Earthwork Redoubt with Culverin

I built this earthwork redoubt for my late medieval artillery, but I tried to make it generic enough that it could be used up to the 19th century. The gabions are the plastic set from Renedra, and some of the accessories are from Steel Fist. The rest is made from basically just some balsa scraps and twigs.

The culverin and crew are from Eureka. Their medieval range is brilliant and underrated. Beautiful sculpts and nice clean castings. This artillery piece is one of the finest sculpted cannon available for this period. That goes for their archers, billmen, musicians etc. too. The Perry’s offerings are deservedly popular, but Eureka’s range is well worth checking out and some of the best late medieval figures out there.

Handgunners

 

10 Handgunners painted with subtractive oil wash as per this blog post on Devoured By Saturn Blog.

The figures are a mixture of Foundry El Dorado adventurers, and Grenadier Late Medieval all sculpted by Mark Copplestone, with one Foundry Ex-Citadel by I think Aly Morrison (the bloke with the ornate gun).

The Grenadier Late Medieval range is a bit smaller than the newer El Dorado characters, but once painted and based, it doesn't bother me. I just love Mark Copplestone's sculpting style though- easily up there as one of favourites. Nicely stylised, with clean, smooth designs, well thought through and deliberate with just the right amount of extraneous details.

Vlad Drakul from TAG

 

Vlad Drakul from The Assault Group. 

Quite a nice figure, sculpted by Shane Hoyle, and one of the better available options for this historical character.

He was originally holding a mace- quite appropriately as maces in eastern Europe were generally carried as a symbol of rank and status- however it looked a bit wimpy and atrophied so I replaced it with a sword, which I think made him a lot more imposing looking.

I had intended to paint him to match the historical portrait of Dracula however I decided to paint his hair blonde as it seemed to work better with his blackened, gilded armour. So I'm not sure anymore if I'll use him to represent Vlad III The Impaler or maybe just some another Wallachian Aristocrat. I suppose now he does look a bit like Stephen the Great of Moldavia.

He came in a pack with a "Bride" and "Boyar", but these other figures have me a bit puzzled. Especially the Boyar. I can't for the life of me figure out from where the historical references for the Boyar could be derived from- he is wearing a shako, a waist length cape, fur trimmed coat, armed with a multi headed flail, and what looks to be a 17th century cuirass. I would certainly have a use for a Boyar figure if this could be established to be an actual historical representation of some kind. The Bride is probably meant to be Elizabeth Bathory, which is cool but doesn't really fit with Vlad. I really like TAG and their offerings, great ranges, I have a lot of their Rennaissance figures, but the boyar in this pack has me a bit stumped- if there is anyone out there who has an explanation I would love to know.

Crossbowmen

This unit of crossbowmen is made up mostly of GW Marksmen of Miragliano, with one old C26 Man at Arms to make up the tenth member.

These models really impressed me when I had a chance to study them closely as I prepared them. They are very finely sculpted by the Perry twins and full of lovely characterful details. They really look like a villainous band of war weary mercenaries on campaign. They are laden with sacks, bags of pillaged loot, hunted game, spare boots etc. fantastic!

I made a few minor conversions mainly to attempt to give them a slightly more Eastern European look to fit in with the Late 15th century Hungarian theme of my army. A couple of head swaps, and adding some more facial hair was the extent of it.

They were painted very rapidly using the oil wash method I describe in detail in this post on the Devoured By Saturn Blog.

Battle of Orsha Hussars

I have long been a bit obsessed with Hans Krell’s amazing Battle of Orsha painting, it is surely one of the most interesting martial images of the early Renaissance. I find it's depiction of the hussars absolutely fascinating.

These converted early 16th century hussars were inspired by them. I did my best to approximate them by converting Gripping Beast Arab light cavalry, as no 28mm models are available unfortunately. Old Glory do have some Serbian Hussars that look like they might be ok but as is usual with OG it is a bit of a gamble and I was hesitant to take a punt on them sight unseen, as they are quite expensive to import where I live.

I did my best to capture the remarkable details of the Hussars depicted in the painting- the false sleeved, richly brocaded dolmans, the popped collars, the variety of headgear that would give a Mad Hatter envy, the asymmetric shields, bedazzled sabres, and winged stirrups. 

Every time I look at this painting, more minutiae and nuances are revealed, the attention to detail is astounding. There must be hundreds of figures in the painting, every square millimetre is filled, and every single one of the figures looks like a fully realised portrait of an individual participant of the battle.

If you are interested in finding more about this painting, the Wikipedia article is quite good and has a great high resolution picture of the entire painting. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Orsha)

There is also an academic paper by Zdzislaw Zygulski Jr. which analyses the arms, armour, and other accoutrements portrayed in it which is really worth a read. (https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/3363/1/Zygulski_The_Battle_of_Orsha_1979.pdf)

 

Two Kev Adams Orcs and an Asgard Troll

2 Kev Adam’s Citadel orcs and an Asgard troll by Nick Bibby. I really like the weird lunging poses of the pair of Nick Bibby trolls from Asgard. The first orc is in gladiator garb and looks like he has gone toe to toe with Mike Tyson as his ear has been chewed off. The third orc is my first attempt at a John Blanche style ogre face shield.

 

Asgard Orcs

These Asgard orcs are so tiny, with remarkably fine and delicate details requiring a totally different approach to painting than their more robust and chunky descendants by Citadel and the like. Many poses are bafflingly odd- bent almost 90 degrees to the ground so the orcs appear to be crawling or slinking across the ground. There’s something a bit primitive or animalistic about them, which matches Tolkien’s descriptions of twisted, corrupted elves. Very unusual design choices, but nevertheless amazing models, would love to hear more about the thought process that went into sculpting them. Sculpted by Jes Goodwin.

Great Orc with Spear. Apologies to Amebix, just my little tribute.

Asgard Orcs. Black Orc in armour with sword, Warrior Orc with scimitar, Cave Orc with spear.

Black Orc with scimitar, Orc Shaman, and Orc Officer.