I have about 20 horses to paint rather quickly.
I have a rough idea in my head of going for 5 simple base colours and doing 4 of each (keeps things simple and should add some variety)

I tend to paint using lots of browns anyway so I am fairly confident painting brown horses, I was wondering if any one had any tips for painting more complicated colours like chesnut/reddish brown and particularly white horses. (Am tempted to paint the basecoat grey for now and work up to white when I have some more time.

There was a really awesome painting guide for riders of rohan on TLA I used to follow but can't seem to locate it. If anyone has any clues as to where it might be or any alternate guides i'd be interested in having a look.

Any tips on painting horses in general would be quite handy as this is the first cavalry I'll have painted for a good few years.

All the best

For painting reddish brown horses, I'd highly suggest you paint it brown with a reddish brown mixed in. Slowly build up the layers adding in more reddish brown. Base it Rhinox Hide, mix in Dark Flesh (don't know what the new GW paint name for it is) with Lahmian Medium. Alternatively, get Bloodletter Red glaze and wash the horse over with that.

For white horses, I often start with a very dark grey basecoat. Then I get a medium toned grey and drybrush all over the horse until you've only got the previous colours in the deepest, darkest recesses. Then I highlight with an even lighter grey, then mix in white. Afterwards, I highlight pure white, blending in with Lahmian Medium. Paint the tales and manes slightly darker, perhaps grey.

I'm not the greatest expert on painting horses, as I always see them as a daunting task. However, they always come out fine with patience and practice. Hope this has helped (:

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I started to walk around without shoes...

It sort of then became a Hobbit

http://mageknightkevin.blogspot.com/2011/11/tutorial-painting-horses-28mm.html
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/5902

check those.

I always look at pictures of real horses to get inspired and realism. The hard parts are the larger flat area's but once you have done a number of them then it is fairly easy. With white horses, I see often too much contrast (I have made the mistake myself) which makes it look unreal, but again looking at real white horses can help you make this work. Always painting spots, doing painted horses (the breed), and painting socks and things that break up the color will always help make the horse look good or different from another horse of the same colors. Good luck bud.

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http://www.sithious.webs.com

I would definitely recommend the first link in the above post. Great for getting it done fast as it makes it so clear where to go.

My advice:
Firstly, you can get 4 poses if you alternate them - some people don't realise this.
Use the above link as a reference.
Drybrush one or 2 horses and keep them as a reference for where you should be highlighting - it can be a bit unclear later.
Decide if you are going to Green Stuff the cracks at the start.
If not, leave the horses unjoined and paint them in each half.
If you do join them, dont glue them to the base. It makes basing a little harder, but getting paint between the legs a lot easier.
I believe that you can use the grass thing under some of the horses feet, depending on which hole you put them in - might be better than nothing to prevent broken legs if you aren't using rocks or pinning them.

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My trade thread
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25957&p=325932#p325932