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What's the consensus on how to paint cavalry models - do you paint the rider separately first, then glue him on? Or assemble the whole thing and then paint. I can see advantages and disadvantages for both methods. With separate painting, it'll be faster - but I'll have to glue the riders to a nail or something while painting them. And scrape paint off the spot on the animal where the rider's butt hits it, to get a decent glue bond. With assembly first, it will be less hassle but I'll have to take more time to be careful about where the paint goes - drybrushing a rider's armor would be a pain, it would get drybrush paint powder all over the mount.

I suppose there's always the compromise of basecoat separately, then assemble, then highlight.

Argh. I have a unit of Tallarn IG with old jetbikes, and I'm picking up some Ferox sabertooth-tiger cav for Hordes too.

What do you guys do for painting cav?

I assemble them then paint them. A lot of historical cavalry is supplied in one piece.

If I am doing 15mm I usually assemble the entire playing stand (2 or three figures, after priming) and paint that. The idea being, if you can't get your brush into the gaps, no-one will be able to see them anyway and it looks like a shadow area.

I always assemble the entire model first. I focus mainly on the rider first, then move to the mount(makes it easier to work with when you don't have to worry about flacking or scraping paint off the mount). Plus most mounts generally have more open areas(even if armored) and are fairly easy to deal with and still avoid the rider.

The only thing I assemble seperatly are monsters and their riders ... Monsers are usually pretty unweildy to glue the rider on first and have to twist and turn the large figure around while painting the rider.