Reiters

Reiters were pistol-armed cavalry used in Germany in the 16th and early 17th century.  Their role in WHFB is performed by the Pistoliers, but the real Reiters were hardly young noblemen awaiting induction into the Knightly Orders.  Most were professional soldiers of various (and frequently dubious) backgrounds who were often all too willing to hire themselves out to the highest bidder.  Among their employers were the Kingdom of Poland and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who used them (and the Pancerni) to support the Winged Hussars.  There is no reason to think that the Tzarina would not hire any such horsemen available to bulk up her army in times of war (which in Kislev is most of the time!).  In WHFB terms, I'd rate these guys as Fast Cavalry, with light armor, pistols and swords. 

This unit is kit-bashed in the extreme.  Except for the commander in the middle, who is an old Citadel figure, the rest have the original Kislev Horse Archer legs.  Their torsos, heads, arms, weapons, and equipment are a mix of the Empire Free Company/Militia box, the Mordheim accessory sprue, the Mordheim Kislev accessory sprue, the Pistoliers/Outrider box, the old Empire Soldiers box, the old Empire Handgunners/Crossbowmen box, the Empire plastic Great Cannon kit, the Empire Knightly Orders box, and the Empire Archers/Huntsmen box. 

They are based on a piece of the WHFB basing kit, but the borders (they don't give you enough corner pieces :<) are made from Plastruct MS-819, .08 cm x .187 cm.   Although the grass and other terrain effects are almost the same as my other units, these guys have a little less snow mixed with the grass and a couple of non-frozen bushes/clumps of grass, to reinforce that these guys are from further south than other units in the army.

OK - time for some close-ups!

As I said, the commander is an old Citadel figure which I bought on eBay years ago, thinking I might use him for something someday.  I added a 40K White Scars shield, to give what is otherwise a very Western European looking figure a more "Eastern" feel, which I thought was appropriate.

I like the musician a lot.  His torso is from the Empire Militia/Free Company box and his head is from the Knights of the White Wolf sprue that comes in the Knightly Orders box, meaning this fellow is most likely a devotee of Ulric.  That is appropriate as his livery is the all blue scheme used by soldiers of Middenland.  Perhaps this fellow is a deserter, perhaps a discharged veteran with no prospects other than to ply the soldier's trade.  He has a holstered pistol from the Mordheim sprue.  His arms are from the old Soldiers box.  The right arm is just one off the plastic arms, but the left arm holding the horn is actual a pewter bit that was included in the original version of the Soldier's box.

The standard bearer was made using a head, torso and arms from the Militia/Free Company box (the arm holding the flag is the one holding the hatchet).   The banner is regular white paper with a flag printed on it via a laser printer.  The flag is folded in half and glued together with some slightly diluted white glue, though I use a little super glue to hold the flag to the banner pole, which is simply a metal rod.

This fellow has a torso from the Militia/Free Company box and a sword from the Mordheim accessory sprue.  His head is plastic and from the Soldiers box, but his arms and the small firearm (which could be a carbine or caliver), as well as the pouch on his right side are metal and from the old accessories in the old Empire Handgunners/Crossbowmen box.

This fellow has a torso from the Empire Artillery box, arms from the old Empire Soldier box, and a head from the new Empire Archers box (specifically from the "Huntsman" sprue to give him a more "Eastern" look).  He has holstered on his a horse a firearm from the new Pistolier/Outrider box.  The old pattern figs are a bit smaller than the new, so for this guy that weapon is probably a caliver or carbine, rather than a pistol.

This trooper has a head from the Knights of the White Wolf accessory sprue and arms and a torso from the Militia/Free Company box.  His pistol comes from the Kislevite Mordheim accessory sprue.  His scabbard comes from the Mordheim Accessory sprue.

The upper body of the final trooper is made entirely from the old Empire Soldiers box and is painted in the livery of the Ostermark, which is probably a good source of mercenaries given its proximity to Kislev.  He also has a holstered pistol from the Mordheim Accessory sprue. 

Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Jiltsi/Rindi part 2

Here is the second installment of the Tzarina's 28-man bodyguard - 6 more with the big Mordheim swords and bucklers and 6 more with the halberds from the Mordheim Kislevite sprue. 

Time for some close-up.  First of the six sword and buckler men:

Now of the 6 halberdiers:

Finally, an even closer shot of one from each group:

I still have 4 more figures to finish - 2 more rank-and-file, the musician, and the standard bearer.  I'm also planning on making a movement tray for them.

Ungol Horse Archers 2

Here is my second unit of Ungol horse archers.  They were painted the same way as those in the first batch, except that these fellows have something of a uniform, or at least elements of one.  A couple of blue caps, a couple have blue trousers, and a couple of have red coats (the commander has a red coat faced blue).  Perhaps this unit was in direct service to the state, or perhaps its commander is a particularly wealthy and patriotic fellow who went out of pocket for uniforms in the national livery.  Perhaps they "acquired" these uniforms from wartime stores.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.

Here are two views of the commander and a trooper, both with a red coat and white sash.  As you can see, the commander also has a blue cap and trousers.

Here is the rest of the command group.  They both have blue, uniform, trousers.

This trooper has the uniform blue cap, but is otherwise in regular Ungol clothing.

Jiltsi/Rindi part 1

Ivan the Terrible surrounded himself with a bodyguard of 50-100 halberdiers called the Jiltsi.  His grandfather, Ivan III, had a similar bodyguard called the Rindi, who wielded axes.  In the Ambassador Chronicles, the Tzarina is also surrounded by fiercely loyal bodyguards, so  I thought it would be appropriate to provide her with a unit of elite footmen.

For models, I decided to use the Mordheim Kislevites, the first installment of which are pictured below:



Ultimately, there will be 28 of these guys, with full command.  Right now, however, I only have 12 done, 11 rank-and-file and a captain.  As you can see, I used the same basing techniques that I've previously described.  The trousers, caps, braiding on the coats, and sleeves are Altdorf Blue washed with Asurmen Blue (the last generation blue GW wash).  The coats are just Khorne Red washed with Carroburg Crimson.  The fur is just Ceramite White heavily washed with Nuln Oil. 

Here is a close up on the captain:

Here is a shot of two of the rank-and-file, one with a polearm and the other with sword and buckler:

Here are some close-ups of individual rank-and-file:

In game terms, these guys probably would be the equivalent of Empire Greatswords, at least in terms of elite status and function.  Of course, they don't have the benefit of the armor or weapons of the Greatswords, so to make them elite, they will need some other stuff.  Here is my thought: these fellows have the same profile as Greatswords, but light armor rather than plate (perhaps chainmail shirts under their great coats), immune to psychology in addition to stubborn, and a choice of fighting with sword and buckler or halberds.

Pushki part 2

The crew for my cannon are a variety of figures that hopefully captures the fact that most early artillery was hardly a uniform arm, even if many of the gunners and crew were professionals.

The figure on the left is from the old metal GW Great Cannon set.  He is painted in the livery of the City of Nuln, which is the epicenter of artillery in the Old World.  It isn't hard to imagine that some Nuln-trained gunners might find their way north, into the Tzarina's service.  There isn't much to talk about on this figure, except on his backside, where I attached a pack from the Bretonian men at arms accessary sprue (I removed the heart-shaped metal on the flap):



The figure in the center is kit-bashed.  His head comes from the Empire Archer box, his legs and torso from the Empire Militia/Free Company box, and his arms from the Empire Great Cannon set.  He also has a canteen on his left side from the old Empire "Soldiers" box.  Perhaps he is another Nuln-trained gunner, or perhaps he is a Kislevite from Eringrad, which borders the Empire and where Empire customs and fashions are common, at least according to the fluff in the WHFRP supplement, the Realm of the Ice Queen:

The figure on the right is a Kislevite from the Mordheim range armed with the large, eastern-looking sword from the weapons sprue that came with the figure.  The one modification is he is holding binoculars in his right hand from the Empire volley gun/rocket launcher kit.  I figured that, even if the Tzarina hires professional gunners from the Empire to crew her cannon, they will always be commanded by Kislevites of some rank and proven loyalty.  One note on his uniform; while red jackets faced blue seem to be the standard Kislev livery, this fellow wears a blue coat faced red, perhaps to better hide the soot and dirt that surrounds any artillerist:

Pushki

Pushki is the Russian word for the cannon used by the armies of Ivan the Terrible  in the 16th century, which is the approximate technological and cultural level in the Warhammer Old World.

While the Imperial city of Nuln casts by far the most cannons of anyplace in the Old World, the WHFRP supplement, Realm of the Ice Queen, states that the wealthy port of Eringrad casts many of the cannon used by the Ice Queen's armies, but that Eringrad cannons are smaller and lighter than those cast in Nuln, so this gun would probably count as a cannon (rather than a great cannon) in WH terms.

The model of the gun itself is an old GW cast. It was painted some sort of dark grey when I bought it and I just painted over it using one of the new Citadel metalics, Skullcrusher Brass, then washed with sepia and Nuln Oil.  Brass cannon were apparently common in the inventory of Ivan the Terrible, so I thought that would be appropriate. 

The base on which the gun is mounted is a 4x3 (i.e. 80mm x 60mm) base made from the WH base kit.  The area on which the gun sits along with the other spaces between the gunners are just 20mm bases glued down and filled with white and green stuff to give a smooth surface with no dips and angles where the bases meet.  The base was undercoated with GW's Steel Legion Drab, which is my go-to for undercoating figures and painting bases.  The surface area was then covered using a 50/50 mix of Woodland Scenics of Blended Turf Earth Blend (T350) and Soft Flake Snow (SN140).  Before the area dried I then hand-sprinkled some additional Soft Flake Snow in random areas. The terrain features are a stack of cannonballs and bucket from the plastic GW Empire Great Cannon set and tufts of turf/grass from the Warlord Games "Frozen Turf" set.

Ungol Horse Archers

The Ungols are a largely nomadic people who inhabit the northernmost part of Kislev.  They, along with the long scattered Ropsmenn, were the original inhabitants of the land now known as Kislev, but they were overrun and largely subjugated by the invading Gospodars beginning in IC 1494. Today, the Ungols roam the northern most reaches of Kislev and can be counted upon (usually) to supply rotas (squadrons) of horse archers. These horse archers are said to be second only to those of the Elves and they roam at the fringes of Kislevite Pulks (armies) screening and  scouting. 

In battle, they serve as skirmishers, unleashing a flurry of arrows into the foe and then retreating, but they are not effective close combat troops. This was well-demonstrated at the Battle of Manzhorod (IC 2522) when Ungol horse archers caused great losses to the Kurgan army as it advanced over the River Urskoy.  Once the sorcery of Surtha Lenk caused the Urskoy to freeze and Kurgan horsemen were able to get across the river, however, they rode the horse archers down, slaughtering them.

This is the first of several units of Ungols in my collection:

There is nothing overly fancy about them and they are just standard GW Kislevite horse archers on GW horses, which are probably too chunky to be real steppe ponies, which is most likely what Ungols would ride.  The legs are a mix of the original styles cast by GW (the figure in the back left corner and the standard-bearer) and the second generation of horse archer legs complete with scabbards and shashkas (everyone else).  The figures with the newer legs were slightly modified, with the tops of the bows cut off the quivers for the figures holding their bows and the sword pommels and handles clipped off the scabbards of those brandishing shashkas.

Three additional pictures:

This is a close-up of the command group.  It is a bit hard to see, but the champion has a green jacket, faced red, but the other figures are dressed in a mish-mash of clothes.  I mostly used various shades of Citadel and P3 brown, washed in Citadel's Argax Earthshade and sometimes their Saraphim Sepia as well.  I then seal all my figures in a solution of mostly water and a little floor wax and finish the process by applying a matte spray to kill the shine.  I'm a little surprised, in fact, that these figures look as shiny as they do in these pictures as they are much duller in person.  

Here is a close-up of one of the rank and file. 

One of the other things I did with the Ungols was clip and thin their swords.  GW has the Ungols wielding very large, thick, swords, that seem pretty out of place on a light horseman.  They are all also out of proportion to the scabbards on the  second generation Ungol legs.  So, I shaved and clipped and filed the swords down to something more roughly approximates the size of the swords that would be carried in the scabbards.

Most my Ungols ride horses pained in various shades of brown, further reinforcing (I hope) the grubby, ad hoc, nature of units of Ungol horsemen.  This rider, however, has a horse with both a white muzzle and star.  I got this technique from the Kislev army section in Warhammer Chronicles 2004 and which also appears in the Kislev army book supplement published by White Dwarf.