Top Tier Nikephorians

 In what may possibly be the final Byzantine Cavalry installment, here are the "Elite" Nikephorian (and perhaps a little later too) mixed bow/lance cavalry all from Forged in Battle.

As with the previous set, these are a mix of archer figures from one pack, and lance armed guys from another, both in the "Thematic" range.

Being half-armoured marks them out on the tabletop as being either "Elite", or "Heavy cavalry" - or indeed perhaps both. 

The colours are the same as for the previous set, although on this picture you can also see some of the bow cases, which are - for no scientific or historical reason - GWs Contrast Akhelion Green, which pools nicely to give a real depth of colour to help pick out the small details of bowcases on these figures. 

I had 8 remaining LBMS kite shield transfers when I did this set, which looked idea - but having cut them all out and stuck them on I suddenly noticed that the trumpeter with the Commander had a hidden shield slung on his back - which meant that this set of 8 was in fact a set of 9 ! 

Mustering all my bravery, a new paint brush, and secure in the knowledge that a shield on the back of a cavalryman would only ever really be seen by me (and from a distance of a couple of feet at best), I attempted to create a "trompe l'oeil" impression of the LBMS design for the vacant shield.

This close up it's clearly not the same, but in all honesty I'm pretty dammed prooud of even being able to get this close - and at tabletop distances with my eyesight its as close to perfect as you can hope for!

The Cortez-inspired Mercenaries

 The Texcalans famously allied with Cortez and the Conquistadores (or perhaps "not" famously, as I suspect many folks believe that Cortez and a couple of dozen men beat the Aztecs on their own?).

In that alliance of Aztec-hating contingents were the Totomac levies and Chinantec levies, both of whom I have made by picking out some distinctive figures and conjured up a unit of each with little or no basis in historical reality - but at least they are colourful and can be easily distinguished from the other Tlaxcallan troops!

I decided to use these chaps as Totomac Levies, as they were so different to the orun of the mill Tlaxcallan warriors that I didn't feel they would mix in all that well anyway. 

 

They have very exuberant head dresses, and I gave them all similar frilly-edged shields from the set that came with all of my purchase from Fighting 15s 

There is more than a sniff of the Xenomorph about them in a weird way, but at least they are obviously different to the regular warriors. 

These guys will play as Chinantec Medium Spearmen - they are all armed with spears, and I gave them a simple almost-plain blue shield as well. 

Given all the other options in the army, they may be a little-used option - or I may even get two bases of Chinantec "pikemen" at a later stage if I can find any suitable figures to use. 

With all of them in red (or pink) romper suits they are very much a distinctive unit.

Tlaxcalan Skirmishers

 Every army needs some hapless peasants to screen the main body of warriors, and lurk around in the bushes taking nasty little pot shots at any enemy troops unwary enough to venture too close - and the Taxcallans are no exception with both slingers and archers in the roster. 

These slingers are pretty basic troops, and could easily come from the Biblical ranges from the same designer - which is not to disparage them in any way, as they are great, animated little figures. 

The musculature really takes contrast paints very well - the two layers of Darkoath Flesh work very well indeed on them IMO

I made the skirmisher bowmen out of the non-headdress-wearing bowmen in the pack from F15's, on the assumption that the massed formations of bowmen would be better dressed than the skirmishers.

There are only 2 poses of these, but adding the odd shield in as well gives a bit more variety.

Brightly coloured (parrot?) feathers for the arrow fletchings adds a splash of extra colour too.

Otomi Warriors

The Otomi are mercenaries, which in ADLG terms are hard-charging Impetuous swordsmen. 

The Fighting 15s ranges have limited poses in their "Otomi" bag so I added in a random scattering of chaps with obsidian-edged dangerous looking weaponry to make them a bit more fearsome.

These are more erratically coloured than my main set of guys, who have a lot more red on their limited items of clothing. These chaps are still mostly red, but with some exceptions.  

For the obsidian I used a GW Contrast paint, Akhelian Blue, which is a translucent green/blue/purple colour that I thought was pretty distinctive and could be Obsidian-ish. 

At some point I may go back to thee guys and see if I can gloss varnish the "obsidian" bits of the edges of their weapons to give them a bit more shine (after I have already matt varnished the lot after finishing painting).

 

Tlaxcalan Archers

The Tlaxcalan army has a decent number of bowmen (in ADLG at least), some of whom count as half and half mixed bow/swordsmen, making them vaguely decent in combat as well as proper shooting archers, and some of whom are Mediocre in quality too.  

Without wanting to create zillions of slightly different bases, and end up only ever using some of them, I ended up basing up 2 sets of 4 units of bowmen, and mixing in some warrior figures onto the bases of 4 of those units - this means (I think) I can categorize them as any sort of mix of bowmen, rubbish bowmen, and mixed bow/sword shooters & combat troops and not overly confuse myself or my opponent. 

These are the ones with "some"  warriors as well as archers on each base. 

All of the archer figures do also have a standard pattern on their headdresses, which helps identfy the archers compared to the regular combat infantry (who are totally random and irregular in millinery). 

These are the bow-only chaps, some of whom get low quality head wear as well. 

 

A few more Tlaxcalan Warriors

 Running alongside the "red flower on the base" Tlaxcalan Warriors are these sets of "purple flower" and "yellow flower" chaps:

On these it's really easy to see how I have made the shields ping a little by blacklining the bands and areas of bold colour on them. I did this with a fibre tip fine marker, which thankfully didn't then bleed into the paint underneath even when varnished (rather scary moment doing the varnishing though...)

The Army Painter Fanatic paints have such great coverage, and that is absolutely what is needed for making Meso-American armies really look vibrant and bold. 

There are quite a few guys in all-over onsies, but I have saved those with headgear as well for the Suit Wearers - coming soon !

 

 

The Tlaxcalans are here !

A somewhat epic painting project has now finally reached the "lets spray varnish outside before it gets too cold and damp" phase of completion, much to the delight of vendors of multicoloured grass tufts, as my first Meso-American army finally gets finished off. 

All of the figures (apart from a handful on the baggage element) are from the rather wonderful and characterful range sold by Fighting 15's - who sadly are kinda winding down their business, potentially selling off the moulds and rights at some point in future (we hope!). 

These guys are from the same family as the Egyptians I own, and have bundles of personality baked into the sculpts. They are the sort of figures that really do make you wonder whether 3D modelling and printing, with its ability to make and print out anatomically accurate poses even at 15mm without the constraints of traditional sculpting or even the need to design figures that can be cast in, and removed from, rubber moulds, will ever quite capture the magic of what is very much a work of art rather than a  3D product develped by the technical application of science.

Anyways, I'll be posting pictures of the various troops in batches over the coming weeks, starting with the main body of Warriors.

These guys are a mishmash of different figure codes and are equipped with all sorts of weapons - as you'll see later on, there are some specific, names units who soak up most of the figures I bought with particular or specific weaponry, so these "standard" warriors are a bit of everything that was left.

The painting on these is a mix of contrasts and normal paints, with some of the new Warlord Fanatic  normal paint "triads" of 6 (erm..?) slightly different tones as well. 

The padded armour is white base coat with Aggaros Dunes GW Contrast, with the skin being a couple of applications of GW Contrasct Darkoath Flesh on a white undercoat.

 

The new fanatic paints give great coverage, and choosing some new, bold colours has allowed me to paint these chaps in the bright and vibrant colours you really do want to see on Meso Americans.

The two main sets I bought were a Green one, which ranged from Guardian Green to Ferocious Green, and a Red which ran through from Basilisk Red to Raging Rose - to which I added a few blues and a couple of even lighter colours too to use as highlights.  

These sets of 6 paints are available on Amazon in the UK for a very reasonable £18 each set, with free postage (if you have Prime) - if you buy them through these links (6-part Triads on Amazon) I may even get a small kickback from Amazon's affiliate programme to! 

This set of 6 units all have a big blob of red flowers on their bases to allow me to keep up to 3 commands woth of troops easily identified - or perhaps to say that some of the generic warriors are armed with atl-atl annd others (with different flowers) are not? 

 I didn't use any static grass on these, instead going entirely for grass tufts and flowers to try and create a more unique, jungle sort of vibe to the basing - after all, they will only ever fight alongside a handful of bases of Conquistadores, so they don't need to be all that compatible with my other armies.