My (Semi) Historical Late 19th Century Indian Army (Part Three)

"I say. Get on with the typing. Jolly good. Quite."

As I decided to focus my Indian Army during the period of the 2nd Afghan War and 1900 using the rules The Men Who Would be Kings, I started doing some research on units, uniforms, etc. I'm a Military Historian (hmmm, where did I put that framed diploma?) but I am not a serious stickler for 100% in how my troops look. In fact, also as a retired Infantry Colonel, I can tell you from experience, what is in the regulations is not necessarily followed by all in the field. It still cracks me up when I first saw a uniform guide for Desert Storm with the soldiers of the US VII Corps, particularly the 1st (US) Armor Division in the "Chocolate Chip" desert uniforms. Well . . . we were issued them after hostilities. 

In the scales I play, I go for gaming distance in how my figures look on the tabletop. Close enough is good enough for me. Enough of an editorial. I choose the next unit to paint because I think there is a rule that you must have at least one Bengal Lancer unit in your Army.

The 10th (The Duke of Cambridge's) Bengal Lancers (Hodson's Horse).

Before I started to paint the 10th Bengal Lancers, which are all Perry Miniatures, I decided I was going to experiment first using GW's Contrast paints to see if they were a viable option for painting the figures. What I refer to as "The Great Indian Army GW Contrast Paint Field Study" was an outstanding success and worth the requisition from the Ministry of Finance. The entire Study is on the link above.

I decided to paint my Squadron of the 10th Bengal Lancers as they would have looked during the Frontier Uprisings of 1897 to 1898. They carry no pennants on their bamboo lances as they are on active field duty against the enemy. The 10th also had black puttees while most cavalry units had blue. I also added trailing scarfs from the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry box to their pagari (turbans). Hey, if you are going to have Bengal Lancers, they need to look dashing! I also attached one of the trailing scarfs to the cummerbund of my dapper British officer.

"Save those bits!"

If we are going to be in India, we must have some Kipling! One of the greatest English novels of all time is Kim, written by Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling. For my army, I decided to do some characters from the novel. You can view my suggested rules by just following the links. All of the figures are conversions primarily using the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry, a D&D figure from the Nolzur line from WizKids and my handy dandy bits box.

Kimball "Kim" O'Hara AKA "Little Friend of all the World."

Mahbub Ali "The Red Beard."

Teshoo Lama

In addition, again doing a conversion from the Perry Miniatures Afghan Tribal Infantry box I did a real life Political Officer: Colonel Sir Robert Warburton, KCIE, CSI.

Next:

1. "How about some Infantry?"

2. "How about some fire support?"

3. "Colors? We don't need no stinking fancy colors!"