Ogrob's medievals for SAGA. V&V and Victrix muslim heavy cav compared 21/9

[Ogrob]

So, on the topic of those new projects I mentioned, here is the start of the next one. I had decided a while back that next project after finishing my Age of Chivalry armies and my Lithuanians would be another Age of Crusades army, specifically muslims. I want to build something that can cover at least two of the three muslim factions in Age of Crusades, and it wouldn't hurt if they could be used for Sassanids (from Age of Invasions, so technically pre-muslim, but those sound like details to me).

To that end I have been picking up some bits and pieces and the project pile as of this weekend looked like this:


As always, I have no original ideas and just steal things from Koyote and Knight-Captain Tyr. Koyote made great use of the Perry afghans for his Saga Muslims, and Tyr kitbashed a lovely Sassanid elephant from a Game of Thrones mini. I happened to spot these elephants for half price, so of course I had to get them. However, unlike both their projects, I will use Victrix muslim kits as the main body of the army (because they are available now). I will also use some V&V kits as I find they match Victrix pretty well in size.

Had some time today and did a bit of assembling:

Warlord, banner and a pair of hearthguard (V&V Muslim Command) - I had to replace some flimsy resin bits with plastic. North Star spears, Victrix moor swords and daggers (from the Norman kits)


A unit of Scout or Tribal Hunter mercenaries. A strange choice to start perhaps but I wanted to see how the kneeling bodies worked with bow arms. Perry bodies, Victrix bows:


A first point of regular melee warriors, Victrix and Perry kitbashes:


And I also built two regular archers:


I had planned to source all the archers I need from Victrix plastic kit, but I feel there's a limited choice of poses so I may grab some V&V muslim archers to add variety.

On the to do list is another two points of melee warriors and more archers. Also going to kitbash Perry and Victrix bodies with some javelins and some with heavy weapons to make Borderer mercenaries.I have to get Victrix heavy cavalry and make both hearthguard both with melee weapons and composite bows. I'll also use this set to kitbash with my V&V camel warriors to make a warlord and camel rider hearhguard for playing Muttatawi'a. When they release I'll get some Victrix horse archers to make mounted warriors.

A couple of weeks ago I made a test base to see how I want to base this army, which I am quite happy  with:


However, I am in two minds when it comes to painting. One idea is to make a sort of alternative history african muslim force, like my Malakal force for Sludge. Orange robes, black skin. Perhaps an east african ruler who went on jihad instead of hajj. The other is to go with a more standard muslim/persian scheme and skin colour. What do you think?

[has.been]

I like what you are doing here.
The prospect of (bright?) orange robes with dark skin sounds good. Go for it.
Your test base is very nice, maybe with the occasional (dry) bush & the odd rock?

[Mikai]

Damn, what a lovely new project! Always inspiring to look up your thread. Same goes fro the ones from Koyote, Tyr and Zac.

and Tyr kitbashed a lovely Sassanid elephant from a Game of Thrones mini. I happened to spot these elephants for half price, so of course I had to get them.

Thanks for mentioning where the elephants are from. I already wondered at Tyr's thread but couldn't make the connection to GoT. What is their size compared to the Victrix African War Elephant?

A unit of Scout or Tribal Hunter mercenaries. A strange choice to start perhaps but I wanted to see how the kneeling bodies worked with bow arms. Perry bodies, Victrix bows:

That's another creative choice! Wouldn't have thought of using the Afghan Warriors due to their time setting. They surely bring in some interesting poses!

Also, I would be interested too in orange robes with dark skin. Not sure if that fits well with your thoughts about a Sassanid force though.

[Ogrob]

They will be Sassanids in mechanics only then. It would allow me to field the elephants and some variation in play style.

I don't own any Victrix elephants any more, but at a guess the GoT ones are a bit larger, 25% perhaps.

[Angrypantz]

As someone who loved your Sludge army, I think seeing more orange robed miniatures would be fantastic.  The new warband is shaping up lovely. 

[pixelgeek]

Great poses on those troops. The army is going to look great on those bases as well

[Ogrob]

Thanks everyone! In regards to the bases, I am using some pigment powders to create colour variation rather than drybrush with paint. It gives a subtler look, a bit hard to capture with the camera.

I've assembled another point of mercenaries, this time Borderers with javelins. Borderers are rugged frontiersmen, at home in highlands and rugged terrain.

[Ogrob]

I went back and added some cork rocks to the bases of the Borderers unit.



Also built another point of regular warriors. Six victrix bodies, two perry.


And two archers (on the right). I do think the Muslim kit is a bit limited in archer options and poses, so I think I might pick up the two sets of arab archers that V&V produce. I will still need to make quite a lot of plastic archers, but it will add some much needed variation.



Finally, an issue I've not quite solved yet is how to build Borderers with heavy weapons. I have a lot of very large very fantastical two handed weapon bits, but something that fits with historical figures is trickier. This test figure uses a polearm from the Frostgrave Cultists 2 kit.


And looking at all these pictures I see a lot of mold lines that I've missed. I'll need to go back and clean quite a bit... Unfortunately I seem to have gotten a Muslim kit with quite prominent mold lines, sometimes Victrix are a breeze but not this time.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

I completely missed that you're doing an "all-East" project as well. I'm tremendously tickled you also went with the ASOIAF elephants and can't wait to see how you paint them up! Are you planning to give them mahouts or howdahs? I found making the howdahs incredibly labourious, but you'll probably figure out a smarter way. I've found Sassanids by far the most fun to play; curious what you'll gravitate toward.

Really keen to see all this come to life. Interesting that the Victrix Islamics were heavier on the mould lines. Surprising, as they're fairly new. Do you plan to use their Islamic cavalry at all? I've been thinking of picking them up to kitbash into steppe warriors...

Excited to see what comes next.

[Koyote]

These look promising.

The crouching archer pose is a brilliant idea. If I need to add more archers to my Islamics, I'm stealing that you idea from you.

Love the test base.

[Ogrob]

These look promising.

The crouching archer pose is a brilliant idea. If I need to add more archers to my Islamics, I'm stealing that you idea from you.

Love the test base.

Thank you!

I completely missed that you're doing an "all-East" project as well. I'm tremendously tickled you also went with the ASOIAF elephants and can't wait to see how you paint them up! Are you planning to give them mahouts or howdahs? I found making the howdahs incredibly labourious, but you'll probably figure out a smarter way. I've found Sassanids by far the most fun to play; curious what you'll gravitate toward.

Really keen to see all this come to life. Interesting that the Victrix Islamics were heavier on the mould lines. Surprising, as they're fairly new. Do you plan to use their Islamic cavalry at all? I've been thinking of picking them up to kitbash into steppe warriors...

Excited to see what comes next.

One of the game stores I order from happened to have them on sale so had to pick the ellies up. I had otherwise planned to start with a more Saracen-leaning equipment lineup. I am thinking of just sculpting legs to make a driver and one or two seated archers/spearmen and forego the howdah.

I was also a little suprised at the mold lines, Victrix are often great in that regard but I have had some worse batches in the past. Not a disaster for sure, just a bit more work than I had hoped for. I have ordered a set of the armoured cavalry to start building hearthguard, and I'll get some of their horse archers when they release. I also ordered V&Vs two archer packs to give me more variety in the regular archer units.

[Ogrob]

A little kitbash update as I decided to make some regular warrior infantry with spears for the muslims:



And I thought I would give a little overview of where I am at with ongoing projects.

Age of Crusades Lithuanians/Pagan People - these are well under way to being finished at long last. Took a long pause to work on Age of Chivalry but have been getting some paint on what is left. I have 16 archers in progress, and 8 archers and 10 cavalry primed but not started.

Age of Crusades Muslims - this is the newest project of course, still very much in the assebly stage. Most of the infantry has now been built, but I need a few more archers. I'll be building heavy cavalry, both on horse and camels, soon and then I have to wait for Victrix to release light cavalry. I will start painting these after the Lithuanians, and possibly after the AoCh spanish.

Age of Chivalry Spanish - I thought I would work on these over the summer with a lot of 3D printed reinforcements but orders from both Direforge and Studio Historia have been massively delayed compared to my earlier experiences with both shops. At long last the Studio Historia package is in Sweden and should arrive next week.

Age of Chivalry Green and Yellow late 15th century - I need a snappier name for this army, any ideas? Either way, it is finished for now. Everything I planned and built for this army has been painted. I do have figures left on sprues and could expand with more foot knights and maybe crossbows with pavises, but not planning to do so at the moment.

[Ogrob]

So, here is a post I thought I would be writing in july. Back in late May and early June I took advantage of Studio Historia's sales and ordered a number of Reconquer Designs kits to start replacing some of the first units for my Age of Chivalry Spanish. I may also have picked up some more figures just because they are nice. I had anticipated a six to eight week turn around based on previous orders, but for whatever reason this one was heavily delayed. I guess the Reconquer figures have a lot of delicate bits and are prone to misprints. Maybe the summer heat caused issues as well. Who knows? Still, a package arrived this week absolutely stuffed with 3D resin. I've spent a couple of evening cleaning, assembling and getting everything ready for primer as I am told you should not leave 3D resin exposed to too much sunlight without primer.

So let's have a look at what we got, shall we?

First, the new version of Henry Trastamara of Castille. Reconquer remade this character, and the new sculpt is just oozing with presence. Accompanied by a royal standard bearer. I have gone for the version without sculpted heraldry on the caparison.


Funnily enough, around the same time Reconquer released a Henry Trastamara figure, Miniaturas Ezipion dropped a Pedro the Cruel sculpt. Pedro was the defending king in the Castillian Civil War, so I guess these two Spanish designers have chosen sides Unfortunately Pedro's horse arrived with only three feet and instead of fixing it I decided to use a spare horse from my earlier Warlords, the Camino de Santiago set from Stronghold Terrain. Photo is terrible, but as these are already heading into priming I won't be able to take a new one until painting.


I grabbed one more Ezipion figure I liked, a Castillian Knight. Here you can see I used some dry bush bits to stabilize horses that were sculpted with only two feet touching the base.


Here are Reconquer's Early 14th century knights. Not something I need need, but lovely sculpts. I used North Star plastic spears rather than the bendy 3D prints.


This is Count Ermengol X. I only ordered one, but received two and some extra horses from the Knights set so I gave him two different steeds and this gives me another two knight figures-


In this picture, I only ordered Roger di Flor (centre), but received The Black Douglas (right) and Caballero Andante. Lovely sculpts all, more knights for the collection.


Eight light cavalry/jinetes. I gave some of them North Star spears, and the others some spare printed hand weapons. I didn't want them to look like they throw javelins as they lack this equipment option in Age of Chivalry.


12 crossbows. Why is one painted? Well, I had a misprint in the order but fortunately Stronghold Terrain had given me a crossbowman from this set when I bought the spanish archers. You can find him hiding in the back rank of that picture on a previous page.


12 halberdiers. These sculpts can be equipped with spears, halberds or hand weapons but I quite liked the printed halberds so figured I'd try. I received a ton of extra bodies from this set, so I may make a second unit later.


Some clergy. Not sure what I 'm doing with these, maybe objectives or Old Feud characters.


I bought several warlords more than I really need. This is Bertrand du Guesclin (left) and Henry Trastamara (right) with squires. I decided to make one on a 40mm base and one on 50mm so I can be a bit flexible depending on the terrain situation.


I also picked up Pedro the Cruel and the Castillian Knight on foot:


There is also a version of Bertrand du Guesclin ready to fight, and I ended up with two spare Henry Trastamara (these versions are with helmet, one in brigandine, one in surcoat)


Foot versions of the early 14th century knights:


Two versions of Roger di Flor on foot, plus Count Ermengol X:


And finally, appropriate to go with Roger di Flor, eight Almughavars. Technically a little too early, but these will make excellent Bidet mercenaries - javelin equipped light infantry at home in rough terrain.


What do you think, is the project log getting unreasonably long?

[LouieN]

No blog is too long as long as it continues to entertain. 

The figures are great and enjoy the project. 

[pixelgeek]

That is a heck of a lot of assembly.

And the project log is fine. No reason to not continue to post.