Charbens Cossack Conversion

  Charbens is one of those brands I did not have as a child but I am drawn to their crude charm. Quite a few years ago I bought a lot of repro Charbens figures. The main problem with that is it was hard to make units as one third or so of the figures were brandishing swords rather than firearms. 

Recently I had a look at a broken original Charbens Cossack and thought it could be repaired and made into a mounted figure. But then I remembered my repro figures. 

The funny thing about many Charbens figures is the way their legs are spread in a rather awkward way. But that would help a conversion to mounted figures so I experimented on one figure by removing his base and cutting off the left arm and reattaching it at a sensible angle for horse riding, hopefully holding reins.

The horse needed to be a good size to look good with these chunky figures. This particular horse came with sets of ancient Greeks and other figures from China. 

What more conversion work should I do? Maybe a cross belt to hold a rifle across the back would be an idea. Do I remove the star on the hat or leave it there? I have a fairly large 'Crussian' army including AIP Cossacks and infantry but no obviously communist troops. I may well leave the star and paint these as Red Cossacks. They could be used for Russian Civil War or WW2. If I ignore the star I could even use them for Napoleonic and Crimean, in which case I probably don't want to add bandoleers. Lack of equipment on toy soldiers has its advantages. I am going to paint this and any others I make with the original paint scheme, which was light grey green coats (original plastic colour) and dark blue trousers.