Making a Cossack

 So after making the casualties, I sculpted and cast a hooded minion for my pulp gaming. He turned out pretty well, and it occurred to me that the long robe would be a decent base for a Cossack figure. I started with a real basic design inspired by a decorative figure from a Beauplan map.

 

 

 

This one has a Gripping Beast head and an old Wargames Factory right hand and gun. I am working on sculpting some weapon hands and heads of my own, but realistically I am going to be using a lot of real bitz because they look better. Even so, these homemade miniatures are not going to be front-rankers, but with my long-term plans I'll eventually need hundreds of Cossack infantry, so they don't all need to be professional quality. Besides the heads and weapon hands, I've also made some variants of this body for, uh, variety, iteratively from this one like how this one was iterated from the minion.

I did notice my painting is even worse here than my normal standard, so I have since bought a pair of reading glasses. Hooray for being 40!

I have a box of Wargames Atlantic generic horsies on the way, once I have those I'll start working on Tatars, Polish noble levy, and pancerny, all of which I want in bulk.

Italian Wars, because why not

Picked up a bunch of Warlord Games plastic Landsknechts a while back, just for funsies. A lot of them are being assembled as-is, but I can't help adding a little variety here and there. I took a pic of some typical examples.

Conversion details from left to right: Warlord Celt head; press-molded hat; greenstuff sleeves; greenstuff beard; head and body from ranged weapon kit; Warlord Celt head and Perry Mercenary arms.

Kitbashed segban infantry (wip), and plastic musket info

So I've been working on more Ottoman infantry, and wanted to share some in-progress Segban. They're mostly the same as the previous Azaps I did, Warlord arms on Gripping Beast bodies, but with matchlocks instead of firelocks and a greater variety of headgear (mostly greenstuffed Warlord hats).

Relatedly, here is a comparison shot of the two plastic musketeer kits from Warlord Games. The small sprue is from the Firelock Storming Party kit, the larger one is from the Pike & Shotte Infantry Regiment kit, and also used for variants like Covenanter infantry etc.

Note that the Storming Party has firelocks, and each pair of arms is one piece, while the Infantry Regiment kit has matchlocks, and each arm is a separate piece. This means that the firelocks are a little easier to assemble, but the matchlocks are a little more forgiving if you are kitbashing with torsos that are differently-sized than the Warlord kits (such as the GB Arab infantry).

Also, the Storming Party gives you 32 musket arm sets, or 16 "left over" if you assemble the box as intended. The Infantry Regiment has 24 musket arm sets, with none remaining if you assemble the box contents as intended. Given that the Storming Party is cheaper by about $15, I think it is probably preferable for most projects, even if you end up adding matchcord manually to each musket.

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).

easing back into historicals...

You can never have too many peasants! At least, not if you're look to recreate the Khmelnitsky rebellion. Here's a quick shot of some peasants prior to painting. These minis are all Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors, with only a few Gripping Beast Arab bits mixed in. And also some greenstuff obviously. Note the agricultural flails made of spear hafts and jewelry chain.

I've been hearing good things about Frostgrave...

...so maybe someday I'll buy the rules and try them out with my historical collection, as an alternative to Mordheim.

Apparently the distinguishing feature of Frostgrave is that each warband is build around a wizard and an apprentice. So I've started converting leftover miniatures into 17th-century spellcasters.

The generic duo is entirely Warlord Games plastics, except for the greenstuff and red beads. The Scotsmen are also Warlord-based, but with Gripping Beast spear arms and I think one Perry Zouave arm. The Cossack apprentice is a Zouave with a GB spear arm, and the older Cossack is a Fireforge Mongol with Warlord pike arms and a cut-down GW spearhead.

Winter Guard Uniform colors

The default scheme for this Khador mainstay unit is rather more garish than I would prefer, especially for mere conscripts in a nation that is only just beginning to industrialize. So I decided to come up with my own color scheme, but couldn't tell which imagined colors would work best. So I painted up some test models.

It's still pretty hard to decide, but I thiiiink may favorite is the one on the right.

Note that these are not finished models in any sense. The skin, weapons and leather bits were painted quickly and sloppily for now, because this is just a uniform test.

New Project for the New Year

Hey everyone, here's a birthday present I got. Or some of it, anyway. The other two warjacks I'm leaving partially unassembled for now, so I can magnetize their arms later on.

Even if you've never read a single word about Warmachine before in your life, you can maybe tell from the commander's hat that this is the fake-Russian faction. The warjacks (i.e. the robots) are very distinct and specific to this setting, but the rest of the miniatures might occasionally show up in my historical fantasy skirmish wargaming.

Merry Christmas!

...and happy holidays, and in case I don't post again this month, happy New Year's too!

I have two new projects for the winter. One is a diorama contest entry, and the other is still secret because I don't have any good pics for it yet.

The contest basically has just three rules: Warlord minis only, no more than 20 cm in any dimension, the theme is harsh/hostile environments.

I've started a thread on their forum to document my planning and execution. I've pretty much decided I'm going to model Erik Dahlbergh and his assistants on the Baltic ice during the Great Northern War, checking the thickness to see if Karl X's army can safely perform the March Across the Belts. I'm thinking Dahlbergh himself will be a metal infantry officer, the assistant(s) will be various gun crew models, and I'll also have the dragoon horse-holder minding their mounts, and if the base isn't too crowded by then, a couple reiters keeping watch.

Unfortunately, my card is having weird issues with foreign transactions, so I don't have the miniatures I want yet. But I've been playing around with a mock-up, and 20 cm isn't a whole lot of space. This will be interesting...

Flag preview

I want the moloitsy standards to look less geometrical and regular than the ones I made for my registered Cossacks. Here are some I'm working on, repurposed from Napoleonic Opolchenie flags. I printed them in black and white to use as templates, and now I'm painting them, and tweaking the designs as I go.

a whole mess o' moloitsy!

More kitbashing with the same sets as last time. These are all the guys I need to bring my moloitsy (non-registered Cossack infantry) up to six units. The first picture has musketeers and one spearman. The second is all the standard bearers I will be distributing among my regiments. Sorry it's so blurry, but you get the idea.

Wintry Witchfinder

My original plan was to reveal these models over the course of a gameplay post, but the tables here are still cluttered with holiday stuff, I still haven't remembered to print out the witchfinder tokens, and I'm just generally impatient.

So here is the most powerful witch of all, with a pair of summonable minions:

"Do you wanna build a snowman?"

"Hi Sven's family! It's nice to meet you!"

"Hi everyone, I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!"

And here's a quick WiP shot. I built the snowmen from unpopped popcorn kernels, foam scraps and Warhammer dryad arms.

more commanders

Not sure why I'm posting WiP shots of these guys, since there's no real converting here. Oh well

The dude on the left is TAG's Janusz Radziwiłł, who I will be using as Marcin Kalinowski, nominal commander of the left wing at Berestechko. The de facto commander was Wiśniowiecki from the last post.

In the middle is TAG's generic Cossack general, who is representing Mattviy Hladky (or something like that; Ukrainian names are even less consistently transliterated into English than Russian ones). The miniature ships with a pony instead of a warhorse, which is historically accurate, but aesthetically unacceptable for a commander, so I swapped it out for one of the Polish horses. He'll be commanding whichever wing Filon isn't commanding.

On the right is TAG's pancerny/cossack unit commander who makes a fine Stanisław Lanckoroński, commander of the Polish right wing. I just sculpted some fur and added a plume to turn his dumb haiduk-style pillbox cap into a proper fur hat.

These guys also came with staff/attendant figs, but they're even less converted, so I won't post them until they've been painted.

Some Commandery Types

Figured I'd show off some works-in-progress. I've got some genuine Eastern Europe character types on their way from TAG, but my out-of-period Perry miniatures arrived earlier.

All of these started off as ACW generals (of the treasonous racist variety), but by tweaking the headgear and a few other details they can make passable Cossacks and Poles. The leftmost is going to be Filon Djalali, one of the Khmelnitsky's subordinates at Berestechko. But if he turns out well enough, I might swap his sword for a mace and have him replace my earlier Ivan Bohun. They have a similar sort of dashing heroic pose.

The dude on the right is supposed to represent Jeremi Wisniowecki. I love his cool, imperious pose, and I added longer hair and a bunch of fur lining to represent this portrait of the guy. Also a hat, even if the portrait doesn't have one, because headgear seems almost mandatory for the era.

The guy in the middle doesn't represent any particular historical guy. His gloves looked quite reiter-ish to me, so I gave him a floppy western hat and plume from the Warlord infantry box, and sculpted a quick lace collar. I might just have him be Wisniowecki's aide, they do look like they're conversing. Or of course he could be a Swede if I ever run my western-style guys as Swedish force.

Hussar retainer conversions

I've been using unarmored Warlord cavalry for Polish light horse, so what to do with the 25% of the figures that are armored? Well, I guess the post title answers that question. As per the By Fire and Sword rulebook: "Retainers wore a similar style of armor [to the hussar companions], but it was much less decorated." Sounds good to me!

The horse will have gaps filled and mould lines fixed. Also, the shoulder armor may be refined a bit, the top plate isn't really shaped right yet.

Skirmishers from Scotland

What happens when I've got all the German-style infantry I need, but still have a scattering of Warlord P&S plastics unused?

Well, I've always been a fan of Warlord's assorted highlander sets, but never had any real justification to buy them. With a bit of kitbashing though, I can approximate them well enough. Once they're done, I'll probably mix them in with my previous Scotsmen for "local color", even though none of my games will be actually be set in a highland locale.

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.

Plastic Plastuny Platoon

The Plastuny were the Cossack's scouts, snipers and ambushers. Since they're only supposed to be modeled two to a base in BF&S, I decided to have a little fun with the arrangements.

They will be painted in dull earth tones... browns, greys, tans and greens. I might even paint pine tar on to their faces and hands, since that was apparently something they did for additional camouflage.