AB 18mm cavalry review & AB/Blue Moon comparison shots.

 Having taken the decision a few weeks ago to gradually double up all my Blue Moon cavalry with AB's here are a few more recently painted. While the horses do tend to measure up well against each other with the AB's being slightly more animated, the AB cavalry are a bit larger, and more detailed. I will be keeping all my Blue Moon cavalry as they can be used in larger future battles, but my DBN armies will eventually be all AB cavalry and a mix of BM and AB infantry as they match quite well aside from the longer bayonets of the AB's. I don't mean to knock the BM's and certainly the AB's are more expensive at 65p per foot figure and £1.35 per mounted, but for me this is the future direction as I just love painting them! I'm putting together a document to keep stock of my growing unpainted AB lead mountain.

Anyway, images show my AB cavalry so far, based of course for DBN. Note how the satin varnish really brings out the horse colours. These horses are painted using a combination of Flat Brown, Cavalry Brown and Japanese Orange, the very light highlights on some are the latter shade slightly knocked back with the brown and I really like the finish. I'm gradually learning that to paint greys in 18mm scale I need to knock back the white far more so it's London grey over the black followed by some ivory mixed into the grey for the highlights and used with a fairly dry brush. For the odd black horse I go with Black Grey over the base coat for highlights. All above of course are Vallejo colours.

Below are two close ups showing AB cavalry alongside BM cavalry. You can see the main difference is the size of the heads, the AB headgear being a bit larger, but not that noticeable on the tabletop, all are very nice figures.