Battle of Aliwal - Homage to my late friend Alfred Umhey

 Last Monday I took part in the funeral of my old friend Alfred who sadly died in the 64th year of his life. 

For over 20 years we organized an anual diorama project, starting with Isandlwhana in 2000. The last one was Ulundi, he took no part in our Medway 43AD project as he already had some health issues at this time. 

All the years we planned revival of his old Aliwal diorama. When decided to put it on show in 2007, but then it was my time to quit the project, because my wife gave birth to our first child. We tried it 2 years later, but then my brother decided to marry exactly on this weekend....

I hope to have the chance to put a diorama of this battle on show in the future. Indian history ot the 18th and 19th century always one of Alfred's main interests and he infected me too with the interest in this subject. 

See here the photos, I have safed from the projects which he put on show in 2007 when I was distracted with the scale 1:1:-)

See the camel artillery. Atlantic Indian brigade on an Airfix Dromedar. Always one of my favorites in his collection.

In the meantime, I have painted hundreds of Newline Sikh infantry and also plan to create a 3D-range for the conflict

My lancers are simple paintjobs from Strelets Crimean war figures, Alfred used the old Esci ones.

And here the sabre wielding Polish lancers

I am wondering, how much Esci Polish lancer sets he bought....

In the frontrank you can see the Esci French Foreign legion. A useful set for painting conversions.

Even the Sikh Guard cuirassiers painted from Airfix

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See more photos for this period under the Label sikh wars

Sikhs wars

Since I have seen Alfred's diorama on the battle of Alival around 20 years ago, I became very interested in the Sikh wars. After some talking with Sean from Newline design, he started on his range of 1/72 Sikh war figures. I took around 2000 figures for my collection. 

Two weeks ago I've got the last infantrymen painted and now just the horsemen are left. 

My dream is to show a much more increased diorama of a Sikh war battle in the future. 

Everytime I visit Alfred, I take a look at his collection of painted figures - and especially on the Sikh war conversions. 

See the photos and you know why:-)