League Of Augsburg - Fighting Talk

No gaming or other group activities means I have time to take some pictures of where I am with my Ottoman project:



Those are Warfare figures, they are making up a decent proportion (and growing) of my plans...A bit more blurb on my Workbench blog.



This mob is a mixture of Old Glory, Hinchliffe and some of my own castings.

Very nice Adam.

Its a good excuse to catch up on some painting.

My copy of The Armies of the Ottoman Empire 1645-1718 by Bruno Mugnai arrived today and it looks well worth waiting for.



Brief first impressions - click here.

got my copy yesterday too , agree look very informative, great colour plates, nice intro by Barry Hilton there too

cheers Old John

Old John wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 21, 2020 8:02 am

....... nice intro by Barry Hilton there too

cheers Old John

Yeah, I skipped past that...

I've never liked Tufecki infantry. Always thought they looked weird and not very Turkish. Every miniatures range seems to have them (Warfare, Old Glory, TAG...) but I have never been able to find a reliable reference for them beyond the early 17th Century. I was interested then to see them illustrated in the Bruno Mugnai book (just published by Helion,) plate F, and labelled as a "European Azab". Azabs are described in the book as being a well organised local militia who are able to take on garrison duties or fight in the field as a part of the regular army. It makes a lot of sense that their dress should look similar to Croats and other Balkans soldiers if this were a European province example of an Azab.

In the same colour plate is an illustration of a European Azab from the end of the 17th Century. This figure has replaced the shonky feathers in his hat with a turban, he has very voluminous trousers and a slightly longer kaftan. A rather more fine figure of a man to my eye!

So I decided to have a crack at converting one of my 28mm Warfare figures to match. Here is the result.



I much prefer the look of him now. I might try another with a longer coat next. I also gave this chap a yatagan style sword, made from a trimmed down Victrix Greek kopis. You can only see the hilt from this side. I decided that a militia man would be very unlikely to have a nice scimitar like the one that is supplied with the figure

Nice conversion Adam!

Good news too on the sculpting front -

Now have 18 different Ottoman gunners and..................

DRUM ROLL

12 Armoured Sipahis - lances . firearms and bows - ooooh they look nice

barr7430 wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 18, 2020 9:42 am

Nice conversion Adam!

Good news too on the sculpting front -

Now have 18 different Ottoman gunners and..................

DRUM ROLL

12 Armoured Sipahis - lances . firearms and bows - ooooh they look nice

Can't wait!

Are you going to do specificly Ottoman artillery pieces?

Looking mighty fine Adam!

No face to face gaming in 2020 so I had no excuse but to crack on with painting the Ottoman army... I matched up a couple of likely looking guns with the gunners I got from Brigade Games a few years back. 18th C. Ottoman artillery had moved on from the giant bombards that were associated with their successful sieges of previous centuries and were not dissimilar to European models. I did want a bit of battlefield clutter on the bases which required deeper sections if I wasn't going to make the frontage of each gun too dominant. I actually ended up with each gun having 3 base depths to accommodate all the figures, draught animals and clutter but I haven't quite finished the rearmost ones.








In Beneath the Lilly Banners these are fielded as separate guns representing a pair of guns(?) and in Piquet: Cartouche they are fielded as a 2 model battery. The extra depth to the bases will make me consider carefully where I position the artillery and how it is supported. I'm not expecting it to ever move once deployed!

Those Turkish guns look great!

I can't remember when I decided that Wallachians and Moravians were needed for my Ottoman force. Possibly the very moment I saw an illustration in an Osprey that looked like an easy conversion from the Gripping Beast plastic Arab cavalry. Whatever the order of events I subsequently discovered that although generally despised by Ottoman commanders, the Moldavians and Wallachians were mustered for quite a few campaigns and can also be rebellious subjects fighting on the Russian side.

The conversion consisted of just tall vaguely cylindrical hats from Greenstuff or Procreate putty. I also added pistol holders to the horses from Warlords ECW cavalry and one rider got an ECW arm firing one of their pistols. The majority of the riders were given bows and scimitars to befit their outmoded irregular status. I also tried to create a couple of vaguely eastern boyar style helmets. Not terrifically successful, so I hid one under the arm of a cavalryman who apparently likes the wind in his hair (although he has no hair to speak of...)



Bigger pic here

The standard was a Web find of an earlier Moldavian banner that I liked the look of. It has the advantage of not being sycophantically Turkish, so will work for rebel contingents too. In game terms these are probably low quality light cavalry. They were often lumped together with the Tartars although wont be as capable.

I have enough of the figures to make another 8 of these. If I run out of other cavalry to paint, or need to bulk out the Russian army on the Pruth River, I may do another unit with different hats and call them Wallachians.

Lovely job Adam!

I have been trying (very trying many would say) to do some generals (Pashas?) as I go along rather than rushing them the night before the first game with the army as is traditional...

The most recent ones come from Warfare Miniatures nice command figures with an interloper from Brigade Games. This is my Janissary "brigade" "general". Most of my Janissary units are in scruffy campaign clobber, so this stand will make it clear who they are. If you dont spot the silly hats then the giant ceremonial spoon is a dead giveaway.






This pair below are actually Perry Miniatures from their Sudan range, Armoured Egyptian cavalry. The style of helmet and mail is close enough to right for 180 years earlier. I gave both riders baggy trousers and adjusted their straight sabres into curved scimitars. The bossman's saddle cloth is an experiment with using nailart transfers as interesting fabric patterns.







I have some more Warfare officers and some from Old Glory, TAG and Caliver who will all get on to the next couple of command stands.

Super duper Ottermans Adam!