Crossbowmen on the march - finished unit

Below are the photos of my marching crossbowmen which I completed earlier and I prepared a post about them earlier:

Azab infantry archers - finished unit

This azab archer unit is the first unit in my 15th century Ottoman army:

Ottoman army - new year project

As we are approaching the end of this year, I started to make plans for the next year. The decision was not too hard: I am planning to put together a 15th century Ottoman army next year.
It will be useful as an enemy for my 15th century Hungarian army and I also know other wargamers who are interested in this period. In this post I want to give details about the historical background, useful rules and figures of this project.
 

Games Day 2016 - battle report

After five months of preparition we could finally set up our table at the Games Day 2016. As I wrote in my previous post -  the battle was fought between the army of King Matthias and the Holy Roman Empire.
I put together a short description about the event and a battle report:

Games Day Budapest 2016 - incoming event

The biggest wargame event in Hungary is the "Games Day Budapest". There are usually more fantasy and sci-fi tables on the show than historicals. Some historical wargamers put together 3-4 tables every year (there are about 25-30 tables on the show in average). The themes of these historical tables used to be WWII North Africa, American Civil War, SAGA or some kind of medieval wargames.

Marching crossbowmen figures

Last time, after I finished the "Light Cavalry" set, a lot of arms with crossbows remained, because all of my horsemen from the set have lances. I decided to utilize these arms and crossbows in order to make foot crossbowmen.

Mercenary heavy cavalry of King Matthias- finished unit

After a month break in my blog I am back again. During this time I have finished some crosbowmen and handgunners (unfortunately I do not have photos of them) and a full unit of mercenary knights.

15th century light artillery

After a few weeks of break in my blog, I completed the artillery of my 15th century Hungarian army.

Hungarian hussars - finished unit

My unit of 15th century hussars is fully completed. After the conversions and assembling, the painting of the colorful clothes took a long time.

Hussar conversions

After my post about the first hussars, I have started to represent them in wargaming.
Several manufacturers produce figures for this theme. (Perry and TAG stradiots and the Old Glory's first hussar figures) I selected Perry stradiot miniatures because these have the most authentic clothes and equipment. At the same time, I found the strange hats of these figures really annoying. It is really boring when all of the soldiers in the unit have the same hat, so I cut them off and made others from Greenstuff. Most of these sculpted hussars get a simple Hungarian renaissance hat with feathers. Also some of them have Balcanic or Turkish style headgear.

The first hussars - historical background

One of the most successful types of light cavalrymen were the hussars. These fast and tricky horsemen in their beautiful uniforms made great impression on their viewers all time. The hussars had particular moustache and hair style and the virtue of the hussar is famous all over the world. As the saying goes: "the hussar flees with charging!"

Crossbowmen - finished unit

I fully completed the Perry mercenary figures. The last figures from the set are crossbowmen:

Handgunners with pavises - finished unit

I completed the handgunners from the Perry plastic Mercenaries set. They are Hungarian handgunners with pavises.

HYW - Battle report

We played our biggest WAB battle ever with my friends during our holiday. The battle was a random battle from the Hundred Years War with 3700 point armies! It was an “all into it chaos battle” because the figures were very mixed (Swiss mercenaries in the English army and some crusader era figures in both armies).

Preobrazhensky guard regiment - finished unit

As I said in the introduction my other favorite period is the Great Northern War. I really like Peter the Great and his age therefore I am painting his army for the GNW project in 1/72. One of my friends has a Swedish army as enemy against me. For my Russian army I have completed 3 infantry regiments, a dismounted and a mounted dragoon regiment and a field artillery battery. We use the Foundry – Napoleon rule for playing the period. OK, I know this rule refers to another period but I think it can also represent the GNW because the main tactics were the same as in the age of Napoleon. On the other hand the Foundry – Napoleon is an excellent wargaming rule!

  

The pikemen of King Matthias - finished unit

King Mathias's army had more infantry units than the earlier Hungarian armies. Most of the infantrymen in this army were heavy infantrymen. The heavy infantry fought in combined formation: the pavisers and the halbreiders defended the crossbowmen and the handgunners. They had defensive fighting strategies.

15th century Hungarian army project - historical background

In the future I want to take a big influence on the historical background of my projects, units and figures.

At first I want to give some information about the historical background of my 15^th century Hungarian project because it is not a popular period in historical wargaming.

Sigismund (Hungarian king and later the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) died in 1437 and thereafter an anarchy started in Hungary. The barons had very big influence in ruling the country and the royal power decreased. The Kingdom of Hungary was in big danger at this time because in its southern neighborhood the Ottoman Empire acted very aggressively against Europe. The population of Hungary was about only 3-4 million in these times but its territory was at least four times bigger than today in the 21th century. On the contrary, the Ottoman Empire was much bigger and it's population was about 20 million! The revenues of the Sultan were ten times bigger than the Hungarian king's.

The Kingdom of Hungary in the 15th century

Baronial banderium - finished unit

Later on my plan is to prepare a post after every unit I finish. This is the first one:

The baronial troops played a very important role of the 15th century Hungarian armies. That is why at first I painted one for my Hungarian army of this period. These banderial troops mainly contained heavy cavalry/mounted man-at-arms and they were well trained soldiers who fought as mercenaries for a baron.

Baronial troops preparing for battle - Picture on the altar of the Dome of Kassa

My older works

As an introduction I want to present some photos of my figures I have painted recently.

Fireforge Games foot sergeants as 14th century Hungarian regular infantry

Fireforge Games crossbowmen

Welcome!

Welcome on my first blog ever! I am 17 years old. I started to make plastic models 8 years ago and I have been painting figures for six years. In the last four years I have been playing historical wargaming. My favourite periods are the middle ages, the 15th century/reinaissance and the Great Northern war. I have painted up several armies for these periods such as the army of Peter the Great, 100 years war English army and currently I am working on a 15th century Hungarian army. In addition I have a lot of other figures for different periods and from different nations. In the future you can see figures, battle reports and projects in connection with these periods and subjects.

My English is not perfect so please excuse me for any mistakes!

Der Hauptmann