OLD SCHOOL OTTOMAN ARMY - PART 4

I've now finished the last unit of cavalry, a unit of irregular Tartars. Together with a couple of units of Akincis and some Irregular light cavalry these complete the mounted arm of my Ottoman Turks.  These are particularly useful as they could be pressed into service with various other armies, such as my Mongols or, once they are sorted, a Polish army to face off the Ottomans.

So the usual before and after photos.

ECW GOES OLD SCHOOL!

As well as my Ottoman work-in-progress, the recent generous donation of figures resulting in other club members obtaining boxes of goodies. Ian bagged a shoebox of 25mm English Civil War figures, mostly a mix of Minifigs and Hinchcliffe. He decided that, in keeping with the era the figures hail from, he wasn't going to do anything too clever, so he simply replaced missing pikes etc, stuck them on new bases, just painted green and flocked. The result was a perfectly presentable army and, more importantly, ready to play and on the table when I'm only halfway through the Ottomans.

He has had a (long) ongoing project to put together 10mm forces to play Peter Pig's "Regiment of Foote", so the new acquisitions were based up for those rules. Technically it's a few stands of cavalry light, but there is just enough to field two armies for the rules, which is what we did at the last club meeting.

MONGOLS VS RUS

At last Friday's club meeting Alan and I tried another game between our Mongol and Rus armies using the excellent, Soldiers of God rules. Soldiers of God is designed to refight battles of the Crusades, but after a few games we thought that it might also work for the same time period in Eastern Europe, as all the troops types required are covered by the rules. Currently we use the cards that come with the rules, using the Islam cards for the Mongols and the Crusader cards for the Rus,

Despite a more aggressive battle plan the dice were against the Mongols who deployed first, massing the Mongol cavalry, both light horse archers and lancers, on the left flank and their, less than dependable, Volgar Bulgar allies on the right. The centre was held by a single unit of horse archers, the idea being to delay the Rus centre while the cavalry smash the enemy's right.

The Rus responded by deploying their own allies, all skirmishing cavalry and infantry facing the Volgar Bulgars, their crossbowmen and both mounted and dismounted Druzhina on the right facing the Mongol cavalry and  archers backed by urban militia spearmen in the centre with the heavily armoured Senior Druzhina cavalry. Their idea was to hold the flanks whilst destroying the centre and allowing their armoured cavalry to turn and roll-up one of the flanks.

Mongols start to surround the Rus infantry centre.

OLD SCHOOL OTTOMAN ARMY PART 3

Feudal Sipahis
These were the main fighting arm of the cavalry, known as the Timarli Sipahi. They were fief-holders, owing military service in exchange for land, in the same manner as the European knight. They served as armoured cavalry, accompanied by similarly equipped retainers. The larger the land holding, the more retainers a Sipahis was expected to provide.In the classic Ottoman deployment the Sipahis formed the two flanks, with the Timari Sipahis  deployed forward with the Sipahis of the Porte in reserve.

Before the process started.

After a grey wash and varnish.

The finished article.

OLD SCHOOL OTTOMAN ARMY PART 2

Part 2 Sipahis of the Porte

To keep things sensible I've split up the cavalry by type and will process them in units. First up, the elite cavalry of the Ottoman army, the Sipahis of the Porte. Also called the Kapıkulu Sipahi these were salaried, regular units which formed the cavalry arm of the Ottoman household troops. These were the first figures to be re-based, washed and varnished, then had the bases textured with a mixture of brown paint, sand and pva glue, before tufts of grass were added. I shall probably add a bit of static grass at a later date. Due to extensive house rebuilding most of my gaming stuff is in the loft and at the moment I've no idea where my flocks and grasses are!

After a grey wash and a coat of varnish.

Now with textured bases.

Finally with tufts added.

OLD-SCHOOL OTTOMAN ARMY

At the Tring Club we recently were contacted by a chap who offered to give away his wargames collection to any members of the club who wanted to use them. These were old 25mm wargames figures that hadn't seen the light of day since the early 1980s, but it was still a generous offer, which we gratefully accepted.

I ended up with a box labelled 17th century Ottomans and Poles. This contained about 300 painted 25mm figures, mostly a mix of Hincliffe and Minifigs, with a sprinkling of other manufacturers, the majority unbased or on flimsy bits of card, riders not stuck onto horses, loose spears etc. These bought back memories as they were the sort of figures I started gaming with back in the early 1970s. Once I'd got them all sorted out I realised that the Poles were quite incomplete, missing winged hussars or other heavy cavalry, so I put them aside for the time being.The Ottomans, on the other hand, seemed to be a viable army as they stood, comprising of 46 cavalry, 90 infantry and 2 cannon with 11 gunners. Admittedly the normal Ottoman army would have a higher cavalry to infantry ratio, but these would give me a playable army "out of the box".

My aim is to get these onto the table as quickly as possible, so no repainting other than a quick touch up of obvious damage, a wash and a coat of varnish. I'm not sure of which ruleset I will be using at this stage so the basing will be to be as generic as possible. I'll put the cavalry on 25x50mm bases and the infantry will probably end up on 25mm washers.

So here they are at the first stage;

The Infantry

Some of the Cavalry

Sipahis stuck onto horses and rebased.

Lion Rampant League, Round 4 - Battle Report

Fierce Foot face Yeomen Schiltron. 

Friday was a sad day for my Islemen in Round 4 of our Lion Rampant League. They were tasked with stopping Henry's Welsh from escorting The Messenger (Scenario H) from the NE corner of the table, to the SE corner. It did not  go well for the Islemen.
The Lion Rampant rules were written by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey.


The Islemen units were:
2 Foot Men-at-Arms
2 Fierce Foot
1 Archers

Henry's Welsh units:
1 Mounted Sergeants
3 Foot Yeomen (with Javelin upgrade)
4 Bidowers

The Welsh had to guide their Messenger from the NE corner (bottom right of the picture) to the SE corner. The Islemen started with one unit of Fierce Foot in the SE corner (bottom left) and the rest in the NW corner.

Layout and deployment of starting forces