Horse Artillery, styled the Bhyklawar Horse Artillery, a unit of European volunteer artillery drawn from the higher strata of Bhyklawar society. Some of you may recognise the figures as the venerable Foundry rendition of the Bengal Horse Artillery, sculpted back in the day by one or other of the Perrys for the company's Sikh Wars range. 

I've played fast and loose with the uniforms to suit my imaginations setting for the project, choosing to paint the jackets to partly mirror those of the 20th Light Dragoons completed last month. The helmets are white metal/tin and the horsehair comb and tuft are Foundry Boneyard light over Arctic Grey shade. The lace covering the jackets' front, cuff and seam trim is really beyond my hand and eye now so I do hope you'll view them in that context, please? I painted it by trying to carefully dry brush the Ochre middle shade with the side of my size 0 brush and then over brushing that with the light shade in the Ochre triad. The few buttons which survived the mold- making/casting process I picked out with a spot of Brass.

With these completing the journey into GHQ I come to the Eureka revolutionary French infantry gifted me at a now seemingly distant Partizan by Aly Morrison. They will form a European infantry unit, raised from French ner-do-wells, in the service of Typoo Bhyka. The figures are really nice, with a pleasing amount of detail common nowadays to most ranges of 28mm figures, so I expect it'll be a little while before you see any progress I can post.

26 comments:

  1. Fine looking gunners David…
    I do like your colour choices…
    I can’t imagine that it would be easy or comfortable to man a gun wearing tall riding boots…

    I look forward to seeing what you do with the French..

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks very much Aly, as ever much appreciated! Got to agree about the boots too! I have finished 8 of the Voluntaires de Bykli and have 4 more underway. I hope to post a sneak preview over the weekend.

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  2. Those are very nice David and the pale colours feel right for service in a hot climate. However having lived in Nigeria, I wouldn't want to fight in their attire as it must have been rather oppressive to wear in the heat.

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  3. I like them. They look the part for sure and not a bad take on the uniforms.

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    1. Hi Colin! Thanks for the endorsement, always welcome of course.

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  4. They looked very fine, performed splendidly and died with their boots on.

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    1. Sadly about the only melee I did win too!

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  5. Nice work David. Artillery units always do look the part. Love your fashion sense on these gunners.
    Cheers,
    Helen

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  6. Very nice looking battery of gunners

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    1. Many thanks Robbie! Good to see you are still with us!

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    1. They will do, I'll go that far at least.

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  9. Lovely looking artillery David!

    Christopher

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    1. Many thanks Christopher, much appreciated.

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  10. What a wonderful idea and implementation of a unit! Murat would have been proud of those fellows. Superb.
    Regards, James

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    1. Thank you for such effusive endorsement James!

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  11. Very nice and different looking unit…let your imagination run wild I say 👍

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    1. Many thanks Matt! I will heed your advice!

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  12. Well, if Sharpe played fast and loose with Napoleonic uniforms, so can you. Great work.

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    1. Fast? Loose? Moi? Shurely Shum Mishtake?

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