Œnotrian Cavalry

Or is it "Gashantry"?  which has a certain "Irish Fishing Village" ring to it...

This is my first troop of a flight of Œnotrian regular cavalry, which are intended to support my 7th "Bellicose" Œnotrian Legion in action against the Red Menace (Britain). I painted them in the purple livery that the 7th sports - I'l have to add some white trim to bring the flight into the proper historical canon.

One of the adjustments we made to Soldier's Companion was to cut the size of mounted units in half.  Gashants are pretty expensive, and RAFM's recent price hike hasn't sent me rushing back to buy more. 

IIRC, I picked up a batch of Gashants and Officers on eBay some years ago - these look like they might be a garage variation of the RAFM Gashant.  I have a lot of the RAFM gashants (which will be appearing eventually) but I like this variant because it comes with Martian "tack".

The officer had his arms altered by yours truly to give him a different look than the infantry officer (aka "First Sword") of the Legions of Mars boxed set.

Figures are RAFM (more or less). Lances are from Old Glory Accesories line - Short Thrusting Spears with Cast Tips. It would be interesting to try and outfit a troop of Gashants with javellin-armed riders, rather like the Irish in the 16th Century. It would certainly fit in with the Renaissance character of the Œnotrians.

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Royal Mounted Gashant Corps

Inspired as I was by an article in Transactions of the Royal Martian Geographic Society, Volume 1,
I decided to paint up a company of gashant-mounted infantry.

Formed in 1890 by General Willis under the command of Major. B. Lee Kendhall of The Border Regt., the Royal Gashant Corps are infantry, mounted upon Martian Gashants. Armed with the Lee Metford rifle, they dismount for combat, the gashants being simply a method to move them quickly to battle.

The corps badge is the Queen's Crown with the letters "RGC" emblasoned beneath.

In Soldier's Companion, the RGC is rated as V1 and treated as Mounted Infantry. For campaign purposes, the RGC moves as cavalry and receives a +1 benefit to their Forced March roll (more likely to succeed/negates the Humans on Mars penalty) due to their native Martian mounts.

Miniatures are Old Glory Boer War range MI, on RAFM Gashants with Martian Tack.  Despite its name, the Martian tack consists only of a set of reins, with no saddle. Since the OG figures come cast "in the saddle" the two went together with a minimum of work.

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