Another Russian Lancer Regiment

This time in red facings we have the 17th Lancers. Once again these are Hinton Hunt, probably Brunswick Napoleonic Uhlans.

The two regiments together will form the cavalry reserve:

In the pipeline are more Turkish gunners to man the redoubts along the Causeway heights!

More Russian Lancers

Continuing to build the numbers of Russian cavalry units, this lot represent the Russian 13th Lancers, with their yellow facings. The figures are old Hinton Hunt 20mm examples that have been lurking in a box since the 1970s.  A second regiment of the same figures is almost complete, which will make up the Divisional light cavalry brigade:

Yet more Cossacks - Ural Cossacks by Strelets

Adding to the Russian Cavalry hordes, the next unit to join my Russian Army are the Ural Cossacks. They are 20mm plastic figures from the firm Strelets and their Crimean War range. It took me a while to work out the colours of this Regiment. My initial foray on to the interweb suggested that they should have light blue facings and I started to paint them with this in mind, however, further research stated that they have raspberry or crimson facings/piping - so that's what I have gone for.  I was a bit doubtful about these figures to start with, they appeared rough and chunky but, once the undercoat was on  I found that they were a joy to paint.

Next up, a Regiment of Don Cossacks

Douglas Miniatures Russian Lancers

A second unit of Russian Lancers, which will form part of the 2nd Composite Regiment as formed during the Crimean War. I have trimmed the lance pennon from the square ended original of the Douglas figure to what appears to be the more common swallow tail variety.

More Russian Line Infantry

Over the past few  weeks I have been slowly working on another Douglas Miniatures Russian Line Infantry Battalion. These are the advancing figure in soft caps. The officer and standard bearer are conversions from the helmeted originals by swapping heads. The colour is from Adolfo Ramos, which required the removal of the original flag and pole and replacing it with a slightly longer one made from a large paper clip.

In the pipeline is a Russian Lancer unit and a Turkish artillery battery.

My New Blog

I have started a new blog to cover another old and obscure range of figures; Ros 25mm metal miniatures. If interested, here is a link:

http://ros25mmfigures.blogspot.co.uk/

A surprising find

I was out and about in a local town yesterday when I spotted something really interesting in a charity shop. It was a huge pile of mint Airfix magazines from 1968 - 72 for 10p each. I bought the lot. When I got home and began to go through them, low and behold there were advertisements for Douglas Miniatures figures. They were being sold by a model shop called Ernest Berwick, 11a Newland Street Kettering, Northants.  There is more about this shop and the Airfix Magazine reviews, plus a few pictures on the Vintage 20mil website.

I have copied a few of the advertisments:

There were some details of other figures in the Douglas range:

 I was hoping to find details of some of the lost figures in the Douglas range, but no such luck. What was interesting is that in 1969 the Douglas range was the only wargame figure range available, but through 1970 - 72 the advertisements for Douglas vanished to be replaced by Lamming, Les Higgins, Rose, Hinchliffe, Hinton Hunt and Miniature Figurines - no doubt pushing Douglas out of the market place..