The problem I have been wrestling with concerns the colours to paint them. I wanted to continue the Aussie Cricket Team colours started with the Future War Commander vessels – basically, green and gold (all right, yellow). But I kept thinking “spaceships, there should be something more”. Metals came to mind along with ceramics. Then it occurred to me, “gold”!

“Eureka” I thought.

I wasn’t sure how to handle the gold though so at lunch time today I took myself off to the Games Workshop Bunker in Clarence Street to have a chat with the friendly staff and a look at the Shining and Burnished Gold colours available in their paint range.

We spoke and then they suggested a variation which looks like it might just be the business for the ships – leastwise for the gold part. Mix the gold with some brown and use that. The suggested method was:

1. Undercoat (black or white – still undecided – will experiment with both to see the final finish)
2. Mix 2 parts Shining Gold with 1 part Calthan Brown as the basic gold colour
3. Wash with a 1:1 mix of Badab Black and Devlan Mud
4. Highlight with Burnished Gold
5. Final wash with Gryphonne Sepia Wash

OK, so the reason I am writing this post is to make sure I don’t forget the alchemy.

For the green there were a couple of suggestions. One was to paint the green areas with Mithril Silver and keep applying successive washes of Thraka Green Wash until the whole green area took on a green hue.

A second idea was to mix 2 parts Mithril Silver with 1 part Goblin (or Snot) Green and see how that looks. A green wash may still be necessary after that and use one of the lighter greens for a highlight. Lots of good ideas to try.

I will, of course, post a blow-by-blow description of how the painting went when I try it. And thanks to the GW staff in Sydney – good ideas (and I will be back when I do the next batch of Victorian Science Fiction to look at the bronze/green mix).

I mentioned a new project the other day, the Tribal Mongol Campaign, where I was thinking of collecting a number of contemporary opponents built to the DBA rules. Mention of the Pecheneg and Cumans by Brownworth in his podcast dealing with Alexius set an idea off in my head. The result is another collection of armies to build.

The armies i decided on are all from book III of the lists, except for the Byzantines. I will hunt for these figures as I am for the Mongol collection. The armies I’m using are three enemies of the Byzantines, one “ally” and one army that was both ally and enemy … and the Byzantines as well, of course

The armies are:

• III/79 – Cuman (Kipchak) 1054-1394 CE
• III/73a – Seljuk Turk (Rum) 1200-1243 CE
• III/47 – Pecheneg 850-1122 CE
• III/51 – West Frankish/Norman 881-1072 CE (Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemud)
• III/52 – East Frankish 888-1106 CE (Alexius paid/persuaded Henry to attack the possessions of Robert Guiscard)
• IV/1a – the Komnenan Byzantines 1071-1204 CE

These were selected as the Seljuk Turks along with the Pechenegs attacked the Byzantines. To counter this Alexius persuaded the Cumans to attack the Pechenegs and managed to persuade the Turks to revolt against the Sultan.

The Cumans started raiding and to counter that, Alexius had the Cuman leader assassinated.

The Normans under Robert Guiscard attacked the Byzantines. To counter this threat Alexius persuaded Henry (Heinrich), the ruler of the East Franks, to attack Guiscard’s possessions causing them to withdraw.

A most interesting period and one I am looking forward to considering the figures for this army and to organise and paint them over the coming year or two.

OK – I’m laughing. Not so much that the squeakier clean than thou Mr Nile has become involved in this but rather from two parts of the report. Mr Nile claimed that the accessing of the porn websites was for research on the Australian Sex Party and the Eros Foundation.

A report by the Department of Parliamentary Services showed his computers had accessed porn sites up to 200,000 times.

Well, that is an awful lot of research. Nile claimed that staffers were only on each website for a few seconds and the IT department at the State Government also noted that many were pop-ups. Doesn’t the IT department block pop-ups as a standard implementation of the browser on the network? Oh well.

The best bit though was when it was noted that

One staff member, a part-time researcher, uses Mr Nile’s personal login name and password.

Well hello, is that not a breach of security on the NSW State Government networks? It is on most commerical operations and anyway, who is so stupid as to give their access details to another at the office that way? Obviously Mr Nile is … although I am sure if he asked the IT guys nicely, they would have provided a logon for his staff member … unles he wanted to keep that secret of course? 

Knowing this, many militaries are developing offensive capabilities in cyberspace, and more than 100 foreign intelligence organisations are trying to break into US networks,

he [US Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn] said via Pentagon computers attacked with USB flash drive.

Gee, it’s nice to have friends. There are what, 200-odd countries in the world? Allowing for some having multiple intelligence agencies, but also allowing for some to be so small or so poor as to not have any agencies or the abilities to mount this sort of attack, Lynn is suggesting that pretty much everybody with an intelligence agency and technical capability is attacking the US.

Anyway, if those foreign organisations really wanted to break into the US networks, all they need are a couple of 16 year old geeks with laptops, a carton of red bull and a couple of home delivered pizza supremes

Paranoia? Nah, couldn’t be … could it?

• Tribal Mongolian – two of these armies
• Uigher
• Sha-t’o Turkish
• Khitan-Liao
• Hsi-Hsia

I considered scales, includig 6mm and 10/12mm but settled on 15mm as the scale of choice for this. Perhaps I’ll mention something about other scale figures in a later post – but don’t hold your breath

As I also mentioned before, the content of the lists for the armies were:

• 1 x 3 Cavalry (the khan and his bodyguard)
• 11 x 2 Light Horse – the tribe – 11 bases of them

This for forces prior to the 13th Century. For later forces, those in the early part of the 13th Century I’ll use:

• 1 x 3 Cavalry (the khan and his bodyguard – maybe wearing armour this time on armoured ponies)
• 1 x 3 Cavalry (some armoured supporters, wealthier or more successful members of the tribe)
• 10 x 2 Light Horse  – the rest of the tribe – 10 bases of them.

So I will be therefore looking for the following figures for each of the first two armies:

• 22 Light Horse figures – probably shooting bows
• 6 Cavalry figures – more armoured type Mongols, maybe with some horse armour. One will need to be the Great Khan and one a standard bearer

The camp will be based around a ger and some baggage or tethered animals with an element of camp followers provided too – these likely to be women and/or children and range from 2 to 4 figures.

So, what figures are available?

Figures

The big question here is which figures to use to make up the Mongol armies. As I am building in 15mm, I will concentrate on that scale only. I should also note that as I am building two armies, I will use two manufacturers of figures. I am therefore examining figures for Tribal Mongol (or DBA Ready Made Army packs).

Essex Minatures

Essex Miniatures make a line of Mongols and also provide a DBA Army pack. The Mongol figure range includes:

Generals & Bodyguards, Armoured cavalry armed with lance and bow, unarmoured cavalry armed with land and bow as well as horse archers. There are also equivalent troops mounted on camels as well as dismounted.

As I recall from Iggulden’s novels, the Mongols did not adopt armour until after some exposure to it from the Chinese. If using Essex I will concentrate on using unarmoured and horse archer figures. Essex also make an ready made DBA Army pack that covers the Tribal Mongol armies from 840 to about 1218 CE. It’s cost is £15.40.

Donnington Miniatures

Donnington Miniatures also make a range of Mongols in their original range, including mounted and dismounted figures. This also includes baggage carried by Bactrian camel. The unarmoured figures themselves appear wearing that very distinctive fur-lined hat of the Mongols. The range includes mounted and dismounted figures, armoured and unarmoured.

Donnington also provides a DBA Army pack for this army, consisting of 56 figures. This is also for the correct time period and currently costs £14.00.

Museum Miniatures

Apart from having arguably the absolute worst website for a wargamer to deal with, Museum Miniatures also have a range of 15mm Mongols. The range includes both mounted and dismounted figures with the figures ranging from armoured men on armoured horses to unarmoured troops. The hats worn by these Mongols have a certain Hun-like appearance about them but will work OK for the Mongols.

Interestingly Museum does not offer a DBA Army pack for the Tribal Mongols, even though they do offer a Uigher army pack.

Legio Heroica

Legio Heroica is an Italian producer of wargames figures. They make an exquisite range of Mongols but these are for the Later Mongol Empire army. I shall return to these when I get to that stage of the project.

15mm.CO.UK

15mm.co.uk offer a range of Mongols as well. As with the other manufacturers there are mounted and dismounted figures which are armoured and unarmoured. This also provide camel mounted troops and baggage. The figures are similar in appearance to the offerings of Museum Miniatures.

The figures in the 15mm.co.uk range are in a range called ISARUS and were formally the Alternate Armies and/or Tabletop figures.

They do not offer a DBA Army pack

Naismith Design

Naismith Design figures are produced and sold by Navwar from the UK. They have a rather primitive mail order service (you need to telephone, fax or send them a letter) but their mail order service and turnaround is superb.

Naismith have a series of nice figures, including Mongol Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Command and some camel mounted figures to boot. These are in their Samurai and Far Eastern range. They also have figures for others of the eastern nationalities.

There are some great painted examples of the Naismith figures on the “An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields” website.

Falcon Figures

Falcon Figures make a larger range of Mongols as well as many of the figures that will be needed later, including, for example, the Koreans.

Alain Touiller Figurines

Alain Touller Figurines from France offer a good range of Mongols as well, although I believe that they sometimes can be slow to supply. They also seem to do a range of Koreans which may be useful later in the project.

Black Hat Miniatures

Black Hat Miniatures offer a range of general Asiatic types the nomad ones of which would appear to pass for Mongols although there are no specific Mongol figures.

Lancashire Games

Lancashire Games also offer a range of 15mm Mongols, including Light Cavalry Firing Bow, Light Cavalry Charging with Bow, Heavy Cavalry, Extra Heavy Cavalry, Dismounted Light Cavalry and Light Cavalry with Spear. The dismounted figure would work for the camp follower and the Extra Heavy Cavalry for the later Mongols. Missing are the command figures.

Old Glory 15s

Old Glory 15s offer a range of 15mm Mongols as well. It is difficult to see how accurate they appear to be from the website photos but they look like they would pass as Mongols.

Outpost Wargames Services

Outpost Wargames Services have some suitable figures included under the range of Jurchen. These can be found under the Ching/Manchu Dynasty range. There is a limited number of figures that can be used for Mongols as the Jurchen became the Manchu and they eventually overthrew the Mongol Yuan court – subjugating the Mongol homelands first. There are many interesting old folk tales spoken by older Mongols about the Manchu even today still.

Pass of the North

Pass of the North have some Mongols at the masters stage – heavy cavalry and light cavalry. They are really nice figures and look just about perfect. However, I am not sure whether these are in production yet or not. I have written to Pass of the North to inquire and will update here later.

As I mentioned above, I contacted Jeff Caruso, the principal behing Pass of the North and he sent me this reply:

Unfortunately, I’m not able to manufacture now (anymore?) I apologize for the confusion of the website. I stopped it two years ago but the host has left it up since it generates hits, a lot more it appears than many of his other clients. I suppose if I could get my casting machine to work, I’d go cast regardless of the impact on me, but I can’t get down on the floor to work on it. Boo hoo.

Thanks for your kind remarks on the appearance of the Mongols as I’ve had a fascination of Genghis Khan for many years. The sculptor will be honored too.

It is a shame that as apart from his Mongols which were really very nice, many of his Ancient German figures in particular were just bloody marvellous.

Viking Forge

Viking Forge have a range of 15mm Mongolian figures although looking at the images on the website I think these would work better as a later Mongol warrior – more like the Mongol Empire time.

Conclusion

There are plenty of 15mm Mongols out there. I am thinking that I will likely build the two Mongol forces from the figures in the Essex, Pass of the North and Naismith. When I come to make the Mongol Empire forces I will look at some of the other ranges. I will start to consider some of the other armies in later posts but for now, that wonderful wargaming task – the planning sessions – will continue.