Later Muslim Indian Delhi Sultanate - Part 1 of the Army

Later Muslim Indian

The lack of a new army project and shortage of cash made me look through the DBM army list books yet again to see what I could create by morphing my current collection into another army with just minimal additions. DBM also allows you to use the DBMM army lists which in some cases means there's additional variations within the lists. I have a large 15mm scale Arab/Muslim collection including the Arab-Indian option so already have some Indian troops. Some of the list is pretty straightforward but some troop types are a total mystery and there's scant information on what they actually look like.

After looking through various makers lists and websites I fell upon Irregular Miniatures. http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/  Ian Kay is an ace bloke and happy to sell you almost anything apart from his first born child. If there's no pictures of a particular casting he will sort it out.

I wanted some figures for Abyssinian Bodyguards Reg Bd F in DBx terms and Ian suggested FZ70 from his range and supplied me with a picture which allowed me to choose the particular casting I preferred from the variations in this figure code. I only needed six castings, more about this below, so decided that I wanted all the figures to be identical, I am very pleased how they turned out considering its all down to my imagination as to what they looked like.

Irregular FZ70 Abyssinian Bodyguards Reg Bd F 

The DBx list also has an Afghan Infantry contingent consisting of a few elements but of many options. You can take 2 x Irr Bw O Archers or Irr Ps O Archers who can rear mitigate support. Theres also an option for 2 x Irr Ax X Light Infantry, Theres an option to take Pikemen instead of the Light Infantry, either as 4 x Reg Pk X or 4 x Reg Pk X/I Double based elements of which all of them can use the Ps mitigator. This meant for me to cover all of the options I needed to create a total of 14 elements consisting of 46 castings. I usually cheat when using DBE if possible and if I can use masking take to temporarily hold together the pairs of elements which saves me from having to duplicate single bases if possible. Again Ian can up trumps with the castings, AB2 provided the archers, AB6 the Pk X and AB13 the Pk I rear ranks. 

Afghan Light Infantry Irr Ax X with Ps O rear support

Afghan Archers Irr Bw O

Afghan Heavy Infantry Irr Pk X/I left & centre with Irr Pk X on the right

Duncan Head messaged me today [the 4th Sept] to tell me that the Afghan Heavy Infantry with the Pikes should be hiding behind Ghurid style moving mantlets that look like hide covered, cotton stuffed headboards taken from a 1970's style double bed like you mother would have had! Theres only four elements of Afghans that are rated as Irr Pk X and if I am honest I don't really care too much as its not likely that they will ever get used but I made then just in case! I feel the Irr Ax X elements are much more useful within this army as escorts to the elephants along with the Abyssinian Bodyguard troops. Having reflected on this I bit the bullet and purchased some Grumpy's Ghurids to use as Afghans from ERM. Duncan again confirmed they were certainly nice castings suitable to use as Afghans but that the wheeled mantlet device wasnt suitable for the era I was using the figures for and they should be sheltering behind individual rectangular pavises. So yet another rethink meant that I decided to chop off the wheels and glue the mantlet down in front of the first rank of castings and paint it to represent the front rank of a pair of Irr Pk X/I DBE. I ordered an extra 8 pikemen which are going to end up as Irr Pk I SBE to replace any DBE that gets its front rank shot away.  The figures above have already been removed from their bases and they will end up as eight Irr Ax O Andalusians along with some more Ps S and Ps O.

Still to come are the Rathor Allied Contingent of 7 x Irr Kn F elements including a general which I also obtained from Irregular using their MIP6, MIP8 & MIP9 castings. The Rathors were by tradition clad in yellow but I have yet to research exactly how they should look.

At the same time as I ordered the Ghurids I obtained six of Grumpy's 6mm Dhow's to use as the boats for my Muslim Indians and other army lists. They are quite large models so are ideal for this or even for use as Shp in the DBx rules.

Grumpy's 6mm scale GRU-SHIP3 Dhow