"68th Bengal Native Infantry for Sikh Wars" Topic

So just posted up the latest finished unit for my Sikh Wars project, mainly old Foundry. Details and pictures on the blog.

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Nice looking unit!

Very nice! Those shakos look like such a chore

D6 Junkie: a chore to paint or wear, but fun to look at on the tabletop, at least IMHO! Beautiful job RogerC! Those old Foundry colonials are still great figures in my book. Is that one stand of Gurkhas in Rifle green at the far right end of the frame?

Mad guru I believe that the light companies of Bengal regiments dressed in rifle green while the rest of the battalion was in red.

Thanks guys, yes this was a nod to light companies wearign green. However my understandign is we dont know which units thta applied to and the light companies in green may only have been those that also converted to rifles. Still they look nice and much easier to paint without all the banding and brass fittings.

Glad you like them, many more to do.

These look great. After reading your blog, you appear to have used some Iron Duke brand cavalry. Is it your opinion that the Iron Duke miniatures work alongside both Foundry and OG Sikhs?

Again, smartly done.

Hi Minipigs, it is yes. Iron Duke are quite small 28mm and fit well with the newer 25mm figures, if you look at an earlier post you will see Iron Duke mixed perfectly well with the muchearlier foundry Indian Mutiny figures. They probably are a better fit for Foundry than OG but not very much in it.

Interesting. I think Empress Minitures said that Iron Duke will also branch out into NWF/Afghanistan/Sikh Wars?

I am trying to justify a smallish Sikh war collection to whip out when I havent got the strength to game 40mm Napoleonics. It seems the Sikh Wars at once fit a cigar box sized approach but also have so much troop type diversity that a collection can easily sprawl.

How have you navigated the issue of unit diversity and how many units is your collection at? I take it this is a bit of a side interest for you?

I was hoping to either use Napoleonic rules with some tweaks for the irregulars or Neil Thomas' 19th century wargames rules. What rules have you found give a good balance between period and play-ability?

Ok so a few questions to answer.

Iron Duke are doing a range called GAPS, Gwalior, Afghanistan, Punjab and Scinde, so the camapings in India of the 1830's. I am a little bit excited.

My collection is a long term one which aims for a largish collection but over a long period. Currently I have 7 battalions of foot, 3 guns and 5 regiments of horse for the Biritsh Indian army and 12 foot and 10 horse with 9 guns for the Sikhs. Most of my collection is on table in this after action report.

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I am using both Sharp Practice for small games and Black Powder for larger ones. Black Powder whilst not my favourite for Napoleonics is very flexible so works well for Sikh Wars allowing you to field troops with al sorts of diversity of weaposn, training and motivation.

If you flick through the blog you will find some thoughts on rules and basing. Will also be trying Field of Battle with the Sikhs.

Sorry that should say Campaigns and 1840's of course.

Well, "camapings" kinda goes with MiniPigs so I just thought you were saluting me, somehow.

Did field officers fight mounted in this war?

Im going to read your AAR. Did you use a lot of the Empress/Iron Duke mounted personalities and field officers for the Sikh Wars?

I dont worry to much about whether field officers rode horses, for me its more about what looks good so I have a couple of mounted colonels mixed into regiments and plenty of mounted general officers.

I havent used the Iron Duke mounted officers as the British European troops in particular have quite different uniforms in the Sikh Wars and whilst soem work others dont. I have used Studio Miniatures and Foundry mounted officers but I will also be using the staff pack from Perry Carlist Wars British troops, there are a much closer fit and really nice figures.