If you give a Szeklers a bow...

The Szeklers were the finest horsemen in Medieval Hungary, fighting as lance, bow and sword-armed cavalry. Noted for their fighting skill, they played a key role in defending Hungary from the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Szeklers enjoyed autonomy under the Hungarian crown. Their lands were outside of traditional Hungarian law, including taxation, and their only obligation to the Crown was to supply troops for military service.

Szeklers Armored Cavalry:  In Field of Glory, Szeklers cavalry options are what make the Later Hungarian army list sizzle.  They can be taken as Armored Superior cavalry with bow and sword.  That means they can melee with anyone except knights.  As Superior mounted bow, it's probably wiser to deploy them in a single line and evade when charged, shooting your enemy to bits.  After knights, they're the best Hungarian troops on the medieval battlefield.

Szeklers Light Horse: You're probably thinking, "Light Horse? Yawn."  As the best horsemen in the region, it should come as no surprise that they can be taken as Superior.  Did I mention they're sword and bow armed? They outclass most Light Horse in period. I painted 3 units of these fellows, all the better to tear up the enemy Light Horse.

Painting these Essex horsemen left me wanting more.  I'll scratch that itch by ordering up a horse-heavy Essex army, once I can decide on the army!

I've got a new army under way to celebrate the launch of Field of Glory 2.  V2 is supposed to be released in October so I need step away from the blog and get painting! 

Hungarian Lights

After a year layoff, it's good to be painting Essex figures again.  While Essex gets grief from some quarters over the limited poses, there's no company with a larger line of 15mm Medieval figures that I know of.  And their horses are simply the best in this scale.  I have some Xyston horses on my painting table and they look small and thin by comparison. The same goes for Old Glory.  Here's the first batch of reinforcements I painted up for my Later Hungarian commission.   

Hungarian Light Horse Archers:  Hungarian Light Horse are nothing special in the Medieval era but you can run up to 12 bases of them.  Good detail on the figures.  I really love the braiding on the coat and the fur trimmed jackets.

Foot Archers:  Cheap and nimble filler, really cheap if you take them as poor quality.  But then you'll have to hide them on the battlefield!  Forest green uniforms will help them hide in the woods if that's necessary.

Crossbowmen:  Like the Foot Archers, crossbowmen are cheap Light Foot filler for the Hungarian army.  Cheap doesn't mean they can't look fabulous and their yellow & black combo work looks quite stylish.  Essex cast the crossbow separately from the figures and that extra step worked quite well for these figures.

Up next in the batter's box are Szekler Light Horse (x3) and armored Szekler Cavalry. 

TYW Cannons & a new Hungarian project

I've been working through my lead pile while I'm between projects.  In my stack, I had 6 TYW cannons and gunners by Old Glory.  I bought these to port my Later Hungarian army into Field of Glory-Renaissance. As it turned out, FoG R in 15mm never got off the ground locally.  And more significantly,  I recently sold my Hungarians.  I painted these up for practice (and eBay) and I have to say, they're good molds.  For a changeup, I left the black primer in places for shadowing, separation and facial details.  It looks quite good in 15mm and I'll use this old school technique again.

I was happy to sell my Hungarians but felt a bit blue as I packed them up.  That was a bit odd since I'm not the sentimental type.  I found solace in the fact that the buyer is a skilled FoG tournament player in the US and International circuit.  As an added bonus, I got a commission to bulk up the army so one more time, for old times, I'll paint up Essex figures for Matthias' Black Army. The Hungarian word for forward is elore, so elore with the Hungarian project.  And one day, I do hope to hear how they've ripped it up on the FoG circuit.

One last thing...Mark and I started a Maurice campaign and we got our first game in at The Source.  The game was a blast, with loads of people stopping by to watch or comment.  It went right down to the wire but I don't want to say any more since Mark has the AAR up at his blog.  Its a great retelling of a great day of fun.  Check it out!