The Cossacks Are Back to War

These are the Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry & Horse Archers figures converted to represent generic Eastern European 17th century cavalry. The figures do more or less lend themselves to that with their garb and weaponry, so all I did was use laced torsos and sculpt fur hats on the majority. For the lack of firearms I'll just suppose they are of the poorer type.

(The title of course harkens back to the now more than twenty years old Cossacks: Back to War PC game, playing which I spent countless hours.)

I usually paint the horses and rides together, but this time I batch painted the horses separately, using the oil wipe method. I used four tones of brown (light, orange, chestnut and flat brown) and three types of oils (raw siena, raw umer and Van Dyck) to add variety. Once the oils had dried I highlighted the saddlery and that was it. It really simplified the process and saved me from spending a lot of time on painting just the nags.

The riders themselves are painted in two groups of six, one being a dark red and the other a blue main colour. This way I can use them for opposing factions, such as registered Polish Cossacks against rebellious ones, or any early TYW conflict where there were opposing Croats or Hungarian cavalry.

I'll continue to expand my Eastern European forces in the foreseeable future. At first I considered TAG but their cavalry is a bit too 16th / early 17th century for my taste, so I'll buy the Warlord winged hussars box and sculpt Polish dragoons and pancerni myself on Warlord plastic horses. For the infantry I'll probably buy some resin figures off Etsy.