Tatars from Old Glory

 Bulking out my Crimean Tatar horde with a batch of Old Glory sculpts. Gotta say, I don't really get their whole short-sleeve jacket thing, doesn't match any other miniatures or images of Tatars that I've seen, and the full beards also seem odd, but painted up they blend in just fine with the rest of my collection.

 

 

 Size comparison with a TAG Crimean Tatar (middle), and my kitbash plastics (right):

 

Combined manufacturer unit:

 

Back to Blogging, with Tatars

 Well 2024 was a busy year for me. Not a lot of hobby stuff getting done for real-life reasons, but now that we're settled into our new place and gotten past the holidays I expect to do better with mini stuff and the subsequent posting.

I got another batch of Assault Group minis last year that I didn't get a chance to work on at the time, and it includes my first "real", i.e. non-kitbashed, Tatars. However, I also have a bunch of leftover Wargames Factory bits for making kitbashed ones. I decided to do them together just to keep building my Crimean force in general.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm just rusty at hobby tasks or what, but I screwed up the priming and sort of textured them with some splatter. It's not super noticeable on the table, and it fits their aesthetic okay I guess, but I'll probably relegate these to back-rankers once I have the numbers to do so. I do think the real and fake tatars look ok mixed up like this, which is good because I have a few more of both.

First game of Pikeman's Lament

Unfortunately, I was too busy making sure we got the rules more-or-less right to take pictures or put together a proper report. But my opponent managed to get a nice picture at the end of the first turn.

I played the Cossack/Tatar side, and lost pretty handily. Commanded Shot aren't much good out in the open...

Playtesting my rules

Hey, remember that Pike & Shotte supplement I wrote, with lists for Cossacks, Tatars and Muscovites? The fine folks over at Wargame Amateur decided to give them a test run. And even though they only played a couple games so far, they answered one of the biggest questions I had: I was worried that the Gun Shy rule might be too debilitating for Tatars, but apparently that is not the case.

Thanks guys!

Another test game

The good news is, I played a more complete game than my long-ago first trial run. This one has multiple battalias, some terrain, and a little bit of artillery. Unfortunately, I rolled absolute garbage for both sides' command tests, so the game itself was super lame. That's where there's no proper battle report this time. Just a few of the better pics, and some random thoughts.

I lost my own D6s a while back, so I borrowed the dice from a housemate's Farkel set. This gives me a dozen flag-themed dice per army, with another dozen (green and black) for casualty counts.

My table is only about 3'5" by 5', so I halved all distances (movement, ranges, etc.)

I used my own Cossack list, available here. I guess Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy just published a Cossack list, I'll have to check that out some time.

While I blamed my luck for the dullness of this game, I also could have played better, remembered to use initiative moves, and maybe included some Cossack horse for a more dynamic game. Oh well, live and learn.

Cossack and Tatar bonus shots

here's a Mirza

The Tatars needed a commander, so I built one. The body and horse are Conquest Games Norman, the head is WGF Celt, the Arms are WGF Persian, and the bow+quiver is from Games Workshop High Elves. The helmet spire, helmet chainmail, torso plating, and bits of cloak over the legs are all greenstuffed.

The nice thing about only painting to a basic tabletop standard is that I can do so even if I'm pretty drunk.

More Tatars than you can shake a stick at!

First up: the kazindji, now with bases.

Next, a new batch of regular Tatar warriors.

Finally, a somewhat dramatic shot of all my Tatars so far. It's enough for a (smallish) battalia in Pike & Shotte.

Painted Kazindji (tatar rabble)

Not quite done yet, they still need some touch-ups and the bases are in the mail. But mostly they're complete. I especially like how the leader and the maslaks turned out. Also, undercoating with brown instead of black turned out well. I'll probably do the same for all units that are mostly earth tones.

don't be stingy with the kazindji

Here's the rest of the poor Tatar unit... the standard bearer and the unit leader. The standard bearer is nothing special, except that his "horsetail" standard is actually a topknot from a Chaos Marauder helmet, because I wanted it to look unimpressive compared to the other ones made from actual horsetail bits.

The leader is a bit more involved. His torso is from the Games Workshop Empire Militia kit, and his legs are pure greenstuff. Also, his horse is one of the "naked" Wargames factory horses, with a celtic saddle and greenstuffed straps.

The leader's horse still needs a bridle, and I'm seeing some additional gaps to fill and mold lines to scrape, but mostly these two are done.

poor Tatars

In lighter news, I've been converting more Tatars. These are constructed almost entirely out of Wargames Factory bits like their predecessors. The difference is that these are kazindji, the poorest of the Tatars. They can't afford fancy luxuries like sabres or bows, so they have to make do with javelins, flails and sticks-with-horse-bones-tied-to-them. The latter weapons, known as maslaks, usually used horse jawbones for the striking surface, but the GW horse skeletons I have are far too robustly skulled to cut apart, so I commandeered some ribs instead.

Still plenty of gaps to fill, mold lines to scrape, and details to sculpt before painting. Not to mention the standard bearer and leader to assemble.

P&S supplement download

Ok, I think I figured out how to host a PDF here. Download or view Pike & Shotte Eastern Europe!

All the Tatars (so far at least)

I took several pictures of the unit in a block formation, then remembered that they're skirmishers, so I threw together a possible skirmish arrangement too.