Slitherine

It is about time I had a brand new 15mm Byzantine army, and I am contemplating one from the Post-Latin Conquest period.

With Oath of Fealty in the pipeline, I plan on making it circa 1250 so that the Latinikon can be morphed into Sicilian Hohenstaufen or other mid to later 13th century western armies.

So can anyone please give me any 15mm figure recommendations for circa 1250 AD

- For Byzantine foot and cavalry
- For Western Knights with barrel-helm

?

No idea on the Byzantine, but good question as I consider something similar (just the other way round, already got most of the Hohenstaufen done).
For the knights I used a mix of the Black Hat Feudal Range (just make sure it's the Feudals... stay away from their Crusader Range): http://blackhat.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=22_54
and Touller: http://www.atoufigs.com/PBSCCatalog.asp ... D=67240192

Both very nice ranges, true 15 mm, that mix perfectly well.

I've just been adding the Byzantine listings to my FoG armies guide, and its a bit mixed as most manufacturers dont seem to specify what their "Byzantines" actually are. In 15mm the choice looks to be :

Essex Miniatures - Several Byzantine ranges. 8 Maurikians, 7 Thematics, 10 Nikephorians & 5 Generic Psiloi for all era in their Ancients ranges.
Donnington 22 Byzantines, including a Belisarius general figure (a clue to them being fairly early maybe..) plus a 23-strong C12-13 range
Museum Miniatures - 17 Byzantines, reasonably early period.
Black Hat Miniatures / Gladiator Games - 10 Komnenans in their Crusades range.
Old Glory 15s - 12 Belisarians, and 22 codes in a "7th-13th Century Byzantine" range
Minifigs - 21 Byzantines, from C7-C11 in their Dark Ages range, 5 more C11-13 ones in their Crusades range
Irregular Miniatures - 21 Byzantines, with Nikephorian, Tagmatic, Thematic, Maurikian and Belisarian cavalry listed as well as C7-10th oval-shield foot and C11-13the kite-shielded foot
Tin Soldier 21 codes for 10th & 11th Century Byzantines
Battle Line Miniatures (NZ) Same range as Isarus (see below)
Alain Touller - almost 20 Byzantines with both kite and round shields
Isarus - sold by 15mm.co.uk 18 Byzantines, kite-shielded lancers and round-shielded bowmen
Outpost Wargame Services 10 Crusade-era Byzantines
Khurasan Miniatures - 20-odd Nikephorian Byzantines (kite shield infantry)
Viking Forge - Generic range of 20 or so Byzantines, Tagmatic and Thematic cavalry are listed
50 Paces/Miniature Wars - 10 -strong Belisarian (early) range

There are lots of very nice crusade era knights out there.

Looking at this in more (not much more admittedly) depth, what woudl people suggest as the date after which Byzantine shields change from round shaped to kite shaped ?

(this seems to be the main distinction between many of the "Byzantine" figure ranges out there)

tim

As an arbitrary suggestion - 700AD?

Ghaznavid wrote:No idea on the Byzantine, but good question as I consider something similar (just the other way round, already got most of the Hohenstaufen done).
For the knights I used a mix of the Black Hat Feudal Range (just make sure it's the Feudals... stay away from their Crusader Range): http://blackhat.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=22_54
and Touller: http://www.atoufigs.com/PBSCCatalog.asp ... D=67240192

Both very nice ranges, true 15 mm, that mix perfectly well.

I used the Black Hat (former Gladiator) Feudals for my Sicilian Hohenstaufen (knights and crosbowmen) and am very pleased with them. NB they are noticeably smaller than Essex, who also have a range for the period. I mainly used Essex for the Saracen troops, except their foot archers don't have the recurved bows that they probably should have. Never managed to find a decent figure for "Saracen Axemen" though, will these be in the FOG list?

lawrenceg wrote:Never managed to find a decent figure for "Saracen Axemen" though, will these be in the FOG list?

Not specifically as axemen. There are Saracen close fighters who are graded as HF or MF, Light Spear, Swordsmen

lawrenceg wrote: Never managed to find a decent figure for "Saracen Axemen" though, will these be in the FOG list?

There are some Light Spear, Swordsmen types but no Axemen I believe.

lawrenceg wrote: I used the Black Hat (former Gladiator) Feudals for my Sicilian Hohenstaufen (knights and crosbowmen) and am very pleased with them. NB they are noticeably smaller than Essex, who also have a range for the period. I mainly used Essex for the Saracen troops, except their foot archers don't have the recurved bows that they probably should have. Never managed to find a decent figure for "Saracen Axemen" though, will these be in the FOG list?

Actually the Black Hat (former Gladiator, former Hobby Products) infantry mixes well with Essex. Essex is ever so slightly bulkier and taller, but not really noticeable (the comparably massive Essex spears might stand out a bit though). The gigantic Essex horses however make mixing mounted a problem (the riders themselves are actually ok again... I've a couple of Essex Riders on Gladiator Horses, they fit surprisingly well... IMO so far no one made better proportioned and more beautiful horses then Josef Ochman).

The Saracen close fighters in the Later Sicilian list only provide a challenge now if you want to use the armoured option and (like me) prefer a variety of poses, etc.

Essex miniatures Late byzantine cavalry: http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa31 ... kar/Cv.jpg

madaxeman wrote:Looking at this in more (not much more admittedly) depth, what woudl people suggest as the date after which Byzantine shields change from round shaped to kite shaped ?

(this seems to be the main distinction between many of the "Byzantine" figure ranges out there)

tim

11th century for spearmen, according to the osprey books.

all in all the essex Byzantines from their medieval eastern European range are the best post 1261 reconquest of Constintinople Byzantines and are probbaly nearer c1250 than any other, but lack commands and, vardaroiatoi, turkopoles and cumans can be taken from other ranges. The kontaratoi in the later essex range is arguably too late and you'd need a kite sheilded figure from old glory or black hat. The old glory 15s commands though not such well made figures are historically accurate for the period.

David

For my 15mm Medieval Sicilians I mixed Mirliton, Blackhat (nee Gladiator) Feudals, Minifigs, Donnington & Feudal Castings.

Mirliton - Communal Spear, x-bow, German Merc Knights;

Gladiator Feudals mixed with Mirliton - Knights, European Arriere ban;

Minifigs sprinkled with Donnington - Saracen axemen, Noble Cav,
Berber LH and Arab Arriere ban;

Feudal Castings - Saracen Bowmen;

I need fig recommends for the Griffons for pre 1190's and Aragonese x-bow, Aragonese LH & Catalan Almughavars for after 1280.

Also have to decide whether to split up my 3 dble-based German Merc knights (Kn I) and 4 dble-based spear and x-bow (Bw X) or get duplicate figs on single bases (gotta get that past the Sig' Other )

John Mc

Me at IWF Melbourne 2005 with my Sicilians http://www.nwa.org.au/dbx/MelbIWF/pics/63.jpg

madaxeman wrote:Looking at this in more (not much more admittedly) depth, what woudl people suggest as the date after which Byzantine shields change from round shaped to kite shaped ?

(this seems to be the main distinction between many of the "Byzantine" figure ranges out there)

tim

Looking through the statues in the source of all knowledge (osprey late and early byzantine books) there was significant crossover.

I think it reasonable to use roundies and or teardrops for Nikephorian and Komnenan. Thematic should all be round while Post latin conquest should all be teardrop shaped.

The problem with this approach though is that artwork from a particular time can portray the armament from an earlier period rather than contemporary so just because arms adn equipment is used in art of a time doesnt necessarily mean that it was actually in use then.

For convenience I like making the distinction between Byzantine Cav adn byzantine knights by the shape of thier shield.

rbodleyscott wrote:It is about time I had a brand new 15mm Byzantine army, and I am contemplating one from the Post-Latin Conquest period.

- For Western Knights with barrel-helm

?

Mirliton are my favourite bucketheads
http://expendablecic.tripod.com/Feudal/

On Frederick II Stupor Mundi there is a beautiful site (most in Italian, but something also in English)
http://www.stupormundi.it/Default.htm
There are a lot of links, in particular to monuments of Frederick II age, which can be useful.

vichussar wrote: I need fig recommends for the Griffons for pre 1190's and Aragonese x-bow, Aragonese LH & Catalan Almughavars for after 1280.

For the Almughavars I would recommend Eureka, especially since you are from down under anyway. Even with the added shipping cost to Europe I found them well worth it, very nice sculpts and 16 variants (not counting the command miniatures). They also mix well with the Touller Almughavars (and probably the Essex ones, though I don't have any of those) if you want even more variety.

the Eureka mini's are not available yet at Eureaka US.

I didn't see them on the Aus site... Do you have a catelog# for them?

Madcam.

Yep, Eureka seems a bit behind on it's HP. They are in the 300 club but still listed as in production with no further details.
http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath ... 00&sort=3a

The mail I got stated for codes:

• 300ALM01 Almughavar Infantry (16)
  300ALM02 Almughavar Officer (1)
  300ALM03 Almughavar Hornist (1)
  300ALM04 Almughavar Standard Bearer (1)

The number in brackets indicates the number of variants.



The picies I got look like they were made from greens, but I found them rather representative.

Thanks Ghaznavid,

I'd heard they were planned, I'll have to chase up Nic at Eureka.

John Mc