Serbian Hussars

Serbian Hussars served as light cavalry in Matthias Corvinus' Black Army of Hungary.  They were armed with lances and large wooden shields.  Corvinus is generally credited with reorganizing the Hussars from small irregular units into large trained formations. The number of Hussars available to Corvinus rose in 1459 when Serbia was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire and many Serbians fled to Hungary.  The Hussars took part in the Hungarian wars against the Ottoman Empire and were employed successfully against their counterparts in the Turkish, Bohemian and Polish armies.  These boys will serve as light shock troops in my Hungarian army.  Light horse generally skirmishes and evades but not the Serbian Hussar. Their role is to pursue, engage and break opposing light horse.

I had a couple of breakthroughs here. First, I've been experimenting with basing.  No radical departures here  but I did use more static grass and Stilfor tufts, including flowers. I also took the time to pick out the larger rocks and coat them with dark and light gray.  I'm very pleased with the results! 

Secondly, its no secret that I've struggled with miniature photography.  I took many pictures today and was disappointed with all of them so I went back to the internet and combed through the tutorials.  I learned how to manually adjust white balance by pointing my camera at a white sheet of paper and just like that, the quality of my photographs greatly improved!  These are all by natural lighting.

 

All figures are by Essex and I do love their horses as there is a great deal of variety and energy in them. The only downside is the limited poses for the Hussars but I don't think it detracts too much.

On the workbench-Serbian Knights

Monday was a great day for me.  I came home from work and found 2 Field of Glory related packages in the mail...kind of like Christmas in September!  The first package was my Essex Hungarian army. I got an email on Saturday confirming the Hungarians were shipping and Monday, they were in! That's amazing since Tennessee and Minnesota are more than 1,000 miles apart.  I'm thrilled with the fast shipping and great price of  Wargames.  I'm going to go back to their website and scour for more medieval troops.  If I'm lucky, maybe I can find enough figures to pull together another Medieval army.

I've never painted anything but Old Glory so I was fretting over whether Essex would be of equal quality.  It turns out that these figures are very well molded and loaded with detail.   The horses have a very nice size and shape compared to Old Glory.  Side by side, the Old Glory horse looks very thin.  I haven't even painted a single figure and already, I'm a fan of Essex!    

Last week, to prep for painting 40+ Hungarian knights, I dug out the last of my unpainted Old Glory Knights that I used for my Serbian Nobles battlegroup.  When I painted the Serbs last spring, I primed them with white primer, drybrushed sliver, washed with Badab Black and then over that with a bright silver.  I don't routinely drybrush 15mm figures but with chainmail and some barding, the technique works. 

I don't know but I've been told, Knights primed white shine like gold. 

This time around, I decided to change things up.  I primed the remaining Knights black, drybrushed them with a dark silver, then a black wash and then a bright sliver.  Comparing the two, the difference is very subtle. Priming white will give you a slightly brighter silver and shinier knight.   I think I'll stick with black primer for my Hungarian Knights for a slightly darker result. That's fitting since they will be a part of the Black Army.  

Drybrushed.

Stained and then painted a bright silver. 

Serbia scores 6 more Knights.

These 6 Serbians were a nice warmup for the Hungarian project.  On a critical note, I'd like to get better at painting shields.  I confess I see shields as a chore and it shows through in my work.  I'm going to have to fix that because there are an awful lot of shields in this army! I probably could use some Medieval reference books before I really dig in, so,  its time to go to Amazon and see what I can scrounge up.

And in case you were wondering what the 2nd Field of Glory package was on Monday?  More hills, trees and stone walls for enclosed fields. In for a penny, in for a pound.