Native Irregular Cavalry for the Sikh Wars

My latest unit for the Sikh Wars project are Irregular Horse for the East India Company. Now I am being deliberately vague on the actual unit for a couple of reasons. 

My original preference would have been for Skinner's horse, very colourful in their yellow and red, however my understanding is that they were still wearing steel helmets at this time and I cant find any suitable figures I am happy with. I could have gone with the later uniform of yellow with red turban and sash, but I do want to be sure its right, although I think there is some debate about what Skinner's were wearing during the Sikh Wars.

So in terms of why I am being vague firstly I had set out for these to be the 12th Bengal Irregular Cavalry as I understood it was a unit that took part in both Sikh Wars (although on reflection I think they only took part in the 2nd war). I then couldn't find them in any of the orders of battle (sure they are there somewhere) I also found an image of this unit in a blue coat which threw me again all the text for the same article has the 12th in green with red turbans. Turns out that in 1846 all units numbered 11 upwards increased a number so the 11th became the 12th. So is the 11th in so many of the battles actually the 12th? No idea.

Anyway after that I had a look at other units and found a number in green with red turbans. The 2nd Bengal Irregular Cavalry is a useful one as they definately fought in both wars, they just had white lace rather than the yellow I have for my 11th/12th, and also the Scinde Irregular Cavalry which fought in the second Sikh War.

In the plate below we see the 12th on the far right and the 1st Scinde Irregular horse in the two plates below which are a good match.

So if I use these as the 2nd, 11th/12th or 1st Scinde then they become a fairly useful unit. As usual I may have completely over-thought this one!

Either way these chaps in green and red are what I have ended up with and they do look very pretty. They are from Iron Dukes Indian Mutiny range and I particularly like the horses (although there is one that looks slightly odd).

I am trying something different with the photos and cropping them down to show the figures properly, I think it has worked quite well. Hope you like the effect. The top is un-cropped the second one is the same cropped down.

I purposely got a mix of figures with shoulder sword, pointing sword and lance as I like the mix, the irregulars provided a lot of their own equipment so I dont feel the need to be too formal about the split of weapons. I also did a head swap on the officer. The original one came with a helmet which was probably right, but I also got a unit of Bengal Light Cavalry in forage caps, but one of them had a turban. I decided a head swap was in order and used the turban head for my British Officer which I like quite a lot as it happens.

I will need some of the regular Bengal Cavalry, as a minimum I want one unit of Bengal Light Cavalry and one of Governor Generals Bodyguard to augment the two British units I already have painted up. I already have the figures for my first unit of Bengal Native Light Cavalry, first one is painted and finished, again I have used Iron Duke. For Governor Generals Bodyguard I may use the Studio Miniatures Bengal Native Light Cavalry in Shako's and laced Jackets. This unit had the same cut of uniform but red jackets rather than French Grey. If I decide on a further unit I may go with Studios BNLC with covered forage caps so each of the units will look quite different.