Spotlight on Later Ottoman Turks

For historical gamers, the Ottoman Turkish Empire has much to recommend. The Turkish armies have some of the most exotic and colorful units you'll find and they bumped up against a multitude of other nation-states during their 500 year empire.  For purists, there are abundant historical adversaries and also research materials to recreate armies and battles.

I chose Later Ottoman because I wanted to paint up a colorful army that would be significantly different to run from my other armies. The Turks delivered in spades! I'm not exaggerating when I say every unit in this army shoots, except for the camp.  The emphasis on cavalry units means that you get a very fast AND shooty army.

Janissary handgunners: These superior handgunners are a "must have."  In addition to rerolling 1s, shooting at an enemy with firearms means that unit tests at -1 during any cohesion tests in the shooting phase, regardless of whether they were actually hit by the firearms!

Azab Handgunners:  You can't have too many handgunners in a medieval army so take these handgunners as well. These can be taken as average or poor. I take them as poor.  While unlikely to hit, the smoke and sound of their guns can frighten enemy troops and inflict the -1 cohesion during the shooting phase.

Azab Archers:  These fellows aren't discouraged at all to be using B.C. technology on an A.D. battlefield.  They're decent skirmishers and a required unit in the Later Ottoman list. They have a job to do and they do it in high fashion!

Akinjis: You may have noticed I'm a big fan of Light Horse.  How big? How about 20 bases worth in this instance.  I used a trick painting these up. I chose 5 color schemes-blue, yellow, green, orange and purple-and repeated the patterns over the 40 figures that make up the 5 battlegroups. I'm very pleased with how these turned out. 

Janissaries:  Superior, protected, drilled, medium foot armed with sword and bow.  Whew! I'm guessing they will be tough as nails on the battlefield and I can't wait to take them for a spin.

Qapu Khalqi Cavalry:  These are the elite guard cavalry responsible for protecting the Sultan.  Drilled, armored, bow and sword armed, they are "Death on Horseback."

Timariots:  Timariots are the bulk of the Ottoman heavy cavalry.  While they'll have difficulty going toe to toe with knights in melee, the trick is to retreat in the face of a charge and arrow your pursuers to death.

Serbian Knights:   As if the Ottoman army isn't tough enough, you can take Serbian Knights as an ally.  I figured with all of the medieval armies built around Knights, I better have a few stands of my own.

Commanders:  In the Ottoman Empire, the more important you were, the bigger and more elaborate your headdress.  My Minnesota Vikings ball-cap tells you everything you need to know about me, by Ottoman or modern standards.

 

 

Camp:  I think you'll agree these tents are in keeping with the subtle color scheme of this army. 

If you're thinking of painting up a medieval army, consider the Later Ottoman Turks. Their fighting style is radically different from the knight-centric armies that dominated Europe during this era and the wild colors speak for themselves-quite loudly in fact!  As a bonus, a Later Ottoman Turkish army can easily morph into a Seljuk Turk army if you're willing to paint up additional light horse and heavy cavalry.  It could also be fielded in the Renaissance era so you might say it's a 3 for 1 special.

This army is composed of Old Glory figures and I found these sculpts to be almost uniformly excellent.  They are the best I've seen from Old Glory and were a joy to paint. I'm going to bring this army down to our club games for the next 3 or 4 months and see what I can do in the Medieval era.  Only two weeks until I get to put them in battle so stay tuned!

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.  

Off the Workbench-Heavy Chariots

I finished up 4 more bases of Carthaginian Heavy Chariots...just in time to be temporarily retired with the rest of my Carthaginian army.  The Old Glory chariots are good with a few caveats: 

1.  You'll need a pin drill to drill out the hole where the axle goes into the wheel. Try to force a wheel on and  you'll bend the tiny axle back and maybe even let out a swear or two.
2.  Don't glue the wheels on until AFTER you've painted and detailed the chariot. Obvious to most people but I overlooked it with the first batch I painted.
3.  These chariots come with a grooved diamond pattern in them.  You'll want to create a paint scheme based on this pattern or risk poor results. I tried putting a stripe across one but the paint bled under the tape due to the grooves.  D'oh!

With the difficulties I had in coming up with a snazzy scheme for the chariot frames, I spent extra time on the wheels.  The trick that worked for me was to paint them black and then add contrasting colors that popped against the black.  I like the way the wheels turned out but I'm less happy with the chariots themselves. 

Now that summer is over, it's time to start a new army.  I've been eyeing Xyston Miniatures but almost anything I paint of theirs would duplicate an army that someone in our club already has.  A number of players run Medieval armies and with my ancient armies, I rarely get to play them.  I decided to focus on the Medieval era. After reading about Matthias Corvinus and his Black Army of Hungary, I settled on a Later Hungarian army.  Later Hungarians have an interesting and colorful mix of units.  Plus the Hungarians make a great tabletop opponent for my Ottoman Turks.

The last hurdle was to find miniatures.  Unfortunately, Old Glory doesn't have an Eastern European Medieval line.  I tried to scratch up units that could stand in for Later Hungarian but it was difficult.  Then I stumbled across a US distributor of Essex clearing their figures out at 50% off.  While their Medieval lineup has been well looted at this price, I did find enough Hungarians to build a Later Hungarian army.  Figures shipped today...I can't wait to get started!