Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Pikes, Muskets and Flouncy Shirts => Topic started by: Doom Beard 78 on January 20, 2021, 02:21:47 PM
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I've resolved to finally complete my 17th century Polish figures as I have a plan to use the figures for a game of With Fire and Sword in 28mm . First up is an artillery piece and some casualty counters . I have another 15 casualty counters to do and then I can get cracking on some infantry ( the cavalry were finished years ago)
I imagine that the artillery crew are German mercenaries as the partisan wielding officer sports a hairstyle far to conservative for a 17th century Polish gentleman to have worn
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Really like the artillery crew and the basing is top notch, looking forward to seeing more. :)
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Inspired basing Father Georgi.
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jambo1 , here is an early ( and better) photo of the artillery crew, the officer had a little bit more work done to him but not lot
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Great work on them, really good job. :)
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Some Haiduks ( Hungarian/Polish infantry) here are 2 units of 24 . these were originally 2 units of 18 ( painted up about 8 years - never seen an actual battle) recently I painted up a few figures to bring these up to 2x24 .
I also found the time to paint up another few casualty figures , but find that I seem to have way more than I recall buying. I am working on a second cannon and then its time to finish off that unit of Krakow militia I started but never finished
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Really nice units! I like the way you have differentiated the two units. Great reminder about casualties. Must get some of those :D
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Found the time to repair this unit- the trumpet seems to have bent and I am a bit worried that if I were to straighten the end of it that it could snap
currently repairing the snapped off Hussar lances ( the joy!!)
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What would a 17th century Polish army be without at least one unit of winged Hussars
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They look very impressive, great paintjob :). There's one problem with manufacturers such as TAG, Old Glory or Warlord - they usually don't focus on depicting polish (as well as other central and eastern european) units from one period, so in most cases they often have sets with odd mix of hussars from the beginning, mid and late XVIIth century (even from XVIIIth century) or even mash up stuff from different decades on one figure.
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Taking shape nicely, really good work. :)
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Second cannon finished replete with so much wood and other flammable material to cause a Health and Safety at Work officer to look in horror-
Thanks for the kind comments.
The Poles have been an army I started ages ago and have fallen by the way side, I have been tidying them up and fixing some damage while finishing off the unfished. I now have the Krakow Militia to do- just can't quite face it at the moment
Hopefully, i can use it in a game at some stage this year- but who knows what's going to happen. I just need a ruleset and an opponent ( the latter is in short supply)
PS- I started a thread about a year ago on rules recommendations so please do not respond with a list of your favourite rules. I am so far leaning towards adapting By Fire and Sword to 28mm; fingers crossed it works
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2 units of Ratjar ( Reitar)
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The army is building up nicely. Loving all of the different units 👍
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A great selection of miniatures.
Most look to be from the TAG range.
I also think that i spot a few GW Kislev winged lancers mixed in too.
Just been getting into By Fire & Sword.A period i had not even considered before.
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eagle eyed manic Miner- you are correct. 3 GW Kislev winged lancers on TAG horses . I bought those a long time ago; these days ebayers seem to think that they have a value of £25-30 each
Otherwise the Polish cavalry is TAG, the Ratjat/Reitar cavalry are a mostly Bicorne ECW with a few TAG added in for some variety. The artillery is Bicorne as well.
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... these days ebayers seem to think that they have a value of £25-30 each
I saw that recently and was very surprised. I wonder if those prices are achieved? I suppose if you were really desperate to finish a unit?
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I think many of the ebay buy it now prices are wildly optimistic . I finished the first 6 of the Krakow Militia unit. This unit will take a while.
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cossack foot with muskets flying a banner of the Archangel
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In the campaign we're running, the Swedes are investing Krakow and the Cossacks are putting a lot of pressure on the Turks. It's a jolly entertaining period.
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latest editions are the Noble Levy
In later life Jan Sobieski reflected on his experiences of commanding the Noble Levy, he remarked how the levy had taught him to weep and to moan and said to his mother that
Now, crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good
When the levy breaks, mama, you got to move
first unit is arrayed 9x3, the second 9x2 . I had briefly considered getting another 9 so that both units would be of equal size, but I feared that path led to a certain madness.
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Another great addition. They look very flashy, as nobles :)
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These miniatures are great to see painted and in all of their glory.
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Krakow Militia x`18. I still have another 5 figures to do :-[ plus, there is no command for this unit
I have to say that this was one of the most tedious units I have ever painted, all that fiddly yellow trim.
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They may have been fiddly to do, but they look splendid 👍
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The Krakovians look great, but I can't blame you for complaining about getting them there. I've been putting off acquiring any for years...
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Excellent figures, and musical choice ;)
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I suspect that Emir may be the only one to have spotted the reference to Memphis Minnie. Here is the last unit of the Polish army. A unit of guard infantry from the guard of Jan Sobieski . These are inspired by Richard Brzinski claim that Sobieski had a unit equipped in Janissary attire. The osprey illustration shows them in sky blue coats however, they were more likely in green. iI ended up fudging it and wanted to go for a turquoise greatcoat. This army is now finished. Now, lets see if I can find an opponent, usually the hardest part of this hobby
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Another excellent unit.
Don't let the dust gather under your broom whilst you look for an opponent though..... ;)
Paint the other side too !
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Congratulations on completing the last unit (is an army ever complete?! 8) .)
They look really good - an interesting touch to have some “Imitation-Jannisaries” 👍
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a few more casualty markers and a cossack priest
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Cossack priest on horseback? That's pretty awesome!
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Went rummaging through the lead pile and found the last 6 Krakow Militia, plus 6 assorted infantry that I will pass off as Cossacks. Plus something which could be the start of a new project
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More great looking figures! 👍
Those militia look very smart.
Ottomans? I think this is where I will be heading next once my Poles are ‘done’ (obviously no army is ever finished really :D ).
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Ihave a game scheduled for the may bank holiday of By Fire and Sword - so much will depend on how I feel about that game. If I like the game then perhaps an Ottoman army could be on the horizon. or perhaps, more likley, I may just collect some Cossack Spear as I am rather short of them
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Tidy looking units.
Upload to the TAG Gallery?
https://theassaultgroup.co.uk/my-account/user-gallery/?ug-gallery=upload-photo
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I played By Fire and Sword yesterday but adapted for 28mm.
For those unfamiliar with it; By Fire and Sword is a 15mm scale game which uses element based troops, it features command counters and rules by which commanders have a set number of command points with which to change orders. Unless orders are changed a unit must fulfil its orders so that a unit on move or defend orders can not charge or counter charge. The rules are very detailed with lots of nuances so they take a little while to learn. I am not sure how figures are based in 15mm- my guess is that it uses the standard 40mm x10mm/20mm frontages I see for the DBX family and its derivative systems. Given by own basing, I settled on 80x50 for cavalry and 60x20 for infantry. Given that the frontages of the cavalry have doubled while the depths have increased by 1.5 compared with the 15mm system I wondered how this would impact on the manoeuvre given that the rules require you to account for wheeling, turning, increasing/decreasing frontages etc. However, neither me nor my opponent are completive or pedantic and so this was not an issue.
Movement rates for infantry are 10 to 15cm and for cavalry they are 20-40cm. These actually look Ok for 28mm being 4-6" for foot and 8-16" for cavalry. Which were about the movement rates used by the warhammer system. Shooting ranges are typically 15cm ( for effective range) and 25-35 cm being the long range for most hand firearms ( the system distinguishes a number of different missile weapons) Playing these straight as they are means that the game does not descended into a long range firefight and means that cavalry are a real threat to missile infantry .
Shooting is resolved as follows
1) determine range
2) determine how many stands can shot
3) each unit has a number of shooting dice, this is typically 2 although some cavalry have just 1 dice
4) you then need to roll less than or equal to the units skill level on a D10 to score a hit- units have typically skill levels of 3, 4, or 5.
5) target then gets an armour save to
6) if the target suffers enough wounds to lose a stand ( usually 3) than they test for morale.
Colonel Wladowski's Haiduks comprise 6 stands. they are veterans shooting in the open at long range. They roll 12 dice requiring a "5". However , as the shooting is at long range successful hits are re-rolled. So The Haiduks score 6 hots and re roll those down to 3. The opponent is a unit of Reiter with armour 4 , so they have to roll less than 4 to survive. if the shooting was at short range, there would be save modifier based on the firearm ( in this case 2)
My initial concern was that some of the distances in the game would have to change e.g the command radius for commanders and we found that these need to double ( i.e from 20cm to 40cm to regimental commanders) otherwise changing orders for units can become virtually impossible.
Played Poles v Cossacks and found that Cossacks are a tricky army to use. I had a lot more missile infantry than my opponent so hoped to blast away with focussed firepower in the centre . However, the dice had other ideas.
As I am suffering from pike fatigue I think that the Ottomans would be the logical paired army to collect
All in all enjoyed the game and figure that another 2 or 3 games are needed to get to grips. Some things which came as a surprise were that the Cossack cavalry are typically equipped with muskets and spears however, a musket cannot be used while mounted and the Cossacks are not designed for shock charges , so they are in effect dragoons rather than skirmish cavalry . Also, we found it herd to work out of they could evade from a charge and in the end, so that we could see how melee worked we decided to see what would happen in they got charged by Panicerni. It was a blood bath with the Paniceni punching through them with ease.
My first historical game in maybe 3 years and the first time I got to use the Cossack foot ; I keep a games journal and looking through it I see that the Cossack foot were painted in 2009!!
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Hi i have played quite a bit of By Fire and Sword, have both a Cossack army, an Imperial army and Tartar.
I would not change the command distance! it is the heart of the game and the command decisions you have to make about orders and where you commander is placed is a crucial.
Once a unit has an order it continues with that order until something changes for it, ie loss of combat etc. So planning your orders is important. If you increase the command distance as you suggest then that part of the game gets just too easy. You also change the dynamics of buying commanders if your commander can reach every thing with his range then extra commanders are not so important.
I use douple deep bases for my infantry as I love the look of the large Cossack units that comes from this.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/3770/32422653243_67da372fd0_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Rp5zdP)DSC_0467 (https://flic.kr/p/Rp5zdP) by William Keyser (https://www.flickr.com/photos/48272284@N08/), on Flickr
And Wagons of death !!!
(https://live.staticflickr.com/3761/33109025461_5a13d653cb_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/SrJpLz)DSC_0470 (https://flic.kr/p/SrJpLz) by William Keyser (https://www.flickr.com/photos/48272284@N08/), on Flickr
And of course how can you play this game without a Polish contigent. Totantanz Winged hussars!
(https://live.staticflickr.com/2837/32854412560_01a31dd165_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/S4esdY)DSC_0472 (https://flic.kr/p/S4esdY) by William Keyser (https://www.flickr.com/photos/48272284@N08/), on Flickr
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Thanks for the review and thoughts, Doom Beard and Wkeyser. Two nice looking battles and sets of armies 👍.
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Planning another game soon, possibly on a 12" table. Lithuanians v Poles.
I am wondering how effective are winged hussars ; a unit of 4 stands costs 4 fp putting that in context for 5 FP you gt 12 stands of cossack style cavalry
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They are very effective, however, take a look at the army lists that will give you a good idea of what you need with them and they are only available in larger forces. You could try Gosiewske Foray it has and interesting selection. The problem is that you end up with so few units vrs your opponent.
The game is designed by Poles and they are the supper army in the army lists! But the structure of the scenario victory conditions makes it often interesting battles.
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The army lists I have are Republic in Flame which is set at regimental level. I am looking at doing around 12-15 fps .
This weekend seemed like a good weekend to paint Sipahis.
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Very nice painting on those ottomans. :-*
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I ought to have taken a photo with some proper lighting. 3 down another 12 to go.
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better pictures on my painting desk
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What is a "supper army"?
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Looking good, George. What minis?
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Artilery and Reiter are Bicorne, everything else is TAG
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Nice Turks! I'm looking forward to seeing more of those.
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Trev- I have 9 more Spahis left to do. I have located 21 Delhis and Akincis I painted in 2009 for the WAB Vlad the Impaler campaign ( I ended up using them as Albanians and they were the army I took to Paris for the Kremlin Bicetre event that year) Figures need a bit of TLC . I have decided not to repiant them - my painting style has changed a bit since then and many of these figures look a bit garish to my present tastes ( very strong contrasts and a stripy style of highlighting) . I', on the fence about whether or not to collect a larger Ottoman force.
6 Akincis are shown. Sorrted out the forces for this weekends games
Polish Skirmish force:
6 bases of Pancideni
3 Dragoons
9 cossack style cavalry
2 command stands
12 Army points
The Lithuanian rebels
12 stands of Dragoon
12 stands of cossack style cavalry
second commander
+1 command to the colonol
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tarted up some delhis
managed to get in 2 games at the weekend.
keen to get in a few more. However, I think that playing the game in 28mm you would be limite dto playing at the skirmish scale,
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Nice work on those Delhis. :-* :-*
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Nice additions.
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Thanks Trev. I have another 7 delhis I am just fixing up. I have finished up 8 of the 14 Spahi . Progress has been halted by logistical considerations and a failure of the quartermaster ( I have run out of metal spears and am awaiting a delivery)
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That sounds good. Are they all TAG? Some of the old Redoubt figures weren’t bad too. Andy at the club has a decent army. The old glory armoured Spahis were quite good as well iirc.
For spears I’ve converted to nylon these days. Very cheap and it’s pretty difficult to ping them off. You stab yourself a lot less too. I bought a brush head and cut off the bristles getting hundreds.
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Do the nylon ones reach a point i.e do they actually like spears
Did a mounted commander and standard. The orange robes seem to have lost all contrast following the application of matt varnish ( verily did the scribe utter true words when he proclaimed that varnishing is the arte of the divell)
Also added photos of the commander in the front-
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Lovely work George :-*
This project is moving forward apace 8)
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Very nice painting. :-* :-* :-*
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Very nice, George.
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I like the Spahis. Lovely basing as well as painting.
Have you seen these Ottoman books from Helion?
This one I have but not read all of. What I have read is good though.
https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/wars-and-soldiers-in-the-early-reign-of-louis-xiv-volume-3-the-armies-of-the-ottoman-empire-1645-1718.php?sid=34bdd9f506e40577a17371d796e535b8 (https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/wars-and-soldiers-in-the-early-reign-of-louis-xiv-volume-3-the-armies-of-the-ottoman-empire-1645-1718.php?sid=34bdd9f506e40577a17371d796e535b8)
This one looks promising too.
https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/the-cretan-war-1645-1671-the-venetian-ottoman-struggle-in-the-mediterranean.php?sid=34bdd9f506e40577a17371d796e535b8 (https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/the-cretan-war-1645-1671-the-venetian-ottoman-struggle-in-the-mediterranean.php?sid=34bdd9f506e40577a17371d796e535b8)
For nylon spears I squeezed one end flat and cut it to a point with nail scissors.
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Found a bit of spare time to tidy up the scratches on these delhis- these were painted waay back in 2008/9. I have 3 more who need more substantial repairs, they had cast on standards and teh standards have snapped off.
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This time with attachment. Of course Star Wars fans know that attachment is not the Jedi way
Thanks for the book recomendations Trev but for whatever reasons I have lost interest in military history . I am having too much fun reading Robert E Howard at the moment
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attached is an infantry command stand ( I think given the size of the base I ought to have been more creative) plus the Kazan the regimental cooking pot of the Janissaries. I painted that a long time ago, it had suffered a bit in storage and needed a little tidy up. I had been tempted to strip the figures but I think the standard is acceptable.
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Lovely vibrant colours. :-* :-*
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Hu
Im using the same colour choices for the rest of the Spahis, I feared they might be a little garish but they contrast ith the Poles
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Love the colours and lovely shading on the robes etc. I think it works to make them look distinct 👍.
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Hu
Im using the same colour choices for the rest of the Spahis, I feared they might be a little garish but they contrast ith the Poles
As far as I am concerned for this period especially the Eastern and Moslem armies you can never be too bright or garish. The brighter the better :D :D
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Ottoman shield recovered at the siege of Vienna . I think I will attempt to replicate this
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Excellent work George :-*
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2 more garish Spahis, in soap green and violet. I attempted to do the yellow circles but my patience and skill were not up to the task
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Latest Spahi joins the unit
Just two left and the unit will be finished.
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More nice additions. Continue to love the colour choices :)
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Spahis are now finished. see below photos of the whole unit from front and back and the entire Ottoman cavalry force. 12 Spahis , 12 delhis, 12 Akincis. I also have 18 Janissaries. Not enough for a skirmish force but at the moment I have sated my thirst for the 17th century and feel a need to paint something else
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Excellent stuff George :-* :-* :-*
You're really motoring along nicely :)
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The unit looks great all together - a tidy force to start with 👍
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Your cavalry is coming along wonderfully- very nice!
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Thanks guys- I've parked this project for now. I have painted all the Ottoman figures I own and am looking to work through more of the pile of shame before committing to buying anything new
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While going through some boxes I found a Figures in Comfort foam tray which contained 6 Horse archers from TAG. I painted these about 12 years ago and promptly forgot I had them. I believe that these are useable as Wallachian horse archers
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The Ottomans are coming on at quite a rate and nicely too. Those Wallachians look the part. Bruno Mugnai says the Romanian forces were considered poorly equipped and unreliable, with bow armed cavalry the most common troops sent to the Porte. They were brigaded with the Tartars and used as scouts. There is an illustration of a Moldavian horsemen that is dressed in a red coat and feathered hat similar to those figures. He carries a bow, sabre and green lance.
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Trev I currently have no unpainted Ottomans so this project will be on pause for a while ( perhaps indefinatly given my present disillusionment with historical wargaming)
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Trev I currently have no unpainted Ottomans so this project will be on pause for a while ( perhaps indefinatly given my present disillusionment with historical wargaming)
That would be a real shame but from our communications I can see where you are coming from mate.
Lovely brushwork BTW :-*
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Atheling
I am down to just 4 unpainted renaissance gendarmes. I suspect that these are likely to be the last historical figures I paint in a while. I have around 2500 painted 28mm figures sitting shelves and gathering dust, I can't see the sense on buying more dust catchers.
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Atheling
I am down to just 4 unpainted renaissance gendarmes. I suspect that these are likely to be the last historical figures I paint in a while. I have around 2500 painted 28mm figures sitting shelves and gathering dust, I can't see the sense on buying more dust catchers.
I'm running out of space to put my painted stuff so I can relate. I'm not likely to stop painting as it's been such a huge passion for so many years.
Good luck with the Fantasy stuff and I look forward to seeing the final results George. 8)