The Light Brigade Complete

This post celebrates two things. The first is the completion of the Light Brigade for my Great Crimean War Project, but second, on a larger scale, this completes the British Army component of that project. I have no doubt that I will find the need to expand the army with the inclusion of the Heavy Brigade at some point, but for the great game scheduled for later this year, this force is what is required.

 

That said, the celebration of the completion of the Light Brigade is tinged with a bit of regret. I wanted to get a level of consistency with these armies and my plan from the outset it had been the plan to use Great War Miniatures for this project, with the exception of the Cossacks regiments (because I wanted to use them for both the Crimea and the Napoleonic armies, I chose the Perry Cossacks) and the Cossack artillery (because Great War don’t do any). The regret I have is that when, after I had completed the 17th Lancers and 11th Hussars, Great War withdrew the Light Brigade cavalry from production while the figures are redesigned. Since my deadline is well before any redesigned figures will hit the ground, I was compelled to choose another supplier, of which there were two; Warlord Games and Foundry. There lay a quandary…the Warlord figures are the most compatible for size, but they don’t make any light dragoons…Foundry does. So Foundry it was.

 

Don’t get me wrong, the Foundry figures are very nice and in my opinion stand the test of time (given that they were probably designed twenty-five years ago), but they are a bit smaller and 20% more expensive.

Above is an example of the difference in size of two stands of hussars, Great War on the left, Foundry on the right.

 

And now for the pictures of the brigade...

17th Lancers - Great War Miniatures

11th Hussars - Great War Miniatures 

8th Hussars - Foundry

4th Light Dragoons - Foundry

13th Light Dragoons - Foundry

And the whole brigade, in the formation of the Charge: front rank 17th Lancers on the left, Cardigan front and centre, the 13th Light Dragoons on the right; back row, the 8th Hussars on the left, 4th Light Dragoons in the centre and 13th Hussars on the right

One item that really did please me with this batch of figures was the completion of the Foundry Royal Horse Artillery. Adding this unit has a bit of personal connection for me because my great uncle served a driver in the RHA in the Great War in France and in Palestine. I can recall that my mother had a large photograph of him astride his horse in full dress uniform, which was a great inspiration for me as a child. Sadly that photograph is lost.

Meanwhile the Great Crimean Project continues and the lead mountain grows with the arrival today of 132 Russian infantry figures, 54 French infantry, six Russian Dragoons, plus two guns and eight crew. Another 90 Russian infantry and 18 cavalry are on the way.