Ottomans On Parade: A Resurrected Army

 Some years ago I started something called the Resurrected Armies Project, where I would revisit an old wargaming project and try to breathe some life in it, assuming that the project made the cut (my 20mm WW2 collection was rehomed rather than resurrected, but that's another story).

Recently, after finishing a unit of Assault Group janissaries as seen in my previous post here, I wanted to see how my entire Ottoman army looked on the table.    Some of these figures are quite old, and some, like an ancient Minifigs janissary regiment (the chaps in red) have been recently rebased.   There's more cavalry rebasing to do.  

Here's the entire army.

The total collection can field three units of skirmish bows, two units of janissary infantry, two units of levytype guys with choppers, three units of skirmish akinci cavalry with bows, two units of armoured spahi cavalry, two medium and one heavy gun, and several command figures.  A unit of tufecki musketeers is in the painting queue.

The heavy gun.  I have no idea what make of figures the gunners are.

Gunners in blue and janissaries in red are ancient Minifigs.

The flower of the Sultan's cavalry.    There are a few Assault Group spahis mixed in with God knows what else.   As you can tell from the banner, my Arabic is a bit rusty.

Newer janissary regiment and behind them some bare chested fellows, once dubbed the "Turkish love slaves" in a game ages ago

It's embarrassing that I have so many Ottoman figures and know so little about the Turks in the 18th century.    I've looked at several SYW rules sets and there are no lists for them (there might be an Ottoman list in the very old Age of Reason rules by Todd Kershner, I should see if I still have my set).  Generally I would rate the skirmish troops as low quality, the artillery and janissaries as varying from low to line/trained, and the spahis as line to good, able to go up against European heavy cavalry.

The secret of an Ottoman army should be superior numbers of horse - even a multitude of bad horse units can threaten and engulf the flanks of a smaller, superior force, which is why the Russians favoured large brigade or divisional squares when fighting the Ottomans.

What are your thoughts on how to rate and use such an army?

Cheers and blessings,

MP+

General Petr Godsbodkin Cheers In The New Year

One of my newly completed figures waves his hat to celebrate the new year.   General Petr is one of the first figures to be completed since the Mad Padre's Painting Chapel shifted its location from The Frozen Canadian Prairie to bucolic and temperate Ontario.  He is a Wargames Foundry figure, one of their pack of three Seven Years War staff officers, and he is part of my Resurrected Armies (™) project to return my SYW Russian Army to a reformed and efficient state.   Prior to Clausewitz, one of the arts of command was to wave one's hat vigorously, and I think General Petr has mastered that art.

 

I made a foray out to Credit Valley Railway Store in Mississauga recently and picked up some Noch foliage clusters, seeing as all the cool kids seem to be using them.  I rather like the effect.

I just noticed that the poor horse could use some eyes.   Oh well.  Perhaps a trip back to the painting bench before I hit him with Dullcote and call him finished.

General Godsbokin has two colleagues who will be seen here soon.  Together they will lead the Russian Army to a year of glory in the new year.   It will be a dangerous year, as the Turkish borders are stirring ominously, and the diplomatic corps reports that the Prussians are rattling sabres and threatening to cut off supplies of sausage to the  Czar's court.   I expect too that we will see Godsbodkin again here soon, as he is scheduled to present new colours to the Apcheronski Regiment as soon as he returns from the New Year's holiday at his dacha.

To all my friends and followers of this blog, I wish you a very happy new year, and success at all your various projects.   My own resolutions can be summed up quite briefly: paint more, game more, complain less, keep running, work hard in grad school, be a good husband to Mrs. Padre and a good friend to all.

 

Finally, if you are looking for something to sing while in your cups this New Year's Eve, may I suggest this old English song, which may be sung to the tune of Greensleeves.  As a combination of piety and revelry, it must be Anglican.

 

1. The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is entered;
Then let us all our sins down tread,
    And joyfully all appear.
Let's merry be this holiday,
And let us run with sport and play,
Hang sorrow, let's cast care away
    God send us a merry new year!

2. For Christ's circumcision this day we keep,
Who for our sins did often weep;
His hands and feet were wounded deep,
    And his blessed side, with a spear.
His head they crowned then with thorn,
And at him they did laugh and scorn,
Who for to save our souls was born;
    God send us a happy New Year!

3. And now with New-Year's gifts each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may our lives amend,
    And that truth may now appear.
Now like the snake cast off your skin
Of evil thoughts and wicked sin,
And to amend this new year begin:
    God send us a merry new year!

4. And now let all the company
In friendly manner all agree,
For we are here welcome all may see
    Unto this jolly good cheer.
I thank my master and my dame,
The which are founders of the same,
To eat, to drink now is no shame:
    God send us a happy new year!

5. Come lads and lasses every one,
Jack, Tom, Dick, Bess, Mary and Joan,
Let's cut the meat unto the bone,
    For welcome you need not fear. 
And here for good liquor you shall not lack,
It will whet my brains and strengthen my back; 
This jolly good cheer it must go to wrack:
    God send us a happy new year!

6. Come, give's more liquor when I do call, 
I'll drink to each one in this hall,
I hope that so loud I must not bawl,
    So unto me lend an ear.
Good fortune to my master send,
And to our dame which is our friend,
Lord bless us all, and so I end:
    God send us a happy new year!

 

Resurrected Armies Project Third and Last: Turkish Redelight

Sunday last was the Sunday of Pentecost and the end of the Easter season for this year, so it brings to an end my resurrected armies project. I was able to get three armies out of mothballs and made some plans for repairs and additions in the time remaining before everything goes into boxes for our move sometime in July. The third and last army I am showcasing for this project is my 28mm Seven Years War Ottoman/Turkish army. Here it is together for a recently finished battle with their Russian nemesis, an excuse to test drive Sam Mustafa's Maurice rules.

As I mentioned when introducing my SYW Russians, I got into SYW gaming with my club in the mid 1990s, and after deciding that I needed a second army for solitaire gaming, I opted for the Turks on the theory that, A) no one else wanted to do them, and B) they were more colourful and more interesting than any other of the European armies of the period. The interesting fact about this army is that almost none of these figures have been painted or based by me. Some were gifts from kind gaming friends I've made over the years, and some were bought used from friends who bought them used. An example of the latter are these fellows, who I showed here a few months back when they appeared in a colonial game using Ross MacFarlane's MacDuff rules. Yes, it's those lovable rogues with the big axes, the Turkish Love Slaves, though as I recall we decided that they were actually some flavour of Cossacks, though we never figured out whose sculpts they are. Most of these have been repainted by me, and they work as irregular massed infantry with melee weapons. If they survive the hails of grape and musketry usually directed at them, they are fearsome enemies.

I have three units of scruffy archers who look like they would be more at home in a Crusades game fighting Richard the Lionheart. They were part of a job lot of figures purchased by a friend at some kind of boot sale, and he kindly sold me the lot. Lord knows who made them. They function as the equivalents to Russian pandours, since mobs of irregular skirmishing infantry are always helpful.

The pride of the army, are of course my elite armoured cavalry, the Sipahis. I gather that sipahi can be a generic word meaning cavalry of any kind, and that the heavies were called Sipahis of the Porte. I have twelve of these latter chaps from The Assault Group waiting for a turn on my painting bench and they are lovely figures. THese fellows here came in that job lot I mentioned and were extensively repainted and rebased by my younger self. Again, they look rather medieval to my eye. With another twelve figures done once I get to the TAG sipahis, I'll have an impressive shock arm for those key moments in the battle. My limited reading of Maurice doesn't seem to give any distinctions to light or heavy cavalry, but I am only reading the free "Lite" rules, so there may be something in the full rules if I decide to buy them.

The heart of my Turkish army is a small brigade of three small regiments of Janissaries. These figures in blue are Esex (I think) and were never really finished. That blue banner needs doing and they are rather expressionless. I am also not sure if the red fez chaps should be mixed in with the more elaborate headdress. This unit needs some revisiting to be sure.

I also have two units of these handsome chaps in red - Minifigs, I think. I didn't paint them, they were the gift of a friend who started collecting Ottomans and then gave up. A very handsome and decidedly old school bunch, and the only units I have who have any chance of standing and slugging it out with the Russian line infantry.

My Turks don't have the same weight of artillery that their Russian foes possess, but they aren't helpless. Besides this based gun, they have this monster, never got more than half painted and still needs basing. The crew are Minifigs.

Finally, we have more fellows who look like they have ridden out of a Crusades or El Cid game, these magnificent horse archers in their colourful robes, all drawing the bow at the same time. Such choreography! Some of these fellows I've repainted.

And another unit of light horse, none of whom have received a lick of paint during their time with me. From my limited knowledge of Turkish tactics, they would pack their wings with light horse and try to win the battle on the flanks. My Russian hussars will be busy fending off the Turks while the line infantry and artillery tries to decide the battle.

I neglected to take a photo of the big cheese, the army's CinC, but he's busy in a refight with the Russians using the Maurice rules, so I will include him in my AAR of that battle, or I'm told some burly eunuchs will drag me off and apply the thumbscrews in a dark dungeon. Hmmm, I hope he wins that battle, for my sake.

A couple of to-dos here to be sure. 1) Finish painting the blue jannisaries; 2) Base that big cannon, assemble a third gun, a piece from Minifig's ECW range, and finish four artillerists somewhere on my painting table; 3) get cracking on those TAG sipahis of the porte. The first two I think I can manage before the move. The final task should take me into the fall.

Resurrected Armies Project Two: Rediscovered SYW Russians

This coming Sunday is the Seventh Sunday of Easter and after that is Pentecost Sunday, so I only have a few more weeks before my self-appointed deadline to talk about my Resurrected Armies project. To recap, the purpose of this project was to use the season of Easter to "resurrect" some long-neglected armies in my collection. I showcased my 20mm Soviet WW2 collection some weeks back, so today here are more Russians, from my 28mm Seven Years War collection. I started building this army around 1990 when my club at the time went through a Seven Years War craze, inspired by the (then newly published) Age of Reason rules set.

Here on parade is the mighty Russian Army of Emperor Mikhail The Good (none to his courtiers as "Mikhail The So So"). All the base sizes are as per WRG basing and troop type specifications. At one point there were some 20mm Revell Prussian infantry painted in Russian green, and some Esci Napoleonic Polish Lancers in paper caftans posing as Cossacks, as well as a box of Esci Crimean War British Hussars posing as, well, Russian Hussars. The plastic figures were all released from service in the Emperor's first Force Reduction Plan, following a report from the Nevsky Institute of Strategic Studies saying that they were icky.

The army's Commander in Chief, the gout-ridden General Ivan Blottski, a Front Rank figure. I have a blister of Foundry Russian officers currently deploying on my painting table to give him some subordinate commanders, and possibly some rivals for command if things go samovar-shaped.

My light infantry, the dangerous Serbian Pandours, of whom Blottski once quipped that "they would steal the family silver of the blessed Mother of God and then ask for her blessing in battle". These are Minifigs kindly gifted to me from the collection of an old gaming friend, Mark Chappel.

Here is the senior of my line infantry regiments. The command figures and the firing musketeers in the front are I think from Falcon Miniatures, but I wouldn't swear to it. The flags are hand painted and I'm still quite proud of them.

I placed several orders for Front Rank infantry to the Emperor's Headquarters of Chicago when it was in business. Here is my next unit of Russian line. Hopefully one notices a slight improvement in my painting skills over time. At this stage I was giving exaggerated red cheeks to my soldiers, giving them a slightly Nutcracker look.

Once I started doing some research, I realized that I had to paint the famed Apcheronski Regiment, which wore red gaiters in honour of their performance fighting the Prussians at Kunersdorf, when they were said to have stood and fought knee deep in their own blood. I am sure the reality was less impressive, but a splash of red on the gaming table is irresisitble. I recently discovered that GMB make Russian flags for this period, so there will soon be a service where the Apcheronskis are issued new colours.

Wanting more variety, I then added two regiments of the Observation Corps, which as far as I remember meant "under observation" for their new uniforms, including these rather stylish knee high boots, which I'm sure were proper bastards to march in.

One of my Observation Corps regiments intermixes Front Rank figures with these chaps, which some kind soul gifted me. Not sure who makes them ... possibly Falcon as well?

When we weren't using the Age of Reason rules, my crowd often got out the WRG rules for black powder, on the theory that was good in the 1970s was just as good in the 1990s. A rather quaint and charming notion in this era of trendy and expensive glossy rules. I always liked the morale modifier that gave Russians in line a -3 just for being Russians in line. That rule made all the Russians pretty tough on the defence, but for the offense one has to have some Grenadiers. Here's my unit of Front Rank grenadiers. Note the coats of pale green. I'm not sure what the thinking was there when I painted them that shade, I think I just wanted them to stand out from the dark green ofg the rest of my army and I thought the paler green gave them a tough weathered veteran look. At any rate, they're a pretty tough bunch, of whom General Blottski once said that they would storm the gates of hell or Berlin for a cannikin of vodka and a potato.

The only unit of cavalry currently in service is this unit of mystery manufacturer hussars, a gift from some kind friend and painted ... ummm, err, orange? Not sure what I was thinking there. They are colourful, and will soon be joined by a second unit of hussars, which are demanding to be finished and released from the painting table. I would dearly love some dragoons and cuirassers to fight the armoured Turks lurking out there.

This chap, another mystery manufacturer figure, illustrates my painting style ca. 1990, when I was just discovering drybrushing. I call him "Captain Kronsky" and he may one day serve in a game of Too Fat Lardies' Sharpe Practice, adapted to Russia's Ottoman frontier.

Finally, what Russian army would be complete without a shedload of artillery? The guns here, all painted glossy fireengine red because I thought it looked cool at the time, are either Minifigs or Front Rank, and the crew are either Minifigs Prussians painted in Russian colours or Front Rank figures.

In my thinking, to be a properly resurrected army, it isn't enough for the figures to be dug out of boxes and refurbished, but they have to fight in a tabletop action. My Russians recently took the field against their Turkish nemesis, in an attempt to master the demo rules for Sam Mustafa's Maurice, and the tale of that battle, and of my thoughts on Maurice, remains to be told.

The Resurrected Armies Project 1: Salvaging Soviets

April is the cruelest month, said the poet, and so far it has been cruel to my painting intentions. Easter Monday, the first day of the month, was continuing to ready our old house to go on the market. OP LIVING ROOM commenced Monday at 09:00hrs with sanding the crown moulding:

Plans were changed on the fly when Madame Padre decided that the ceiling needed to be painted. I hate painting stucco anhd I hate painting ceilings, but it got done. Adapt and overcome.

Tuesday night however I had a chance to start thinking about something I mentioned here back in February, my Resurrected Armies project, which will run for the sixty days of Easter. The goal of the project is to find figures from my collection that have suffed the slings and arrows of time and multiple moves, to dig them out of their storage boxes, give them some TLC and play a game or two with each of them. I decided to start with all my 20mm Soviet kit, which has never all been on the table at the same time, so I thought a parade of the Red Army would be in order.

I had forgotten what a lot of tanks I have, all mostly late war. Originally, not knowing any better, they were all painted in Tamiya Flat Earth (chosen from a limited selection at my local hobby store), but some years back I discovered the Vallejo line and switched to their Russian Green. At the time I was blissfully ignorant of washes, weathering, drybrushing, pigments, airbrushes and such, so the paint schemes are quite basic. In the foreground are two Fujimi SU85s in their Russian Green, and to the right are two HO scale trucks (Rocco or Minitanks, can't recall which) posing as Lendlease US trucks in their original Flat Earth.

More tanks. A Fujimi KV2 at the back beside an ESCI KV1, while to the right two Matchbox T34/85s in my first brown paint scheme (you can see an early attempt at green camo) sit in front of two more T34/85s that someone gifted me - I think they are also Matchbox kits? A couple of T34s are visible and to the right there is a Ukranian kit of some sort, a Zil truck whose wheels keep coming off and which needs some repair.

Here's the original cadre of my Soviet infantry. Most of these figures are either the ESCI hard plastic Soviet Guards troops or else the soft plastic set by ESCI. a few of them are metal figures from the RAFM Platoon 20 range. I bought and painted these chaps sometime around 1990. I was thinking last night about the difference between then and now as far as painting guides and resources. 1990 was pre-world wide web, so there were no blogs, painting guides, hobby websites, or forums, and no google to reach them with. There were Osprey books, if one could find them, and I think I painted these fellows in Tamiya Flat Earth because it seemed the closest thing to what I thought at the time Russian uniforms looked like. How quaint. The basing is quite rudimentary as well, just thin sheets of carboard with green paint and some basic flocking. They were organized into fireteams as per a friend's homebrew rules. The standard for basing was lower in those days. Note the standard-issue Soviet army officer pose, with pistol pointing heroically but uselessly skyward.

At some point in the 1990s I decided that my little Russian army needed some anti-tank guns, so I bought two by mail order from, I think, Skytrex. I discovered Skytrex in an issue of Miniature Wargames that I somehow got my hands on - old school mail order where one went to the bank or post office, got an international money order, sent it off, and a month later started watching for the postman. Ordering stuff online via paypal and getting it days later seems quaint now. I got two ZIS 57mm AT guns, of which one was assembled and lost over the years. The one here needs to be assembled and painted. The crew show my painting style in transition, with some having a lighter uniform shade and green (rather than the original Flat Earth brown) helmets. I love the officer - I think he is supposed to be looking through binos, but the sculpt looks like he is sucking on a vodka bottle.

Here's the real deal, a recently ( 3 years ago?) purchased box of Italieri AT guns, with what the box translation whimsically calls "servants". Really good kit. I assembled the guns and started painting the "servants" for the Analogue Painting Challenge but never got them finished. They have a Fall of Berlin look about them.

A smaller group (maybe a dozen) of what I think of as my second generation Russian infantry. These chaps were based indivually for a skirmish level set of rules called The Face Of Battle. It was well intentioned and I tried hard to make it work. FoB required that one keep track of individual soldiers, and whether they were standing, kneeling, or prone, and so I tried hard to assemble three poses for soldier A1, A2,etc before I eventually said sod this for a game of soldiers. The lighter uniform colours show that by the mid 1990s I had armed myself with the Osprey Book on the Red Army of the Great Patriotic War, a very fine reference. However, my knowledge of and access to paints was still sketchy. I think the odd colour on these chaps Folkart acryllic English Mustard, which looked somewhat close to the Osprey plates. There is some rudimentary attempts at shading visible, and proper green helmets. The two kneeling figures in the foreground are actually painted in Vallejo Russian uniform, and date from the middle of the last decade, when I finally had access to a decent hobby store.

The internet and hobby forums wised me up to other options for this period, and about five years ago I shelled out for some lead Brittania figures, after hearing good things about them on the Guild forum. They were pretty good, and I started painting some before a posting, but didn't like the results of a GW/Citadel flesh wash I tried at the time, so at the very least I need to repaint the flesh on these Ivans, and possibly the uniform tunic as well. I think when I base them I will follow my now standard pattern of putting them on circular bases by the half-section.

As part of the same order, my Russian army got a command group. Britannia makes a nice collection of Russian officers getting a briefing, which no doubt includes a warning that the last one to the Reichstag gets an interview with the NKVD. Primed and ready to go. That's the Britannia command truck behind them, waiting to recover from the Great Pigment Pickle.

And some Britannia tank riders, who have rather a few tanks to choose from once they're ready. Behind them are a mittful of Britannia figures waiting their turn in the paint queue.

It wouldn't be fun without air support. I assembled and painted this Matchbox Sturmovik about ten years ago and it's never been in a single game. It's lost a few bits over the years but it's still in fairly good shape, flying high on its home made dowel stand that I'm rather proud of.

Top view of the Sturmie as it flies over the battlefield. I found an unopened box of Esci figures in a box of plastic kits that Madame Padre scowls at every time we move, and I should paint them up and try some customisations, including a flag for one of the open handed figures rather than a weapon.

And finally, it wouldn't be a wargames army without cool troops like these Black Sea sailors. I have almost a platoon of these fellows, each a fine example of my painting and basing style ca 2000. These are from the old FAA range of WW2 figures - FAA as I recall were pretty cutting edge for their day, or so it seemed to me. I was in Chicago on business in a previous life, and have fond memories of driving across town to The Emperor's Headquarters, a now defunct wargames store that was big in its heyday. I found six packs of these figures on a spinner rack and bought them all, then spent an extra hour trying to navigate my way out of town (pre iPhone GPS days). I still have a support weapons pack to paint, including an ATR team and two DP LMG gunners.

So what would resurrection look like for this army? Here are some goals that are, I hope, attainable before Pentecost Sunday, May 19, the end of the sixty days of Easter.

1) Paint and base the Britannia figures as quickly and cleanly as possible, with a little more attention to the command group.

2) Finish the Italieri AT guns and get the Skytrex one assembled, painted and based.

3) Get the T34s into shape for a game of Battlegroup Kursk.

4) Paint and base my support weapons Black Sea sailors.

5) Fix the damn truck.

6) Play a game of Battlegroup Kursk with some of these troops.

7) Do a quick upgrade of the older ESCI infantry, using some of the speed painting techniques at the Guild forum - http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=12864&hilit=Speed+Painting+Soviets - now if only I can find some FOW German Yello Spray - maybe just use some Vallejo German Yellow w my airbrush as a start?