15mm Serbian Empire & Later Hungarians

Finally Completing Some Serbians & Hungarians

After purchasing two Hungarian armies back in 2018 & 2019 I decided that that they were better utilised as Serbian Empire so ended up splitting them up disposing of a few bits & adding the rest into my collection. I of course decided that since I had some missing elements preventing me using them as Serbians that I would have to buy more metal to paint which ended up sitting in the Lead Mountain until this week.

The Serbian Empire had a fearsome reputation when fighting against the Turkish Empire & it has always been a fairly popular choice in themed tournaments.

First up to complete some of the missing elements are their Serbian Spearmen classed as Irr Sp O. I found it very difficult to find suitable decoration for their shields so ended up creating paper Serbian Empire heraldic shields to affix to their shields. I rationalised this by saying that the state issued them with their spears and shields after calling them out to serve.

"Serbia Surrenders Only To God!"

The castings are Essex EMED71 Serbian Empire Spearmen.

Essex EMED71 Serbian Empire Spearmen

The list also allows the Serbians to have a large number of low quality levies. I purchased a large mix of codes from Essex, XMED3 Generic Eastern European Peasants, EMED18 Polish 1350-1480 Foot Axemen, REN117 Renaissance Spearmen in Fur Cap [Haduks] & RUS20 Streltsi or Solider Two Handed Axemen then mixed & matched them up to get the desired figure variety to clearly distinguish between the two types of Hordes. 

The Zamanitchka Voyska Levies are classed as Irr Hd F & I decided that I wanted them to be armed with mostly bladed weapons.

The Serbian Vlach Baggage Guards are classed as Irr Hd O & I used a mix of spearmen, swordsmen & clubmen to create that low quality peasant levy look. 

Last up for this blog post are eight elements of Hungarian Levy Spearmen classed as Irr Sp I & used in the Later Hungarian list before the Black Army turned into a more regular trained army. The castings are marketed as EMED58 Byzantine 1300-1480 Albanian Javelinmen but the shield style & clothing are also suitable for other Eastern European heavy infantry.

Essex EMED58

This now brings the painting tally for 1st January to 15th July 2021 to:

431 foot, 10 artillery & 4 war drums [118 elements]

188 cavalry [61 elements]

12 Bamboo & Paper Lions [8 elements]

3 elephants [3 elements]

Plus I have rebased

32 elements of Pikes

28 elements of Archers

10 elements of Psiloi

8 elements of Horde

3 elements of misc foot

50 mounted elements

More Ancients from Project Lead Mountain - 15th C European Infantry

15th C Medieval Infantry Oddments

Back in February I posted a blog on an Hussite EBay purchase. https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2019/02/hussite-infantry-part-1.html

I have finally painted the last of those figures along with 8 others and have made a profit on the items I already sold on.

As you can see from the picture about they are a mixed lot from two different makers, Minifigs and Oddziat Osmy.

First up are the Minifigs German Spearmen. They are Code 222X from their Renaissance Hussite Wars Range but the armour style actually dates from 1400 AD. Being very old sculpts in the typical Minifigs pose they needed some cleaning up due to having lots of flash. I cannot comment on the casting quality as they must be quite old castings so may well have been redone.

Minifigs 222X German Spearmen

The other Minifigs casting is 225X Hungarian Spearmen also from the Hussite Wars Range. Again the armour style dates from 1400 AD.

Minifigs 225X Hungarian Spearmen

Lastly I bought a box of Oddziat Osmy Code MT04 Teutonic Order Command 1410 AD figures. It contained nine knights and eight swordsmen. They were cast in rock hard pewter and were original 1st generation Polish sculpts. The Teutonics do not have any actual swordsmen in their army lists that I use but I painted them up to go with the other spearmen. They are nicely sculpted figures and were easy to paint.

Oddziat Osmy Teutonic Order Swordsmen

I had planned to sell them in due course but might keep them instead.

Last of the Hussite Warwagons Done

Project Lead Mountain Keeps Giving Up Gifts

As part of a Hussite junk purchase off EBay I ended up with a badly assembled Essex Warwagon without crew or horses. I took it apart and assembled it properly and raided the spares box for some crew and motive power. The Horses were also Essex and the three crew a mix of Essex and Minifigs. I finally finished it yesterday so its now ready to offer for sale. Painted generically so it will do for Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Hussites and Germans.

I also had a bag of 16 Museum Miniatures MD04 Genoese Crossbowmen with Pavise to complete. They are nice castings and easy to paint up well. They only time sink is decorating the shields with various Italian City States colours. I may sell these as well but I have a suitable space in my storage box for them so there's no rush at present. Sold at the club today!

Hussite Infantry - Part 4

Yet More Warwagons!

Whilst working on Project Lead Mountain and other armies I often end up buying figures that I then decide that I don't like and buy something else instead. This happened with my Later Polish Army project when I ended up buying QR Models instead of using the Irregular Warwagons.

The reason I didn't use them was to be honest the axles supplied with the wagons were too short to fit the wheels on to the underside of the wagons without them sitting at a totally crazy angle.

After completing all the four Falcon Warwagons in my previous Hussite blog entry I felt sufficiently encouraged to try and finally finish these Irregular casting code 15/13. Having discarded the Falcon Oxen into my spares I had two options, I could cut the axles into equal halves and glue the stubs further out with a gap in the middle or I could try to build up the underneath of the wagons to ensure the wheels were clear. I elected to go down the second route as it seemed to give a better visual effect.

Here is the assembled wagon next to the giant Falcon Oxen.

The crew are a mix of Irregular drivers, old Mikes Models Halberdiers, Essex Crossbowmen and Venexia Handgunners. Since they were all from my spares mountain I am very pleased with how they turned out and I plan to sell them on. They are mounted on magnetised plastic sheeting, covered with Vallejo Earth Brown paste edged with Raw Umber paint, finished off with some gravel, grass tufts and flowers from Mick's Bit's. Update now SOLD!