I dislike painting cavalry. Dunno why, just always have done. I’ve never liked having to paint all around horses, angling the brush up to hit their undersides/inner legs, especially under armour. It’s also a pain having to mount the rider somewhere to paint him, given the lack of base.
Regardless, I’ve painted two small units of light cavalry. In Kings of War they will probably represent mounted sergeants (as Kingdoms of Men scouts are terrible, and would be much worse with throwing weapons!). The unit basing is split so that they can fight formed up or open in Hail Caesar. The photos demonstrate both formations (though in open order the bases would be further apart).
The models themselves are a bit of a kitbash. similar to my previously completed medium cavalry. The bodies and javelins are Wargames Factory’s Germanic cavalry, with heads taken from Warlord’s Auxilia sprue (and the unit leaders’ heads taken from Warlord’s Celt sprues). The small shields (parva) are taken from Warlord’s various Legionary sprues (each sprue has 1 or 2, I think they’re for the command figures but they don’t seem to have a hand free to hold them). Lastly, the horses from the Germanic cavalry were replaced with Wargames Factory’s own ‘2nd generation’ horses, which are a nicer size/more accurate anatomy than their first efforts. They lack any reins etc, but I figure that might fit ancient ‘light’ cavalry.
Challenge Tally: 305/365
I decided that last year’s 500 revised target is too ambitious for this year, I think a ‘1 a day’ target makes sense for now