Ghaznavid Infantry and Elephants

Being primarily a cavalry army there is not a lot of foot in a Ghaznavid army. What little infantry exists is made up of a few Arab and Daylami allies, and a handful of Ghaznavid spear, bow and skirmishers. The DBMM army list allows only four elements of Ghaznavid spear and two each of bow and skirmishers, but given the Forged in Battle packs are comprised of 24 figures I decided to paint the whole lot on the basis that they may come in useful for other rule sets or as stand-ins:

The spear are nice little figures and are quite heavily armoured:

The pack also includes a couple of command figures:

The bowmen are similarly heavily armoured and sculpted in a straightforward firing pose:

In spite of the fact that Forged in Battle's infantry packs are sold as 24 figure bags I have noticed that most actually contain 26 figures. Given that they don't make any specific Ghaznavid skirmishers and only four figures are required, I used some of the leftover figures from the spear bow packs:

I still have the Arab and Daylami infantry to go, but that is the Ghaznavid foot now completed:

One of the nice variations in a Ghaznavid army is the use of elephants. The DBMM list allows for up to five but also has an option to remount up to three generals on elephants, so a potential eight in total:

Given that most of these are rated as superior and cost 20 points, or 36 points if a general (and a whopping 51 if rated as 'brilliant'), fielding all eight would soak up just over half of the 400 point games we usually play, but they would pack quite a punch. 

The only minor quibble with these models is that the Ghaznavids, being based primarily in Afghanistan and modern-day Iran, acquired elephants from their campaigns in India and these elephants look slightly more African than Indian to me. I would also have thought that they could have benefitted from the troops being in some form of howdah or castle rather than simply astride the elephant, but they are still nice little models:

I normally mount my generals on white horses so they stand out to me and my opponents in a game, but didn't want to have white elephants running around so painted the riders' helmets in bronze:

That's another seventy-eight figures completed toward the project:

Next up and as mentioned above, the Arab foot.

Last of the Ghaznavid Cavalry

These two groups of cavalry are not strictly Ghavnavid cavalry but represent Turkish light horse and Arab or Kurdish auxiliary cavalry:

The four elements of Arab cavalry can be rated either as superior cavalry or fast (ie lighter) knights in DBMM and these Forged in Battle Arab armoured cavalry bridge the two classes of troops quite nicely:

There were enough poses in the pack of twelve cavalry figures to provide a fair bit of variety, so they were quite fun to paint:

As noted above, the light cavalry represent predominantly Turkish horse archers which, due to their prowess, are rated as superior light horse:

Again there were a number of poses to choose from and I elected to put the shooting figure on the right of each base so that he didn't look as though he was about to fire an arrow into his compatriot:

Again, lovely figures to paint although I had a bit of difficulty in seating some of them on their mounts and the contact points on a few are not that large. When I reinspected them several were leaning back in a rather precarious position so it took a couple more attempts and touch-ups before I was completely happy with them:

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That is now all the cavalry for the project completed in just over a month, totaling 183 riders and horses and including three spare figures which were helpfully provided in some of the packs and which Ihave put to one side, just in case:

I'm now about to make a start on the foot, with some Ghaznavid bow and spearmen to be first in the queue.

15mm Ghaznavid Ghulams

After having completed the Palace Ghulams a few weeks ago I was keen to complete the remaining fifteen elements of standard Ghulams:

I had used only figures with upright spears and lances and attached a few banners for the Palace Ghulams so they would be more easily distinguishable, and used the rest of the poses for the other Ghulams. I am thoroughly enjoying painting these Forged in Battle figures, the only minor quibble being that there is no obvious seating point for some of the riders and they require a little bit of trial and error to avoid them sitting awkwardly on their mounts:

I deliberately tried to utilise slightly less colours on these figures compared to the Palace troops, although they are still no doubt colourful enough:

Depending on how many points you wish to pay under DBMM, they can be rated as either (O)rdinary or (S)uperior cavalry, which makes them quite effective against most other troop types although they still remain susceptible to knights:

Including horses this block constitutes another ninety figures completed:

Next up, twelve elements of light horse archers and four elements of allied Arab/Kurdish cavalry.

15mm Ghaznavid Palace Ghulams

After a year and half painting 28mm AWI figures I thought I'd get stuck into one of the 15mm DBMM armies I have in the pile as a nice change of pace. After seeing Phil of Toy Soldiers Studio's beautiful Ghaznavid army (Toy Soldiers Studio) I was keen to make this my next project and started off with three command elements and six stands of Palace ghulams:

The Ghaznavid empire was centered on Ghazi in modern Afghanistan and covered large parts of Iran, Pakistan and north western India between 977 and 1186 AD. I wanted to put together an entire army of Forged in Battle figures and found these to be true 15mm figures rather than the larger 18mm often associated with other manufacturers. There is enough variety to cover most troop types in the list, but no dedicated general figures so it was a matter of picking a few commander-type figures from the cavalry packs and nominating them as generals:

Ghulam means slave or servant in Arabic, and the Ghaznavid ghulams were either mercenaries, prisoners of war or sometimes slaves who had been purchased as young boys. Many Turkish soldiers were employed in the ranks alongside Afghans and, later, Indian soldiers following seventeen individual campaigns over a fifty-four year period. The Palace ghulams were responsible for protecting the royal family and were the most elite and heavily armoured so again I selected the most appropriate-looking figures from the packs:

I splashed a bit more colour on these than I am planning to do with the regular ghulams, and attached some Little Big Men Studio banners to more easily distinguish them:

I didn't have enough of the banners I originally wanted to use and thought I'd have to purchase some more. I noticed in the course of doing so that they have gone up from £3.50 a year ago to £12 which is quite a jump in twelve months (although still worth the money at that price in my opinion), but a quick search in my stash of flags and transfers unearthed several sheets I had forgotten about and so I was able to apply them immediately without holding things up:

That's the first nine elements completed:

Next up will be fifteen elements of the regular ghulam.

AWI Continental Staff and Townspeople

After seventeen months I have finally completed the last of my AWI figures with ten Continental staff and camp, and eight townspeople. The staff are a mixture of Perry and Front Rank to provide a but more variety, even though the Front Rank figures appear much better fed alongside their Perry counterparts:

I have ended up with two George Washingtons, one of them the Perry figure which comes with three boxes of plastic Continentals, and the other a more solid Front Rank figure:

Rather annoyingly, I have also ended up with two Benedict Arnold figures and three instead of the four Front Rank ADC figures I actually ordered, but I suppose he did switch sides so I can potentially field both of them:

Here are the remainder of the Front Rank ADCs:

And some Perry mounted officers:

I individually based some leftover foot figures in the hope they might come in useful in a few Sharp Practice games:

I also completed some Perry AWI civilians, an interesting mix of figures:

And a camp vignette:

The final count for the project came out as:

British:    595 foot and mounted figures

                60 horses

                11 artillery pieces

Hessians: 179 foot and mounted figures

                3 horses

                2 artillery pieces

Continentals:    498 foot and mounted figures

                          28 horses

                          6 artillery pieces

All up, 1272 foot and mounted figures, 91 horses, 19 artillery pieces and 8 wagons. Now to get them on to the table for a few solo games of British Grenadier, hopefully followed by some Monday evening Sharp Practice games.

Two Grand Manner Napoleonic Houses Completed

After languishing in the pile for nearly fifteen years, I have finally got around to completing the first of many Grand Manner buildings I have accumulated:

This post should probably have been titled 'How to Disappear Down a Rabbit Hole' as I hadn't intended to make a start on them yet. A few weeks ago I started work on some 15mm Najewitz Modellbau 3D printed terrain; a rather nice Spanish town with eight buildings sitting on a sculpted base which I thought we were going to need for a game. 

I completed the buildings but the base is made up of twelve individual pieces and I realised that I would need to affix them to a large MDF base. 

I purchase all my MDF bases from a guy in Adelaide who offers free postage on orders of $75 or more. I then remembered I have a rather nice 28mm Medieval stone church with graveyard which I had purchased from Grand Manner ten or so years ago and which would also require an MDF base.

Thinking that this and a few other odds and ends would be good to get me above the required $75 I then set about trying to locate the church so I could measure the required footprint.

The problem is that I must have purchased over seventy buildings from Grand Manner and they are all in their original dense packing spread across five very large boxes, so I spent a few hours cutting my way through bubble wrap only to find I had now unpacked ten buildings from their Napoleonic Europe range. There was no way I was going to repack them again so I thought I may as well make a start.

The first of these is called a Lindenau house, modelled after one in the Leipzig area. This is I believe actually the rear of the house:

While this is the front and side:

The houses all have lift-off roofs with, in this case, two levels of interior. Perfect for skirmish gaming, but I debated whether it was worthwhile going to the effort to paint it and if I should just glue the roof in place. In the end I decided that since it was there I may as well put in a bit of additional effort:

All up, I estimate this model took me over twenty-four hours to paint, mainly because it was my first attempt at these and there was a fair bit of trial and error.

The second house is styled after a Holzhausen cottage, from the village to the south of Leipzig:

I was a bit quicker on this one, although it still took me around twenty hours or so:

These models are two of the smaller pieces and cost me around £50 each to purchase in the raw resin. They were however destined to become available only as painted models as the owner transformed his business into more of a painting service, and the cost for each was then around £240 when painted to a collectors standard. 

After painting them myself and given the detail I can see why, which makes me think the price that Mark of 1866 and All That is charging for his works of art is an absolute bargain. 

All the Grand Manner terrain is now sadly out of production, so I am glad I scooped up what I could even if it means they have been sitting untouched for over a decade:

I again painted up the interior, albeit doing a much quicker job on it:

That then is my first two pieces of Grand Manner terrain completed:

I have another ten or so of these central European buildings to go, plus a dozen or so Eastern European and the same number of Spanish buildings ahead of me. I also have a fair bit of Thirty Years war, WWII and Ancients to plough my way through, but they are such nice models each with their own individual character, that I am looking forward to it.

Speaking of terrain and storage, I finally cleared out one of our spare rooms, set up some shelving and moved some of my storage boxes with completed armies in:

This has freed up more space in my painting and storage room. I took the opportunity to also move in my long-unused table tennis table and throw a bit of terrain on it to try the area out for space:

Not much room either side and certainly not conducive to comfortable gaming, but it should be good for a few solo games at least. I have to admit I don't relish the idea of solo gaming as much as I do playing against a live opponent, but once the last of my AWI Continentals are finished I'll try out a game or two of British Grenadier.

I just need to stop any further distractions until I have finished the last ten staff figures. I still haven't found that church though.