Miscellaneous conversions

I have *so many* WGF Persians. Here is one converted into a janissary, and another into a village elder or poor boyar or something. Some kinda angry bearded dude.

And also a better-equipped boyarish guy converted from a Warlord Games Celt leader.

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.

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.

Back to infantry (Registered Cossacks)

Got some more basic registered Cossacks here, based on Wargames Factory's WSS infantry, except these ones have Zouave heads. I found myself with a little extra time last night, so I painted up a quick banner (based on a picture from the By Fire and Sword rulebook).

Registered Cossacks

More registered Cossacks (ooh, someone updated the wikipedia article) like this guy. Just Wargames Factory WSS plastics, trimmed and greenstuffed.

Sorry for the boring update. Cooler ones later.

Reindeer!

Just a quick work-in-progress. I was trying to figure out what to do with all the wargames factory horses that had given up their tails for my tasseled pancerni from back in the day. Well, at some point during the December holiday season, I realized that reindeer are basically horses with stumpy little tails and big antlers. Also they have shaggy necks instead of proper manes. So a bit of greenstuff work and wire later...

There will be more, this is just a test figure. I may also make riders - I don't think Gustavus actually had reindeer-riding Livlander scouts like in the woodcut below, but it would be cool to have some anyway.

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.

MOAR HAIDUKS!!1!

So, one of the consequences of my solo battle a couple weeks ago was that I decided that eight miniatures is insufficient for a standard battle line unit in Pike & Shotte. I therefore resolved to increase every battle line unit from eight to twelve, every block unit from twelve to sixteen, and every cavalry unit from six to eight.

Here is my expanded Haiduk regiment. The four new minis are in a firing pose, thanks to the Wargames Factory WSS sprues I brought back from IL. Sadly, I slightly screwed up their chest lace both in sculpting and painting, but even so, I think this new version of the regiment is a net improvement.

Unfortunately (for my wallet) this means that my Berestechko project is now 1:250 instead of 1:400...

Registered Cossacks

Remember this guy? Well, he's back, and he brought some friends!

My idea here was to show that, while the Cossacks may have been issued uniforms, they might not have been great at keeping them up. That one fellow in particular seems to have managed to literally lose his shirt, either on some bad dice rolls or pawned directly for booze. For the rest of these guys, the variety is a little more subtle, mostly just hats and guns.

I'm not entirely happy with all the poses I concocted here.

Pancerny squadron

Now that I'm seeing them close-up, they definitely need some touchups. Also the standard-bearer needs a standard. But I think this is a pretty good look at the unit overall.

Contest Entry (Registered Cossack)

I painted the registered Cossack. I think I duplicated the colors from the source image pretty well. The coat came out a little light, but I only have the patience for so many layers of badab black. Behold:

Contest Entries (Pancerny and Szlachta)

So, I've finished the first two (of maybe five total) of my planned entries. It's overcast out, but I think these pictures are probably good enough. I'll try again when it's sunny and compare, just in case.

Another Mash-Up (Registered Cossack)

For the last few decades of the 16th century until about midway through the 17th century, the Registered Cossacks were the mainstay of the Commonwealth's infantry. For the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the vast majority of them defected to Khmelnytsky's banner, sometimes mid-battle. I'm going to try to force myself to make eight of these, so I can field a full unit of them with my Poles in pre-Uprising armies, but for Berestechko I'll just sprinkle them (however many I do make) amongst their non-uniformed comrades.

The legs and right arm are WGF Persian Infantry; the left arm is Celtic Cavalry; and his torso, gun, sword, head and ammo pouch are all WSS. I need to remember to greenstuff a jacket collar before I paint him, but otherwise he's good to go.

Painted stuff, including cossacks

I painted the nobleman on foot. I think he looks the part of a wealthy civilian amateur. He's probably gonna be an entry into the Single Infantry model category.

And also, my first three plastic Cossacks! I'm glad this conversion worked, because I'm planning to build pretty much my whole Cossack army with these guys.

The guy in the middle will eventually have a pike.

Makin' stuff from WGF Persians

I needed to take a break from that pancerny guy, so I mixed up some green stuff and upgraded the Szlachta from earlier. The mace in particular marks him out as a unit leader.

And then also I started on his unit. These Persians are handy, especially since they only cost me 20 cents per body.

Pancerni - painted

Done. That is, except for basing, clipping that weird fiber off his right thumb, and touching up that bit of errant gold on the saddle-cloth. Oh, and gluing him back together (I dropped him mere seconds after taking this picture).

More Pancerni!

While I've been slowly finishing up my Single Cavalry miniature contest entry, I've also been working on the rest of his unit (he'll be the leader, of course). These ones aren't nearly as involved as the previous guy, just some rank-and-file armored cavalry. Same basic concept, just less fancy. These two have pistols, others will have spears or carbines.

Also, I'm working on a test mini for a registered cossack, but he needs more work done before he's even worth showing as a WiP.

Pancerni PiP

Ugh, he looked better as bare plastic. I need to start upping my painting game. Not done with this guy, but getting there...