Who Invited the Bishops?

So, The Assault Group provides special freebie miniatures if your order exceeds a certain price threshold, and if you forget to specify which you would prefer, they just send one that seems appropriate given the other contents of your order. Since I mostly use TAG for Cossacks and Muscovites, it makes sense that I would mostly end up getting Orthodox priests. So here they are.

I decided to do some minor converting just to avoid having identical quadruplets. I just googled "russian orthodox priest" to get a sense of how the outfit might vary, I have no idea what the history or theology is behind the hat colors or whatever. The beard extensions and hat flaps are greenstuff. The staff is a plastic Persian spear bit with a blob of gs on the end, and the ikon is the end of a wooden coffee stirrer.

(the title of this post is a line from The Death of Stalin, which I recommend if you like Armando Ianucci's brand of grim satire).

Janissaries

Got some TAG janissaries painted up, to use as Veteran Shot (or potentially Forlorn Hope) in Pikeman's Lament. Good models, no conversions. Probably ought to hit the faces with another wash to bring out the mustaches.

Streltsy Command WiP

A couple weeks ago I got my Ottoman and Muscovite army deals from The Assault Group, and I've been getting them ready to paint. The vast majority of them only require basing and a bit of cleaning, but there were four Soldat Pike that I really had no use for, so I converted them to Streltsy.

The Standard Bearer and Sergeant were just given appropriate weapons (and a greenstuff tassel on the halberd). The Musician uses a drum and left arm from the Wargames Factory (now Warlord-produced) WSS sprue, and bits of wire for drumsticks. The Officer had his arm repositioned and a bunch of greenstuff fur added, and I think his sword is from a plastic Celt box (can't remember which company).

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...

Early Medieval Magyar Heavy Cavalry - test fig

Because I don't have enough on my plate, I'm looking at putting together a Magyar army. This is a proof-of-concept using a Gripping Beast Heavy Arab Cavalry horse, legs and body, GB Viking arms, a Conquest Games Norman head, and plenty of greenstuff.

I think this worked out pretty well, the light cavalry and most of the infantry should also be convertible from GB Arabs.

Celts again

Nearly done with the first box of Celt infantry...

grubby infantry

Just a handful of musketeers and pikemen. Wanted to see how they'd look entirely in neutrals, with a heavier wash than usual and less highlighting after. Also a few very minor conversions to really emphasize their hardbitten status.

Eventually I'll paint up an entire unit (1x16 pike, 2x12 shot) and field them as veterans. In skirmish games or RPGs, they might also see service as bandits, deserters, evil henchmen and so on.