Mostly Renaissance Command Stands

I was recently looking through my renaissance armies and AWI continentals and realized I was missing a few command stands.

I had the  2 of the miniatures for the Continental light infantry stand painted already. I did an arm swap on the NCO and I built the musician form an extra  figure I had left over.  The musician arm holding the horn and the both the NCO arms are modified Victrix French 1808-1812 arms.  I had seen some research when I was reenacting that hunting horns may have actually been used in the continental army. one specific reference is to using  conch shells as substitutes because the musician's "horns" hadn't arrived yet.  Horns or bugle-horns adopted by the british jsut ptior to hte American revolution, and presumably by the Continental army, had more in common initially with hunting horns than modern or later 19th century bugles(see Article). Also given the propensity of  Colonists of German descent to equip themselves with German weapons(german rifles anyone?),  it follows they might use the traditional German hunting horns also.  This unit in my collection was painted to be light infantry of a Pennsylvania regiment, so there you go. that's my rationale. 

Continental Penn. Light Infantry Command Stand,
Perry Miniatures, with Victrix arms.

Different angle with better view of musician.

The Eastern renaissance Command stands consist of a Sipahi, a Janissary, and a Polish guard Haiduk stand, All The Assault Group(TAG) Miniatures. TAG  Miniatures are always fun to paint.  THE Polish Haiduk command packs each come with a young boy holding a weapon for his officer, which adds a lot of character I think. The musician is from the haiduk musician pack. the Ottoman Janissary command stand is one janissary officer with one of the "exclusive" miniatures, which is an ottoman higher officer of some sort.

TAG Sipahi command stand

Sipahis Reverse angle

Polish and Ottoman Infantry command stands

Infantry reverse views.

so with this the AWI and Ottoman projects are pretty much done for now. I still have 24-ish renaissance polish cavalry to paint, but I have no where to store them at the moment. and I won't bother finishing them until I have a decent storage option.  Sadly that will be a while as I'm still unemployed at the moment and very low on funds.

Pandemic Projects: Ten Years in the Making...

Around a decade ago my friend Jonathan Holmes and I started doing an eastern renaissance skirmish project. I bought a whole host of Polish From The Assault Group.  Jon was going to do Zaporski cossacks, but he sustained an injury that made it hard to paint, so the project was shelved. Some time later the infantry component was repurposed for my Polish themed ImagiNation.

In my attempt to find something to paint this week(Still lots of Napoleonic to go, but waiting on a shipment of bases), while searching through boxes I found my not unsubstantial Renaissance polish cavalry contingent. I have 32 hussars, 16 Pancerni, and 11 Rieters.  8 of the Pancerni were painted, and about 12 of the Hussars were half painted.  I pulled out the hussars and had at them.

 

32 TAG Polish Winged Hussars

 

TAG hussars done in the traditional red and white.

Winged Hussars in less traditional blue and yellow

As always TAG miniatures are lovely models and fantastic to paint. I have 2 renaissance armies, and I've painted dozens of modern british and iraqis(which i then sold), so i have a great deal of experience with TAG. 

I snipped off the white metal lances above the ball guard and drilled out the balls to replace it with music wire. I shaped the tip using a dremel with a grinding wheel.as with all my flags, the pennons are printed off, folded around the lances and glue together using carpenters glue.  I wrap the pennons around the shaft of a narrow paint brush immediately after I've glued together the pennon, so when dry it takes the wavy shape.  The carpenters glue makes them surprisingly resilient.

 

Finally, my mother made me this:

Bunka interpretation.

This is Japanese embroidery called Bunka. we took the reasonably famous picture by Angus McBride(below)  and my mother recreated it in this rather unique form. I have yet to frame it, but when I do it will grace the wall of my game room!

Original picture by Angus McBride

More Pandemic Projects: Ottoman Additions

 Earlier this week I decided I was going to paint my 2nd unit of Ottoman Sipahis of the Porte.  I don't paint these lightly, as the first unit I painted took something like 12 hours?  That is roughly 3 times what a unit of 8 normally takes me. In fact I have had the second unit of 8 kicking around for more then 6 months, and I was finally recharged enough to take them on.  I hadn't photographed the first unit, janissary bases, or giant friggin' cannon because although they were painted, they were not based when I took photos of the whole army.

 

The Assault Group Ottoman Sipahis of the Porte
(the Sultans household cavalry)

 

Other side with shields.
newly painted unit in the lead

 I'm less happy with the geometric patterns on the new unit.  I though I should cover up the black lines I had painted on as guides, but it turns out they give everything a crispness that really makes them pop.  I don't really have the skill to paint them without those lines. it was way more obvious once i saw the pictures. I Also noticed i forgot the white feathering. I'll be going back over with the black lines  and feathering the legs to finish them.

 

New bases for my TAG Jannisaries

I got some new bases for my TAG Jannisaries to bring them closer to the basing for Beneath the Lilly Banners: With Tooth and Claw Suggestions.

Ottoman Giant Friggin' Cannon.  Crew are TAG
miniatures, cannon is from Wizkids Deep cuts line

Giant Friggin' Cannon from the other side

Finally there is the Ottoman Giant Friggin' Cannon, as I call it.  this is a cannon from the Wizkids "Deep Cuts" line of fantasy terrain and accessories. This line has a lot of great generic items. This thing was only $7 bucks canadian!! That's almost half the price of any normal sized cannon from Front rank etc.  Its actually modeled on the Tsar cannon but it looks great with my ottomans. Now all I need is a 12 horse limber for it!

That's it for now. All the ottomans I own are painted now. in a week or two I may have some terrain projects ready to be photographed.

Pandemic Projects: Finally some ECW progress!

Unlike most people, I have been very unproductive during the COVID 19 pandemic.  I use games and events to motivate myself, and since none have been happening, I have found myself lacking in motivation. It also doesn't help that I have very little unfinished from Most of my projects,  ECW and Napoleonic being the outliers.

about 2 weeks ago, I was really eager to paint but I didn't have much left of my ImagiNations, and I was not really feeling up to painting AWI.  I remembered that I have a pretty decent pile of Plastic Warlord ECW figures kicking around, and decided that I would at least pull them out and  take a look.  A day later I had decided on a new basing(and only slightly different) for the Infantry and I had primed Lord Say and Sele's regiment and begin painting.  I also decided that i would like to use Beneath the Lilly Banners 3rd ed to play my Civil war games.  Although the rules are meant for 1670-1720ish, I use them with one or 2 house rules for my Imaginations. The rules have everything I think you would need to play games 30 years earlier as well.

Before this, I had the Cuirassier unit, Lord Brooke's regiment(in purple) the Saker, and  Lord Essex character figures painted, as well as 2/3rds of  the Dragoons.  In the last 2 weeks, I have painted 4 Dragoons, all of Lord Saye and Sele's regiment(40 figures) and the 12 figure unit of cavalry(Essex's horse regiment, also frequently called Sir Philip Stapleton's regiment.

All the ECW figures I currently have painted.

40 figures of Lord Brooke's Regiment

40 figures of Lord Saye & Sele's Regiment of foot.

Lord Essex's or Sir Philip Stapleton's Regiment

Sir William Balfour's Lifeguard Regiment

Dragoons

Sir Henry Fairfax, Saker with master gunner,
and Lord Essex

the regiment split us as I intend to field them
in BtLB3

Lord brooks is based on 40x40mm bases, 4 figures to a base.  I decided to change to 45x60mm bases for the musketeers, 6 to a base, and 45x80mm bases for the pike and command, 8 to a base.  this works out far better if I decide to use a system that doesn't require huge units(which I am), so I can put 2 bases of 6 musketeers together with a base of 8 pike and have a standard 3 base unit in Beneath the Lilly Banners 3rd ed. i had the bases sitting around from all the Perry napoleonics. they use 60x45mm for cavalry, and 40x45 for infantry. I glue 2 40x45mm together to get the 40x85mm, and reinforce it with strategic figure placement and the magnetic sheeting i use for storage on the bottom. they come out surprisingly sturdy.

The cavalry basing stays exactly the same, except each unit of 12 becomes 2 squadrons of 6 figures in BtLB3.

I have enough figures to make 2 more units of 12 cavalry, 2 more units of 40 infantry, and enough firelock storm Party figures to make 5 stands of 6.  that will double what is painted right now.  When using Beneath the Lilly Banners 3rd ed, that all doubles to 8 pike and shotte infantry  units, and 10 cavalry units.  Plus I have a unit of 12 dismounted dragoons waiting to be based. 

Commonwealth of Polhynov Guard Haiduks

Gwardia Hajduk Regiment with command in the fore.

Last night I finished off the Guard Haiduk regiment that has been sitting on my desk  for a few weeks.  these are for my imagination the Commonwealth of Polhynov(or Rzechczypospolita na Polhynow in Polish). the figures are, as with all my other eastern renaissance, TAG miniatures.

Gwardia Hajduk command close up.

The Guard Haiduks use heavy Bardische axes, and as such are treated as a pike unit in Maurice. we have not used any pike units yet, so it should be an interesting change.


TAG figures are always fun to paint. I made the flags my self, and here is a look at them unfurled:

Regimental standard on top, Hetman's Standard on the bottom.

the flags symbols are historical.  The golden eagle is from a standard from a 16th century 'Przemysl district" standard.  the white eagle is Jan Sobieski's crest (1680s) which I have co-opted as the Mielczewski Family/Commonwealth Crest.  the coloured fields are of my own concoction.

the Polhynov standard system is similar to the British napoleonic system, each regiment has a Hetnman's Standard(kings colours) and a regimental standard(regimental colours).

i do plan 2 regiments of 24 cavalry ultimately, for anyone wondering why a polish-based army is so cavalry-light.  the regiment of Husaria(heavy cavalry) will be Front Rank French WSS horse grenadiers, and the light cavalry regiment will use Eureka Polish Uhlans from the 28mm SYW Saxon

Now that these are done, the Polhynov forces can take to the field this Friday, when i get together with friends Martin, Dave, Dan and Jon to play a big game of imaginations Maurice.

Onikszta Haiduk Regiment

or Hajducy Muszkieterzy na Onikszta in polish.   Onikszta is the Powiat(country) in which the regiment is raised, and quartered in times of peace. most counties are responsible for the raising of at least 1 Haiduk Regiment.

Hajducy Muszkieterzy na Onikszta with command.
figures are of course The Assault Group

 the Commonwealth of Polhynov is coming out of a period of reorganisation of  it's military into a more modern fighting force.   Although they keep their more traditional style dress, the colours have been made uniform for each district and the colours are of  the voivodeship that each country belongs to.

they have been trained very similarly to other western infantry. the one concession was the use of the light bardische axes.  the veteran haiduks refused to give them up, and units have been training in their use anyway, so the king decided to include them in the new military system.  they do have the added impact of making the polish infantry hard hitting in a charge. the guard retain their heavy bardische axes, making them formidible against cavalry as well. they do sacrifice a great deal of firepower in doing so(in Maurice they count as pike units)

Next is the army command stand, Hetman Wielki(grand hetman) Wlodzislaw Mielczewski.    Mieczewski grew up in a Koenigsreich occupied county. he was joined the a konigsreich infantry regiment on the far side of the empire and learned their trade.  but his heart always belonged to polhynov.  when the current kings father pulled together the voivodes and  reclaimed conquered counties, Mielczewski abandoned his post in the Konigsreich and returned to Polhynov to aid his country. he quickly rose through the ranks wand was an invaluable advisor and general when fighting the more western style armies. 

the  banner was a new  attempt at making my own wavy-flag texture. it turned out quite nice.  this is battlestandard of the Rzechczypospolita na Polhynow.  the crest is actually

the Battle standard of Polhynov, without being all wrinkled and wave and crap.

Jan Sobieski's, but the red and blue fields are of my own design. It turned out quite nice.

this was was pretty productive, I've painted 45 infantry and 2 cavalry. i plan before the weekend is out to paint my mounted pandours as well.

Haiduks galore!

Well, not really.

 however during a bout of insomnia Sunday night, I painted 16 polish haiduks.  I've had TAG renaissance polish for 3 or 4 years now. i haven't really done a whole lot with them.  however I was considering turning them into a 3rd imagination,  Rzechczypospolita na Polhynow (formerly Vojvodstwo na Polhynov).  the republic of Polhynov is obviously of polish origin. the infantry tradition comes from the eastern haiduks. the heavy cavalry will be using something like WSS french horse grenadiers, or dragoons. the light cavalry will be Polish Uhlans from Eureka. the artilelry will be haiduk artillerists and guns from Old glory.  I have 24 more haiduks with musktest ready to be painted, as well as 24 haiduks with bardische axes for the Rzechczypospolita Gwardia.

Hajducy Muszkieterzy na Brodnica. figures are TAG haiduks.

and while I was doing some terrain for my friend martin last week(pics will be forthcoming), I  painted up a Grand Manner renaissance cottage that he gave me.  this is a nice addition to my  terrain collection. It's also the first look i have ever gotten in person at a Grand manner building.   tehy are very nice.

Polhynov Hajducy marching past a local cottage.

 the other great thing about the grand manner building is the detailed interior.  the walls have wattle showing through, the floor is stone, and the fireplace is well represented.  the casting is also top notch.  I will be getting this on a base like my other buildings, i just need to get myself some suitable stone walls to go with it. i don't think wattle fencing will do it justice..

I will have some pics posted of the culmination of last week's terrain blitz. it was an ACW game at my friend martins.  we took pictures on his camera, so I am just awaiting an email with them attached(nudge nudge wink wink hint hint...).

Ottoman reinforcements

After bolstering the ranks of the electorate army last week, i decided that i needed to do hte same for the Turks. I've had most of these miniatures kicking around for a year, I just didn't have any motivation to paint them.

Sunday night I painted the last 8 tufecis skirmishers, and another officer. These figures are of course The Assault Group miniatures. I highly recommend them for anyone doing Ottoman Turks. the price seems a little high , but the quality is second to none, and shipping is free.

The freshly painted Tufecis Skirmishers(TAG minis)

all 3 groups of tufecis with 3 officers in the lead.

Next up i decided to finish off the 3rd  group of Timarli Sipahis. these would be the feudal Sipahis. once again, these are The Assault Group miniatures.

8 new Sipahis.

all 24 Sipahis in 3 ranks, with command in the lead

I decided that I am going to field them in 3 ranks of 8 (each rank a group)  because lets the Lancers make up the entire front rank, while the other 2 ranks are  swordsmen. another interesting thing is that the musician is actually an extra TAG polish trumpeter.

I have eventual plans to expand the Turks with a unit of 24 light cavalry(haven't decided between Delhis or  Akinjis), 2 unit of 24 Levent infantry and, after all that,  unit of 12 Sipahis of the porte.

TAG Tufekcis infantry

Yesterday i finished off the last of the complete units I have for the Turkish: 2 untis of Tufekcis Infantry.  I still have 5 Sipahis and 6 more Tufekcis to paint, but they will wait until I can afford to fill them up to 8 figures each.

The Assault Group Tufekcis Infantry.

detailed information on these guys is hard to find.  Pictures are even harder.  the only picture I have found was in a copy of Osprey Men-at-arms 140 - Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1776. also in the book it has a short paragraph saying that they appeared in Rumelia around the middle of the 1500s, and became a common troop type in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  they were well trained and disciplined marksmen, and that some of them may have been mounted infantry.

Closeup of Officers Sinan Ralca and Erkan Basoglu

What is interesting is how very much different they are from most Turkish units. their uniforms are  remarkably uncolourful, and have short-cut coats.  they also look like they are wearing putees.  they could easily fit in with most Colonial period armies.  I deviated from the picture in osprey on 2 details. I changed the Brown waist sash to the same colour as the electorate coat(mustard yellow)  and i also added a yellow feather on the 2 officers headgear.


As usual,these TAG figures are beautiful. All my Turkish and Polish are TAG figures, and they are second to none in quality. 

Enter the Spahis!

 Joining the Janissaries that i painted earlier in the week,  these are the first cavalry to be finished since i decided to rebase to the pill hsaped base.  I definitely prefer them to the 40mm bases i  had originally planned on using. these guys will eventually be joined by a mostly lance-armed Sipahi unit.

These guys are lead by Devrim Uzanlar. he is athletic and an  accomplished rider who is universally loved by his troops(so says the Character generation in Sharp Practice). 

I have 2 more groups of 8  Janissaries to paint, and 2 more Sipahis with lances before i run out of figures. but i have to devote some more time to some commissioned War Machine figures. I'm planning to finish 20 figures for Sunday, and then the remaining figures of the commission by the following Sunday.

Imagination Surprise!

OK, so yesterday I told you I had some Imagination Stuff done, but that it wasn't what you would think it was. so here it is:

TAG Janissaries

These Janissaries are from my Eastern Renaissance Collection, but I've decided to use them for this as well. Janissaries didn't change much in the 100 years between when i bought the for and the Imagination stuff we are doing. I almost have enough more figures at the moment to do 16 more janissaries and a unit of 8 Timarli Sipahi with a big man.  I need to grab 3 more packs (8 figs) of janissaries to finish of the second 'battalion' in the janissary regiment, plus another pack of command, and a regimental Kazan(soup anyone?) I also want to grab a Turkish cannon & crew, and a unit of 8 Tufecis as a skirmish screen.

These particular Janissaries are from the Asarya beylerbeylik (adminstrative area made up of several provinces, each having a military governor) of the former Ohtaran Empire. Asarya was one of the Major western regions  in the empire, and had been occupied for several hundred years before the collapse.  Asarya had also been one of the largest sources of Janissary infantry for the empire and had a long, rich Military history.

When the Beylerbeyi (military Governor-general) Saw that the Empire was headed for Open rebellion in other provinces, he made sure to poisiton Military officers Loyal to Asarya in all critical military positions.  only one of his subordinate governors had intended to declare independence, but he "drowned" mysteriously before he could do so. as a result,  the Ohtaran empire lives on in a much smaller form in Asarya.

Geographically, Asarya borders the the Electorate of Lustigzollern - Großgesaß to the southeast. Even though the Beylerbeyi and  Kurfurst Großgesaß are on good terms, some of the Asarya governors like to raid along the Border.




some time in the next month or two I will Acquire and start painting  the Electorate forces. I just decided to start with these guys because i've had them sitting around for 7 or 8 months. plus it starts 2 projects with 1 stone.

Lord Brookes Regiment of Foote

I'm just about to head off to the Club for (hopefully) a night of gaming.  I just finished the latest Stands of Lord Brooke's Musketeers and thought i would post some pics.

32 figures strong at this point. Over the weekend I plan to finish the last 8 musketeers and bring the regiment up to it's final strength of 40 figures.

More ECW

After finishing the remainder of the FIW collection I have on-hand, I decided I wanted to switch modes for a bit. I decided to try painting up some of the Warlord Pike & Shotte plastic Pikemen and Command i have laying around.

I decided to paint them up as Lord Brooke's Regiment for 2 reasons. The main uniform colour is purple, and the standard happens to be on the Parliamentarian Flag sheet included with my Pike & Shotte Battalia Box.  I find that the heavy paper that Warlord Games prints their flag sheets on is too heavy for for the bending that i do with my standards. It does not bend smoothly and the surface can actually begin to crease and crack under the pressure. so I scanned the sheet at 600 DPI .  I chose 600DPI so that i can print it off much larger then the original without sacrificing  too much detail.

This regiment will be roughly 5 times the size it is now(40 Figures) when it is finished. there will be 8 more pike, as well as 24 muskets  after this one is done the next unit i intend to paint will be Lord Seye & Sele's  regiment.  I'm aiming to have 4 pike & shotte foot regiments, 2 cavalry regiments(12 figures each), 1 Dragoon regiment(12 foot & 12 Mounted), 2 firelock regiments(12 & 18 figures) and 1 artillery piece for my parliamentarian army..  If by the time i finish that, i don't have an opponent, I'll likely do a royalist contingent of roughly the same size.

I'm also looking for a good set of rules to use for ECW. I know Warlord is releasing an ECW supplement for Black Powder at some point, but no news on when yet. I've played 1644, and wasn't overly impressed, especially with the morale being completely divorced from casualties.  I am Curious to see what For God, King and Country by the Canadian Wargamers Group is like.  I've played Habitants & Highlanders as well as Rocket's Red Glare and enjoyed them.  If anyone has a copy of  For God, King and Country they would part with, Let me know.