Above is a pic of Lt. Colonel James Galbraith, Regimental Colour in hand, alongside Bobbie the regimental dog and some of the other "Last Eleven" survivors of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment, making their last stand in one of the walled gardens just South of Khig village, a few miles West of the Afghan town of Maiwand.

ABOUT IGOR THE MINI ARTIST (who painted most of these figures)

Most of the figures displayed on this blog were painted by Igor Olshansky of Igwargminis -- a very talented and incredibly dependable man and very active wargamer.

I first came to know Igor years ago via eBay, where I won some 14th Century Medieval infantry he was auctioning.  Somewhat astoundingly to me, it turned out that Igor lived in Brooklyn, New York, (where I was raised) and does most of his wargaming at a club located ACROSS THE STREET FROM WHERE I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL AND ONE-AND-A-HALF BLOCKS UP THE STREET FROM THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN!

If you enjoy well-painted minis and haven't visited it before, I suggest you check out Igor's site, which is brimming with great pics of figures he's painted.  I would say he prefers to paint more irregular troops types -- Ancient barbarians and tribesmen, Medievals, partisans and guerillas of all eras and backgrounds, colonial native forces, etc., etc., as well as scif-fi, fantasy and gothic horror figures -- but he has always done a good job on my more formally uniformed late 19th Century regular forces as well.

Here's a link to his site:

Igwargminis

...and here's one to the site of the METROPOLITAN WARGAMERS NYC, the shockingly hospitable and impressively well-garrisoned club he belongs to, which is filled with everything from classic board wargames to sandtables brimming with 28mm and 15mm armies of almost every era and theater of historical warfare, as well as aliens, robots, elves, trolls and their ilk (if the club had been in existence from 1979-1982, I would never have left high school):

Metropolitan Wargamers NYC