A Necessary Evil

 The annual Pendraken painting competition is on and I've decided the throw my hat in the ring. I've been held up by a dead video card (and its very hard to find a replacement for an 11 year old video card) but finally solved that yesterday. The other issue is that due to the Pendraken forums antique code (and apparently the "new" version is a step up on the old, which truelyterrifies me as to what it used to be like) the pictures have to be hosted somewhere else on the net. This leaves my blog since I don't do social media.

My choice for this year are twofold. First up is a singkle stand, my 15th century Ottoman artillery, which I think are a bit different from the standard Ottoman bombards. The Ottomans would have captured a fair bit of western kit and would have had no problems using it.

My other entry is my Knights of St John army.

Now I get to step back in time and upload these onto the forum using something remarkably similar to old style HTML.

New year

 Only 2 months since the last post. Summer tends to get in the way of indoor jobs.

After my last post I lost the will to live painting Russian's and moved back to 10mm DBA. First up I finished the Ottoman artillery by adding some pavises (which if I were a 15th century artillery man on a battlefield with a slow firing cannon Iwould like to have as protection). A few barrels and other bits would be good to complete this.

Then it was on to the next army, Knights of St John (IV/56. I've just about got the numbers memorised). 

We'll start with the knights. The foot are dismounted knights ELM3 backed with retinue billmen ELM4 figures. In retrospect I should have used billmen in surcoats ELM26.

The other option is on horseback the figures are a mix of mounted knights on barded ELM1 and unbarded ELM28 horses backed by some hobilar figures ELM2, all in charging poses.

I've always thought that a base with a mix of troops in action along with troops just standing round just looked really odd.

Next up are the colonist crossbowmen. While they may have had their own weapons/uniforms the knights would have provided other bits of kit (pavises etc). the figures are just  crossbowmen ELM10 which I do like due to having the reloading figures.

I thought that the spearmen would have been equiped by the knights so they get consistant armour and shields TB170.

To round out the army are 6 stands of psilloi. A collection of crossbowman TB168 and  (and I've just noticed I should have added in some greek archers. oh well....)

And the whole army together.

Looking at the collection of figures in the pile I'm now a bit stuck for a next army as while theres plenty of figures but not enough for another army ( Hussite, Medieval german, Hungarian etc).

Friday night update

 A week on from the last post and I've made good progress. The Trapezuntine Byzantines are done apart from some base work and the flags. First up, 2 elements of 4 Bow.

2 elements of 3 Auxilia.

2 elements of Psiloi.

And to finish up the knights.

And the whole army lined up.

 Its been a bit of a challenge with the colours. Given that most of our knowledge is based on snippets of first hand accounts and surviving frescos where we have no idea how limited the artists access to paint pigments were, and how well they age. So green and red are popular and I've gone with blue/red white striped sheilds as they seem to be popular in Byzantine  armies.

Oh and the limits of working in a scale with limited figure options.

One down

 On the finished pile this week, I've finally got the DBA Ottoman Turk army done. I had to finish some more Akinji LH and an artillery stand.

Ottoman artillery always seems to be represented on table with huge fixed bombards as used at the siege of Constantinople. This has never made sense to me, not least shifting a fixed emplacement round the battlefield. In my last Pendraken order I asked for some western medieval atillery pieces to replace the 16th centr atilley pieces. I am assuming that the Ottoman army would put any guns captured back to use against their former owners. Unlike modern weapons with fixed ammunition, all you need is a metal ball of the right diameter and gunpowder and Bobs your aunties live-in lover. The base needs a bit more greenery and I'm also going to put some pavises out the front. when the next order turns up.

So heres the finished army. Its missing the Serb Kn, but I can live with them missing at the moment.

I've also been working on the Trapezuntine Byzantines. So far I've finished the LH and the spear stands.

The LH are from the TB range which has the mounted figures cast in 2 pieces with the dividing line being at the riders waist.

This gives flexibiity on the basing.

And a base of spearmen that actually looks like a body of men and not a boy band. I managed to squeeze 18 figures on the base without really trying.

At the moment I'm working through the Kn, Ax and Ps stands and these should be done next week.

Painting update

 Only 4 weeks between posts, not too bad I guess.I have at least been busy with the brushes.

I've worked on a couple of projects in his period. First up....

My DBA project has now taken form. Not a big leap in the end and the choice is 10mm figures on 25mm bases. I have however largely tossed out the suggested number of figures on the bases for "what ever will fit". My interests have always been the 15th century, Romans or hoplites have never really captured my interest. However I did not see the point in replicating my 15th century western european armies.

Back in the day I painted up a Later Muslm Indian army and had some succes with it in competitions (even winning NICON DBR one year using them as Rajputs). I still can't remember why I picked it but it might have been the elephants. I then started painting more Persian horse armour to expand my armies (as the base cavalry all looked alike) untill I had had enough to never touch another 15mm figure. So, having sworn never to paint middle eastern cavalry the army I picked first was Ottomans. There was some method in my madness as the Ottomans had 24 different opponents. 

The figures came from the Pendraken Renaissance Ottoman range (I brought some horse archers from the TB range but the horses were obviously too large so I couldn't mix them)

Spahi's. I managed to get 11 on a base with a mix of barded and unbarded horses wi some horse archers at the back.

Genneral element. I must do some flags for the second rank.

The horde

Jannissaries. Historically recorded as wearing blue, green or red, I've just stuck to one colour. Maybe if I paint the rest of the pack.

Azabs. The horse archers are on order.

I must admit that I have enjoyed painting these and that 10mm is a better choice for DBA than 6mm for this base size. I've ordered the figures for an opponent which I'll discuss when I have painted them.