With my foray into the 17th Century European wars continuing, I decided I needed to armour-up and get a couple of full-blown cuirassier units.

You don’t really need them for the English Civil War - a full suit of armour being a bit too expensive for most people so a rarity on the ECW battlefield - but I think I can probably justify having them available to early 17th Century European armies.

As most of my ECW collection is Peter Pig, I decided to stick with them for the cuirassiers. At this stage of the 17th Century, heavy cavalry like this would have fought in the “Dutch” or “trotter” style: trotting up into pistol range and letting loose a volley or two before advancing steadily into contact.

Usually I would use Contrast paints on the horses, but as I wanted to drybrush the armour on the riders I undercoated in Matt Black and then painted their steeds with basecoat-highlight-wash as I used to do before speed paints came along.

On reflection, it was probably the wrong choice. I should have undercoated in Grey Seer as usual, painted the horses with Contrast paints, then painted the riders with a second matt black undercoat before drybrushing.

The way I used was certainly expedient - I completed the two units in two days - but I’m not very happy with the horses. The truth is that Contrast paints have their weaknesses, but they are really good for painting 15mm horses.