Russian Civil War Red Tachanka

I picked this up from ebay the other week. I have been hunting for a Tachanka (Or Tchanka if you prefer) for some time. These were typically peasant, sprung, 2, 3 or 4 horse buggy's with a Maxim mounted in the back. Most forces in the Russian Civil War used these, mainly to support cavalry formations, with Makhno's anarchists having lots of them in particular. I wanted at least one for my Reds.

There are four options really in 28mm, Eureka have a lovely dynamic one, but its 25mm and looks tiny against the chunky Copplestone and Studio Siberia miniatures, I painted and based one but had to sell it as I felt it looked silly. Warbases do one, but I didn't fancy building it from MDF and I didnt like the crew in particular but also the horses. There is another MDF option which is really good, I bought it and put it straight back in the packet when I saw how complicated it was, I also need to source horses and crew to add to this, I might come back to it. The last option is the Warlord games one. A much sturdier afair with nice crew and horses BUT its a WWII one so the carriage is a bit chunkier than the traditional peasant ones and the crew need head swaps, its also a bit expensive.

I managed to find this one on ebay at almost half price and already built so jumped on it.

As it was already built the figures were already glued solid to the cart so not ideal either for painting or in particular cutting off heads, however with a bit of delicate chopping I got there in the end.

Weirdly despite making a great job of building it the chap who I bought it from had made a half start on painting bits without priming it at all. This did mean I had to be careful when I primed it not to paint out all the detail, that said I am really happy with the end result.

I was reminded of some of the lessons Ken taught me when painting horses, I used the same oils but different base coats to ensure that all three horses had slightly different shades of coat. Again I am really happy with the horses.

For the heads I purposely chose three different hats to increase the diversity of the look. The Budenovka cap (rod head as Dave calls them) is not quite as nice as the other two which are Copplestone spares bu it looks OK. The only thing I might have changed if I had thought about it is to make the uniform colours slightly more diverse too, but again I am generally happy with them.
The pink flowers are a nod to my daughter ( The basing department) who likes to add flowers here and there, the splash of colour does lift the whole model as well so pleased with that.

So overall really please and a pretty quick turn around with painting it too, pulling the whole thing together over a weekend.

I am now wondering whether adding a red flag to it might also add a bit of something?

I wonder when I can get it on the table?