15mm 11th Century Seljuks

This is a project I've had brewing for several months. I actually planned the army and purchased the figures back in March. Since then I have wrapped up a few other projects with these in the background. 

These are meant to represent the Seljuk Turkish invasion of Anatolia in the late 11th century where they faced off with the the Byzantines in 1071 at Manzikert, and later against the Crusaders. These guys were also employed as mercenaries for the Byzantine side in the Balkans at different times, so they are a useful unit to have if wargaming is your thing. 

The figures are from Legio Heroica in Italy. I highly recommend supporting the company as they have great products and a friendly owner. 

I tried some new painting styles this time which I am really happy with. Instead of layering multiple shades as I have always done in the past, I basecoated the figures in white, painted with dilute colors, and then then over the cracks and crevices with thin black paint - something between a wash and blacklining. 

Another feature of this army is the large number of horses. To keep inspired as well as get the accurate horse colors, I found searching for images of the Central Asian horse sport "Buzkashi" to be helpful. One exception was the commander's horse, which I tried to paint as an Akhal Teke with tan and gold paint - you can spot him in the left edge of the image below. I am pretty happy with the result. 

Below are some more cinematic shots with the Seljuks facing crusaders and charging into battle. 

I have 3 units of light horse, made with these lightly armored Seljuks. 

Two units are based with 4 men to a base, and the 3rd unit is based individually to break up the lines for visual appeal. 

I also have 3 units of guard cavalry called Ghilman. Elite slave soldiers with a lifetime of training and fighting experience. 

These are based with 5 per stand, and again one unit based individually. 

Finally I have 3 units of foot soldiers - 2 heavy infantry made up of Arab soldiers, and one light unit of Seljuk spears and archers. I have to finish a final unit of light infantry. 

Thanks for looking! I will return to "Western" topics eventually, with Lombard and Italo-Norman units. 

Turkish Special Forces and Arab Paramilitary

*Since there is understandably a lot of sensitivity around this topic, I an choosing to include this caveat to head off any unnecessary discussions. I am not "playing" with these figures; I am not glorifying this military unit; I am not making light of this atrocious conflict in general; I am a modeler. I model armies in miniature. I chose this unit to model because it is a challenge. The particular camouflage uniforms are difficult to paint well and the figures themselves required some modification in order to represent the appearance of the actual fighters. Comments making a big deal about this will be removed.*

Preface over. 

These figures represent FSA which has in recent years been shepherded by Turkish special forces advisors. A good representation of these units is not available with any single set of 15mm figures currently on the market, so I had to choose minis from several different manufacturers and modify some others. Most of the figures are from O8 miniatures (available in the US from PicoArmor) and Khurasan. The Turkish figures are Team Yankee Brits with Peter Pig heads. 

The camo is a mix of M81 woodland and Multicam. The Multicam was painted using the method I previously published (http://benssoldiers.blogspot.com/2016/12/painting-satisfactory-multicam.html).

Thanks for looking. I will be continuing my Early Medieval projects in the next update. Same geographic region, but 1000 years earlier ;)