These rugged, brave, and grudgebearing warrors fought an astonishing centuries-long conflict with their colossal Russian neighbor, as so evocatively portrayed in The Sabers of Paradise. They were frequent allies of the Ottoman Turks and a combined Ottoman/Daghestani army inflicted such a crushing defeat on 10,000 Muscovite invaders that the Russians dared not invade again for decades. Their feats of horsemanship were astonishing, and a no less than Napoleon Bonaparte thought them the finest horse warriors in the world.
The models are meant for the renaissance and 18th century, after the Caucasians adopted the pistol and musket but before the furry hat and long kaftan with cartridge loops became common in their ranks. That said, many of these models would fit right into later 18th and even 19th century battles.
The cavalry are almost all breakwaist (with the lower body cast onto the horse) to improve posability and assure that the models can be depicted shooting or fighting to the front.
The first set are the cavalry charging with turkish pistols. There are four different types of upper torso, three different horses, and two extra upper torsos for unit command, so 14 torsos and 12 horses in the pack. This is one unit of noble cavalry in FoGR, for instance, or if you are building six bases instead of four, you can just make two units for every three packs.
The second set are also noble cavalry, but using their more traidtional weapon, the bow. Same pack arrangement.
This image shows what the unit command torsos look like -- a set of these upper bodies comes with each of the above packs. Flags are not included.
This set is high command, trick riders, and extra torsos. The high command is self explanatory really, and are one piece castings. Also included are two trick riders, a man standing on his horse at full gallop (yes, they did that) and one riding slid over on the side of his horse, firing a pistol (this last one is a one-piece casting). The set also comes with four spare upper torsos -- two with light lances, one with two pistols (seen attached to the man standing on his horse) and one with two swords. These spare torsoes fit into any lower body in the these sets. Mixing in a few of these lancer torsos would be handy to represent the light lance, bow* option in FoGR (apparently meant to represent Circassians) or the Si(S) in DBR. Flags are not included.
The next set are nomadic light cavalry -- the Nogai Horde had broken up and these nomads wandered across the Caucasus, and could usually be found scouting and skirmishing for the armies of the area. These come with twelve horses in three different poses, twelve torsos in three different poses, and a thirteenth torso with a sword in case you want/need a unit commander.
Here are Caucasian infantry, charging into action with the fearsome shashka sword, which terrified the Russians because of the ease with which it could lop off an arm or a head. Many of the infantry would have been Daghestanis, Chechens, or Abkhazians. Half have shields. These are also in sets of twelve, four different poses.
Next are the infantry with throwing spear, organized the same as the swordsmen. FoGR players could mix these two codes for units classified as light spear/swordsman.
Finally we have the infantry skirmishers with Turkish muskets. These were deadly marksmen and are very useful on the tabletop to support the assault of your noble horsemen.
All painted by Artmaster Studio. Will release them next week once the codes are all packed for sale. Thanks for looking!
