The Great Siege of Malta: Azab Militia and Supporting Archers

Continuing along with my Great Siege of Malta project, here are some Azab infantry supported by a few North African archers.

The Azabs, or 'the bachelors', were a volunteer militia made up of young men from across the Ottoman provinces. They would have been armed with a motley assortment of weapons, basically whatever they could source for the campaign. Sources conflict if there were Azabs in Malta during the Great Siege, but either way I thought they'd stand-in nicely as dismounted Sipahis who did make up a significant portion of the Ottoman contingent.

The interestingly shaped shields they carry are of Hungarian origin. I've taken a little artistic license with the decorative designs as I understand it was not uncommon for them to feature mythological beasts and wing motifs.

I used the decals left over from one of my Adeptus Titanicus kits as they seem to fit the bill nicely. 

Regrettably, I only have a few Azabs to show here as I could not for the life of me discover the rest of the castings from my 'lead reserve' (apparently, my archival skills don't extend to the mess of my hobby room). I ended up ordering another batch from TAG to make up the loss, but fearing that the figures would not arrive before the Challenge concludes, I thought I'd just run with these lads, augmented with a few more North African archers to help fill in the ranks. 

These Azabs are from The Assault Group.

Similar to my other units, I made up the flag standard's finial with a blob of greenstuff, some plastic tubing and a bit of cut card for the crescent.

This unit features another custom sabot tray Byron knocked out for me. This is the smaller of the melee troop sized tray - the next step up will accomodate another 6-8 figures and the largest will be that much larger again.

Archers from Footsore Miniatures.

I'm having a lot of fun with mixing and matching colours for these irregular Ottoman troops. The Citadel Contrast paints have come in particularly handy for providing some variety in the robes and turbans.

Thanks for dropping in to take a look, folks, much appreciated!

Curt

A New Project: The Cross and the Crescent, Malta, 1565 - Turgut Reis 'The Drawn Sword of Islam' - for Awdry's Atoll

I've been plinking away on this submission since the beginning of the Challenge and so I'm quite happy to finally see it off my desk and 'going live'. 

I've had an interest in the Ottoman empire since my university days when we studied its collapse after the end of the First World War. My curiosity was rekindled a few summers ago after reading Roger Crowley's excellent '1543' on the Siege of Constantinople, his 'Empires of the Sea' and Tim Willcocks' 'The Religion' which recounts the siege of Malta in 1565. This fascination was further stoked after a recent vacation to Malta where we toured the fortifications of Valletta and took in its wonderful (and brand spanking new) national war museum. It was after this visit I felt committed to doing something hobby-wise for this period.

Sarah looking across to Fort St. Angelo from near Fort St. Elmo.

A cross-section model displaying elements of the Maltese fortifications.

A wonderful selection of Ottoman arms and armour from the Great Siege.

So this will serve as the first instalment of a new project where I hope to dabble in the period between the 15th and 17th centuries where the Ottoman Empire posed its greatest challenge to the West. This will roughly span from the Siege of Constantinople in 1453 to the second Siege of Vienna in 1683.

230 years may seem to be a fairly broad brief, but I think the uniforms and equipment of the belligerents did not vary too much during this time, with only gunpowder arms becoming more prevalent in the later period. 

As to colour and interesting subject matter? I think I'll be absolutely spoiled for choice, what with silk-clad Janissaries, Christian knights in full plate, fierce Barbary pirates, winged hussars...the list goes on and on. It should be a feast of colour and options.

Over the past few years, I've been collecting miniatures and terrain for this project and  finally thought it high time to get something accomplished.

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For his location on Challenge Island, Michael asks us to create a vignette whose base is the same dimensions as the humble Compact Disc. 

Accordingly, this post features the Ottoman commander, Turgut Reis, reviewing his troops before the walls of St. Elmo. 

Turgut Reis, 'The Drawn Sword of Islam' (known as Dragut Reis in the West) was one of the chief Ottoman commanders during the siege of Malta. He's a fascinating character with a storied career.

At the age of 12 Turgut apprenticed as a cannoneer, advancing to the rank of master of siege artillery. At around 30 he took to the seas and over the next 50 years became one of the most successful corsairs and fleet commanders in history.

After impressing the Sultan with his dash and vigor, he succeeded Barbarossa in 1546 as Ottoman supreme commander in the Mediterranean. He harried Christian coastlines, captured islands and cities, took tens of thousands of captives and made himself rich on the spoils of war. He became Bey of Algeria in 1548 and later took Tripoli from the Knights of St John in 1551. By the time of the Great Siege of Malta Turgut was 80 years old but still very vital.

Fittingly Turgut met his fate facing his old adversaries, the Knights of St John. During the siege of St Elmo he was hit by a piece of flying debris from a nearby cannon shot. Tenacious facing death as he was in life, he held on for six days, just long enough to receive the news that the fortress had fallen.

The vignette I've come up with has the mounted Turgut and his bannerman moving through a group of Janissaires, with a unit of Algerian corsairs in the background.

So, what's with the two Janissaires carrying the cauldron? Great question! I was a bit perplexed as well. After a bit of reading what I found is that in order to foster greater elan, where every janissary thought of his brothers-in-arms as family, the corps’ military vocabulary and symbolism drew heavily on that of the kitchen. 

For example, the janissary headgear, called a börk, was decorated with an ornamental kaşık-lık (spoon holder), to show that all janissaries were messmates. Domestic terms were also applied to the janissaries’ ranks and organization. The corps as a whole was called the Ocak (hearth) and each orta (regiment) was commanded by a çorba-başi (head-of-soup) who in turn was assisted by a sekban-başi (head of hunting-hounds). Non-commissioned officers bore such titles as sakka-başi (head water-carrier), karakullukçu (scullion) and aşçi-başi (master cook). Finally The sultan’s title among the janissaries was bizi besleyen baba or ‘the father who feeds us.’

The pride of each orta was its great copper cauldron called a kazan.

On the march, kazans pots were carried in the place of honour at the head of the regiment. In camp, they were placed in front of each çorba-başi’s tent to serve as a rallying point. The worst crime any janissary could commit was to allow his regiment’s cauldron to be captured by the enemy. If a kazan was lost in battle, all the regiment’s officers were dishonourably discharged and the orta forbidden to parade in public with its replacement.

Napoleon had his eagles, whereas the Sultan had his soup pots! 

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Another interesting thing I discovered was that it was not uncommon for Ottoman units to have very ornate finials atop their standards and headgear. These were often crafted to depict their specific administrative role or branch of service. 

So I thought it might be visually interesting to try to incorporate a few of these into some of my units. I tarted up a finial for both Turgut's standard, (a relatively straighforward crescent and orb) and a rather more ostentatious galley for his fierce corsairs.

A blob of miliput, plastic rod and a card

3D printer to the rescue

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Accompanying Turgut, is a mixed group of Barbary corsair spearmen and archers.

My thanks to Byron for making up these sabot bases according to my whacky design.

These models are from Footsore miniatures and were an absolute joy to work on. Though they are targeted for around the 7th century I think they can easily be used for periods right up to the Renaissance.

I really wanted to reinforce the mixed composition of much of the Ottoman force, so I really went to town with the varied colours and patterns.

My great thanks to Michael for the providing the inspiration for getting this done and to all of you readers for patiently indulging me with this long post. I'm very stoked about this project and hope to have some more figures to show you in the coming weeks.

Thanks again!

Curt

Italian Wars Spanish Rodeleros/Escudados

I've been working on these figures off-and-on since the start of the Painting Challenge. I was hoping to get them done last Friday (Feb 24th) for the anniversary of the Battle of Pavia, but it just wasn't in the cards.  Nonetheless, I'm still happy to see them off the table and awaiting orders in the display cabinet.

These are Spanish Rodeleros or Escudados.  Translated as 'shield bearers', or simply shield-and-buckler men, they were an interesting troop type which saw brief prominence during the late 15th and early 16th century. 

The rodeleros usefulness was being able to break the deadlock between contesting blocks of pike (and in this respect they were very similar to the halberdiers of the Landsknetches and Swiss). Once the rodeleros maneuvered past the hedge of pikes, and got in tight with their foes, their half-plate armour, long swords and small shields made them superior to the lightly protected pikemen.

Nevertheless, the rodeleros, like most classes of infantry, were particularly vulnerable to cavalry, especially light cavalry and so had to be cautiously employed and judiciously commanded. 

Though they had a short time of glory in Italy, Cortes' campaigns in the New World was largely made possible by having a host of rodeleros at his back.

This unit is made up of an assortment of 28mm figures from The Assault Group (TAG), Foundry and Eureka Miniatures. I really like the Spanish/Portugues conquistadors from Eureka. They have a great sense of spirit and animation - the commander exhorting his men, seen below in the center, is from the Eureka range. 

The TAG castings were somewhat smaller than the rest, so I made a small rise for them running along the center of the base to serve as a crest, to help mask their slight statures.

I often try to put a boulder or stump at the rear of my large bases so players have something to grip on to when moving them on the table. For this base I've used a 3D printed stump that I scaled down to a useful size (this same design was used for my Francis command stand).

Historically, these bravos probably wouldn't be carrying their own banner, but I like my units to have flags, so they've been gifted one from Pete's Flags to hoist in the breeze.

There you go! Thanks for visiting folks, I hope you have a great week!

From TimB: 28mm Feudal Japanese Warrior Monks & Napoleonic French Artillery (110 points)

From Tim:

The Monks

These are for my second Sohei Buntai for Ronin. All the miniatures are from the Assault Group. I am currently putting together TEN 400 point buntai for a campaign/tournament I am hosting in JUST THREE WEEKS! This is a bit more than 400 points worth - I am still tweaking this force..

The Grand Master and his two Senior Sohei.

Four Sohei with naginata

Four Sohei with yumi (bow) though one has hair, which is annoying because I'm pretty sure all monks shaved their heads... When it first arrived I thought I might add a bit more of a cowl with green stuff to cover the offending hair... but I didn't... call it laziness.... or call it panic - because I still have three more buntai to finish in the next three weeks!

Some figures that I thought I might use as initiates. Again, some of them have hair.... maybe they're SO new to the order they haven't had a chance to shave their heads...? 

The Gunners
 This might be a bit of a shock to those that have followed my blog a while or have known me personally…
 French Napoleonic Line Artillery from Perry Miniatures....

I've been playing Neil Thomas' Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe and really enjoy it. I noticed he had a set of rules for the Napoleonic Wars, and figuring it would be about the same I picked up a copy. It being quite similar to the other rules I thought it might be fun to play and not a lot of stuff is required. I have half a British force already, so I thought I'd pick up enough stuff for a French force to oppose it.... and I happen to be ordering stuff from Perry Miniatures for the Ronin campaign... so I ordered this gun and crew....

I really know next to nothing about the Napoleonic era - and even less about the French. I find the myriad of different uniforms and combinations of equipment a bit dizzying at times... but after studying the sample on the Perry website, a few Napoleonic Line Artillery plates I was able to find on the web, and Curt's fabulous example - right here in the Analogue Hobbies Napoleonic Gallery! I sloshed some paint on these fellows and hoped for the best...

Hopefully the results and my cavalier and purely amateurish attitude won't offend any of the hardcore Grognards out there...

You've made such amazing progress on this feudal Japanese project Tim. I'm sure you'll get it done for your deadline. We'll definitely need pictures of the entire set-up as it will be very, very impressive.

I almost fell off my chair when I saw the Napoleonic gun team as I know how much you loath the idea of collecting Napoleonics. Great work! The green for the gun carriage can be tricky but your's looks terrific. Great job!

This collection of feudal Japanese and Napoleonic French will give Tim 110 points.

From MikeP: 28mm Samurai, Ronin #28 & Oktoberfest Hottie (45 points)

'Quick, protect the girl with the beer and nice badonkadonk.'

This may be my last entry before the deadline. There is a unit of horse on my painting table that may get done in time if I pull an all nighter. We'll see.

I am happy to say that this entry includes Ronin 28, my entry fee. He is the fellow holding the severed head of his foe and bellowing in triumph. Perhaps he can be the ronin who takes the courtier's head to the grave of Lord Asano?

The samurai figures in this entry are 28s from The Assault Group. A few words on the awesomeness of TAG are in order here. I ordered a blister of four samurai with katana and got the other four chaps shown in the attached photos. The fellow with the head came on his own in a blister entitled "Special Edition" which they seem to have thrown in for free. I am becoming a huge fan of TAG for classy gestures like this and don't mind paying a bit more for their stuff.

Of the other four samurai, three will be going to Curt because I am also a fan of the SPCA and have no practical use for them. One will go to my friend Krista Johns, who runs the blog Flat-Out Whimsy (shameless plug here).

Also, in the hopes of winnng either Sarah's choice (I think it was for civilian female fgure?) I also present Samurai Beer Garden Girl. 

She is the Reaper 28mm Oktoberfest Fraulein, which I bought for my Weird War Two campaign where she will be an Allied agent (code name Katana) gathering intelligence in German beer gardens and practising some wicked Kill Bill style sowrd moves that she learned from hanging around with these guys.

I also got her because I am moving to Kitchener/Waterloo this summer and I like Oktoberfests. :)

Awesome Mike! Thanks so much for Ronin #28. He is suitably badass and you've done a remarkable job on his and his compatriots' armour - such vibrant colours! Miss Katana is lovely and I'm sure will be the scourge of the nefarious Nazis (if she doesn't succumb to exposure first).

Ronin #28, his comerades and 'Katana' will give Mike a well-earned 45 points.