Pole Position

The weather has been glorious in Wellington this week, so I've spent much of the last three days out in the front garden, stripping, repairing and repainting the front gate. However, I've also found a little time to do some painting indoors. As French light cavalry are on my official to-do list, I thought I'd make a start on some lancers.

Pink Poles!

Now some figures require a little more faith than others, and so it was when I came across these chappies. Decked out in a delightful pink, they certainly didn't look very promising. However, vintage Polish lancers are hard to come by, so I took the plunge.

The figures are Der Kriegspielers DK 39: French Line chevau-légers lanciers (Regiments 7-9). They are identical in almost every respect to the Hinton Hunt figure FN 43: French Guard Lancer, Charging, apart from one small detail: the lance pennants have been turned upside down!

Pictured is my first test figure, a trooper of the crack 7th Regiment, formerly the 1st Vistulan Lancers, fresh from the battlefields of Spain where they had virtually destroyed Colborne's Brigade at the Battle of Albuera in 1811.

He was not the simplest of figures, but I'm really pleased with the way he's turned out.


I should really be working on the rest of my Prussian cavalry, of course. However, a French squadron seemed like more fun, which is what the project is really all about!

 Happy New Year

WM