'The Scorned' - Sisters Repentia

Sander's location asks us to paint up something red. Being that our local group has been quite keen on the fan-based 40K rules from Grim Dark Future (a breath of fresh air in comparison to GW's core set), I decided to do up a small unit of scarlet clad 'Sisters Repentia' for my slowly expanding Sisters of Battle collection. 

The story behind the Repentia is that they are essentially defrocked Sisters paying their penance by charging virtually naked into enemy lines with HUGE chainsaws. Yep, bonkers, but completely in-line with the 40K universe. 

One does wonder what horrible things they could have possibly done to have been assigned such a dire role? Cowardice? Blasphemy? Maybe they left their hair straighteners on overnight, or got caught borrowing their Sister Superior's special black nail polish? Who knows, but it definitely must have been baaaad. 

I've named my Repentia 'The Scorned' as a nod to the famous quote from Concreve's play The Mourning Bride, 'Hell hath no fury...'

In game-terms, these gals are very susceptible to getting shot to bits, but if they do manage to get into melee they are absolute BEASTS. Their 'Eviscerators' (yes, the name says it all) can really wreck someone's day, even giving serious pause to AFVs and Knights. They are one of those units that your opponent simply can't ignore, having to dedicate some valuable firepower to deal with them before they get too close with their uber hedge trimmers. Great fun. Ultimately I'll need at least another 5 to give the unit some staying power, but these ladies will give me a good start.

These are resin models from Wargames Exclusive. I've become a big fan of their offerings, with a good portion of my collection being made up of their models. Really beautiful castings with bags of character and loads of fine detail. So much so that one feels tempted to dive in and try to pick it all out with the brush. While compelling, I find doing all that extra brushwork often 'muddies' the figure by having too much going on. So I kept it simple and stuck to a fairly constrained colour palette. 

With the figures being resin they are a bit too light to my tastes (I'm still addicted to the heft of metal), so I added a washer to their bases and blended in the surrounding groundwork, with assorted debris and exposed ironwork. (Fun fact: repurposed supports from resin 3D printing make great steel reinforcing bits.) 

Thanks for dropping by!

Curt

Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' for Mansions of Madness

Hi All,

As I've been away for the past week I thought I'd get my eye in with a small entry for Sarah's Balloon. Here's Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' from 'Mansions of Madness'. 

'Reformed Cultist'. Such a great tagline. Really, who wouldn't want that on their CV for 'past work experience'? 

Diana's special ability allows her to tangle with particularly nasty monsters with minimal sanity loss. All this being said, her strength stat is fairly low, so she needs a heavy-hitting spell or a spiffy magic item to really make her tick along. She's best run by an experienced player who knows how to finesse her abilities, otherwise she'll be more of a burden than a benefit to the party.

Not learning from past experience, I just picked her up and started painting without really looking at the character card. The results weren't as bad as before, as I at least got her auburn hair right, and besides, I reason she'll still be pretty distinctive on the tabletop with her long hooded robe and howitzer shell-sized candle. 

Next Up: Sander's Sand Dunes! 

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

Marie Lambeau 'The Entertainer' from Mansions of Madness

I think I'll take in the sun and the surf at 'Douglas' Shallows' next, so here's my fare for Sarah's Balloon: Marie Lambeau 'The Entertainer' from 'Mansions of Madness'.

Marie is a creole jazz singer, originally from The Big Easy, but now based in Arkham. In the game she benefits from a very solid stat line paired with an awesome special ability, one which allows her to cast a spell at the start of her turn without having to spend an action. This is huge in a game where players are always nibbling their fingernails deciding on how to spend their two actions per turn. Matched with the right spell(s) Marie can be an invaluable addition to the party.

Again, I've tried to follow the art on the character card. For a bit of additional colour I gave her a pair of Dorothy-Red pumps. Oddly, the basing was a bit of a swine this time around, with me having to go through three of the blighters to finally get it right. More a lack of patience on my part than anything else. 

Next up: Douglas' Shallows!

-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