Planning Forward

 These few pictures might tell you a little story of where I am going next.

This first one is of some few Swedish Dragoons. I wonder how many of Holger Ericsson's figures representing the army of Charles XII are actually painted as such. 

I am nothing but responsive to my comments...

These beautiful marching figures are from a small stash I have had in my collection for quite a long time part-painted. So, I shall need to buy a few more to round them out to a full unit which will be well worth the expenditure. Don't tell anyone, but it would be a lovely thing to put together a small Swedish army from HE figures. All arms are represented fairly comprehensively and by heaven I already have rather a lot of infantry. There are even horse teams for the guns.

Next are some more HE figures. Those in the first picture below are some of the first HE's that I bought when I heard of them, they are painted in something of the style of the French guard cavalry. 

Next there is a lovely little batch that came to me through JP from the collection of Stuart Asquith which are not too far away from my own in their look. I am thinking of a composite Alzheim Leib Regiment with Dukes' and Duchesses' squadrons respectively. These too will take a few purchases to bring them up to strength and the heck with it, yes they will both be rather over-officered with many an appointment "à la suite".

The picture does not really do them justice...

Last, we have another red-coated regiment from the Comardo Collection. I had long since decided that the Alzheim dragoon regiments will wear red coats and here we shall go. 

I think that totals another 49 cavalry which will need to be completely painted from scratch plus the finishing works that will need to be done on the 15 Swedish Dragoons which are on he painting desk now. I like that. Also, the Comardo Alzheim Dragoons paint time will neatly fill the waiting time for the newly ordered figures On a financial front it represents a good combination of lead pile reduction and new incomers!

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SAE Horsemen

I recently won an eBay auction a week or two back, the fruits of which arrived yesterday.

If I am not mistaken, they are sculpted by the incomparable Holger Ericsson. The thickness of the bases suggests SAE to me, as do the paint-jobs.

The subject matter is another thing altogether.

Up until now, I had thought SAE had produced ACW, AWI and WW2 toy soldiers only. These look to me very much like FPW Prussian dragoons. Equally interestingly, the mounted figure in dark blue seems to be riding a limber horse and quite frankly, his helmet speaks to me of the British army of the last quarter of the 19th Century.

Was there an SAE Franco-Prussian War Range at some time? One day will I turn up a forgotten SAE gun and team?

Fascinating prospects.