Kali Yuga: The Age of Conflict

“What is one man’s garbage is another’s treasure” couldn’t be any more true at the moment. A local man was selling his printed FDM wares at my FLGS and I found just the right piece to start into scratchbuilding the bladed chariot from Baahubali. Apparently he had done some resin work and the hitch for the coach he was making was too warped to use properly so he had a separate free pile. Aside from that there was a small break where the cross beam would be for the horses. Seeing this I knew exactly what I needed and took it from him gratefully. I got home, hit it with my heat gun and straightened the spar out before cleaning up a little of the resin I didn’t need in order to start the build process for the mobile death machine.

I can think of two Hannibal quotes that work for this progress at the moment

I will either find a way or make one – like him I will be working with elephants soon

I love it when a plan comes together – no stogie for me but the sentiment is the same

Going over the files for the tigers it looks like I should keep searching for other models. The aesthetic just doesn’t work between the figures. I think that the Kickstarter figure of Princess Kaata on jaguar from the Titanforge Amazons army is the best concept art outside of the zeotrope image I pulled.

I’ll keep digging and try to find more fitting models for the Perry figs. With all the stuff from Wargames Atlantic that’s in the wild I could’ve gone that route for the Hearthguard unit. The fact that they have water buffalo gives me hope that they could pull off something akin to my crazy thought.

My patience and a small donation to a creator has paid off. I have been given files for tiger mounts to be used by my Sikhs. If all of them are unarmored it will be blissful to imagine fielding my Perry sculpts on the table.

Yes, yes it’s all off script for even gaming in the gaps but I take my artistic license through creative measures (the paperwork for my real artistic license is being processed).

Before I start work on these I’ll finish my Amazons. I’m still on the lookout for files to have a proper Kali statue. If anyone knows/has some please reach out to me.

We can only imagine the furry faced Gerry from on high speaking the words “Get on with it!” as in a certain legendary work of comedy, or atleast he does when he’s done with his beer and football after the UHH, when giving his ‘gentle nudges’ to various community members to work on their projects. In that vein I will give spring and summer a miss and go straight for this addition to the project.

Pbbbbttttt!!!!

And now the mature part of the post…

I admit historical inaccuracy in my force. The timeline does not work according to fact and I withdraw my thought of absolutely gaming in the gaps. As such I will let loose and go further in my embrace of the ludicrous. What Hollywood did for imperial Romans and ancient Egyptians I will dive headlong into the insanity which is Bollywood. I turn to the spectacle entitled “Baahubali” and bring in over the top visuals for reference.

As much as I love to be more serious I did watch this Indian fantasy which has moved me toward being less so. The prime quality cheese with a high end production value has made me decide I need to go further afield in my vision.

In the vein of continuous tinkering with the idea mine and coming up with unique and interesting things I have stayed with the Harryhousen motif as I do the last model of the Arabian Knights (really, for real, it WILL actually be finished). So I did a bit of a switch with the statuary previously shown of Kali and took another cue from ‘The 7th Voyage of Sinbad’ to use the snake woman as a monster addition if desired. The model has already been printed and is being shipped.

So I decided to look again over the army build that I’ve planned for some Indians that will use Blitzkrieg minis. Well, they updated their ranges and have more figures available. Apparently I’ve only looked at the Classical Indians and they have true Medieval Indians to work with. Needless to say I sat and did a plan for the cost of a build and the disturbance to my constitution nearly touched cloth (a fancy way of saying I almost pooped myself).

It seems I may do a double build of this and will still grab a carved Kali to differentiate the armies. This matter also seems to be an issue I have for another army build for the future.

In looking ahead to Future Me it seems as though Mr. Soule might have been onto something as far as the path to better painting could be in the process of practice in repetition.

As a side note, as of the writing of this post, I’ve found a 3D sculptor who has done tiger mounts for their range on Myminifactory and have asked about getting some done up in running poses. I could have some updates to something along those fantastic lines I talked about.

Happy day! Have A Nice Day would be better suited for the moment as they are the manufacturer of the model I found to use as my saddhu (Human Monk 1). I picked it up from the booth run by Badger Miniatures in February but decided to sit on the progress as I work on another project for the moment.

I’ve received my selection of Maiden Guard that I ordered from 1st Corps and Thistle&Rose and plan to multi-base lord Boobs on Dropapu with a command group of ladies. The eight other troops will be on foot separately.

I have also settled on my list of figures for this army to purchase in 2024. My rate of work should be realistic and it will give me more time to think about any other bits and pieces I might want to add to the army. The Shunga empire under the rulership of lord Ramasanjit Jayant Manish Boobs will be manifest in a mighty mass of minis. Now I just need to throw out a line for someone to sculpt the Kali statue. I’ll hold out on that for the moment to replenish my wallet. The cyclops taught me that valuable lesson dearly.

Seeing the success of the work with Craiyon I turned to it once more to make banner work easy that will become waterslide transfers. I have also gone on a bit of a rummage about the internet for fabric patterns that I find interesting and inspire my painting. At the moment I’m not so much of a fan of paisley but I’m working out my apprehension about ornate freehand patterns.

The military might of lord Boobs is ever-growing. The downside to doing research is finding a metric butt ton of worthless information that doesn’t hash out to too terribly much. In this case I have found disparate things that will be of worth in future.

Tigers bound like horses. Well, in a way they do as we can see a general manner of muscle movement as was shown like zoetrope images. Here we can break down the action in frames that a tiger model can be built upon.

With this information I’ll see if I can get some decent 3D sculpting done for a tiger riding unit. This is a fantastic army after all.

There are no 28mm Sikh cavalry miniatures which I have found that aren’t wearing British influenced uniforms. The closest that I can get to medieval/traditional garb for Indians is that of Tribal Afghans from the Perry’s for their range Victoria’s Little Wars. I think a little bit of sculpting will make this all come together as only a few details would need to be changed.

I’m already set to build units for the upcoming army and developments will occur in due time. Whether or not those things pan out, I have no idea right now but with the Arabian Knights as my guide I think the experience to preplan in depth is good.

The research goes on for relevant minis to use and there are successes and short comings. I’ll begin with the crap and work my way out of the funk.

Tiger riding Sikhs still elude AI. It’s getting better (I think?)

I have, unfortunately, managed to track down quite a number of figures made for 15mm which are way too small for my painting aim of adding Maiden Guard. As previously mentioned there were 28mm figures made for a medieval Indian army line that ended up being split between companies. I have, however, met with success in getting an answer from Thistle&Rose about the Vendel Ancients and they have them as selection AI11 Warrior Maidens. I will have them added asap.

I apologise as these images are horrible and I am ashamed of the ai image generation. I jumped onto Craiyon as a quick generator and threw in the text “Sikh warrior carrying a talwar in right hand while riding on the back of a charging tiger”.

These were the most promising of the returns after a few dozen attempts. The rough ideas have potential but I think I’d have better luck in future with a real human being to tweak things for a 3D models for a special tiger riding unit. It seems that tigers seem to elude AI like the additional eyes and fingers.

If possible, funding being the problem, I will definitely be tossing images of real tigers and Sikh warriors at a sculptor who could do the job for this creation. There are plenty of tiger models out there that fit the bill but properly positioned and outfitted riders will be the issue. The creativity will continue to bubble.

I’ll be painting up a monster other than the wonderful Kali statue in future and it will be a huge Indian cobra (aka. Spectacled Cobra ; Naja naja) for the way I can play with visual interest. Going from dusty tan and grey I’ll be able to introduce yellows, brown and white to grab the eyes with neutral tones far from the loud clash of colors I hope to bring troops. It reminds me of the story of Rikki-tikki-tavi and will be a good counterpart to the future of the Cococucqui Amazons I’ll paint.

I’ve seen the Studio Tomahawk release for Age of Hannibal and I thought it might be time to just dump this upon you lot as Dropapu might enrich the earth. I won’t be picking up that book but seeing the minis for the release means I’m likely on the right track for the lines I’ve selected.

Gerry won’t be the only one to enjoy this privately and it might be a point of discussion on the UHH as Giftmas comes in part for Tim.

As a consolidation of projects I am cancelling a previous one and bringing content here. I believe that having the figure on hand, as I still observe my ‘No New Mini Purchases’ policy until next year, is quite handy.

Seeing such an interesting model made me think that there needed to be just as interesting a base of I were to make a display piece. I envisioned an opening lotus blossom with a mandala under the feet of the figure. Thus I began my search for both to incorporate into the desired item. Initially I was going to have someone 3D sculpt this but AI will fill that need. I could probably handle the minor lift modifications for printing.

It would need to be pretty large as the base supplied with the resin is about 50mm in diameter. That being said I think something around 15mm (maybe more) in height would be right and end up making the petals stubby. Here I’d also remove the lid to this incense burner to make it an inset mandala. The entire figure would be done up in muted colors/pastels according to Indian art.

Overall its more exercise in creativity and help inspire the force build on a motif.

What’s Age of Magic without a mage? Just another historical game per my mind. So, to address this I’ve considered the magic of India. I was not well versed in any particular tradition as it seems that the folk magic and miracles seem to be the realm of saddhus (holy men) or other hedge mages. In that regard I’ve gone to research again and found that the Aghori fit in the best for what I think visually would be useful to gameplay.

Philosophically I’m at a loss to imprint reality on tiny fighting men but its been a wild ride to read about their radical rejection of the material world and practices.

As devotees to a philosophy of all things being equal, anything “good” or “bad” is no better in the material world, that are known to carry human skulls for drinking vessels/begging bowls who sometimes eat the flesh of the dead yet are thought to be great healers. I may reconsider my battleboard for what magic they have use of but I’ll stick with The Horde as a starting point.

I gathered some images to start my creativity, should I need to do conversions, and dredged up Indus miniatures with their lot of saddhus

Having seen smilodon riding barbarians I turned the creativity aim at tiger riding specialty troops.

I pulled images as reference from the internet that will be fed to the AI and play around with. I’ll put some design time to develop the concept sketches and models when I can sit and devote real brain time to it. My intent is to hand over the final ideas to Blitzkrieg as to include them in their line of work. If it goes anywhere, great. If I get a small amount of money, that’d be great. In the event I get recognized for the help and got a few figures, that’d be great too. Honestly, I believe this idea is too good to pass up.

With thoughts of future monstering for a moment I dug around for some good images to reference in the creation of the Kali statue. I did my 180 on the AI creation tool after considering where I could utilize the sculpting program in order to recreate the digital model for printing. Given that it is a licensed work I have no intent to sell or distribute the information beyond my own personal use as an homage to the work of a special effects legend.

I’ll go ahead and think about buying some Maiden Guard, when I start buying minis next year, as it fits in with the end of the Shunga Empire and the assassination of the last Shunga ruler Devabhuti. From the Ancient World entry the final leader was noted to have been rather fond of the ladies. Gaming in the gaps I’ll say that Lord Boobs was rather fond as well but not yet taken as far afield as The Dictator (as played by Sasha Baron Cohen) or the late Col. Qaddafi.

Looks like I’ve found the definitive info for some ancient Indians that relates not only to the line of figures I’ve seen but the industry in general. The only work I’ve seen in 28mm done in metal was produced for the game(?) Molon Labe back in January 2011 taken on by Sgt Major Miniatures. SMM appears to go belly up in 2017. I’ve found that the range was split between 1st Corps , Newline Designs and Thistle&Rose Miniatures at the time of SMM folding. This comes from looking over images on offer from 1st Corps and Newline.

The blog Irregular Wars featured the Project Bacchae and had an entry for their own development of an Indian force showing off a conversion from the two greens that ended up in the hands of Thistle&Rose. For anyone interested in making their own 28mm Indian force using metal this might be very helpful

1st Corps and Newline seem to possess a good portion of moulds to offer a whole army either way when you dig a bit and spread cash about. I haven’t reached out to Thistle&Rose but they claim the Vendel model line that included them. I might get enough to field a squad of Warriors or double Hearthguard. One mustn’t squander time, effort or money in the defense of Boobs after all.

This will be a quick review of the order I placed as my elephant has arrived and it is the perfect size for my purposes. I placed it on a custom 80x50mm base I ordered through Litko on their specialty size creator. Not wanting to glue it yet I dry fitted with poster tack. Dropapu was sculpted in head and torso sections with all the scaffolding inside with drainage ports in the back making the sculpt superb. The only additions necessary were the bells on a smaller separate sprue. At the 28mm scale this is great for Saga as a singular leader on beast. At this size it would be possible to multibase a pair of elephants on a 90x120mm oval or even a trio on the full 100x150mm maximum. There is much temptation for me to do that but I really need to focus my monstering on the Harryhausen Kali statue. I have a motif that needs to be fulfilled after all.

The additional figures included in my package were an archer, the leader and a double of the mahout. As a sculpt, Lord Boobs sits back as though he was lowriding on his elephant and will be adjusted later with some Dremel work. This is evident even in the screenshot which shows the clipping even before I received the figures in hand. The mahout is sculpted to sit rightly over the elephant’s shoulders. The archer is poised properly to be at the rear of the trio in his seated position. The problem is that I’ll need to cut the archer in half to get the proper seated position and useful torso in order to carry the parasol. This really isn’t a problem for me with the kitbashing experience I have but it may pose an issue for others. What I found most interesting is that the hands have no need to drill for spears/poles as the mahout has an open area to slide the weapon though which will fit a rod about the diameter of a paperclip. This will be a good piece to paint.

Owing to being a man of the world I am aware of the Japanese term shunga which is used for the erotic themed block print art of the Edo period. This also happens to be a homophone for the name of an empire of India between185-73 BCE that sat in what is today Uttar Pradesh within the Ganga river basin. (That makes me questions why Mexican ganger chicks -cholas- were in India)

Word play and jokes aside I decided to do some army building for gaming in the gaps with more information that I gathered from an ourstanding article from the World History Encyclopedia written by Dr. Avantika Lal.

The Shunga were in a region with a varied ecology which would allow for me to field all major unit types mentioned in various texts of ancient and medieval warfare in India. Infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants being the four elements of armies means that I’ll have more places to put thought.

I’m a sucker for sketching things out but perhaps not fully illustrating. I’ve gone and fallen off the deep end again. I am still painting my minis for regular chipping away at the Pile of Shame (Pile of Overwhelming Potential; PoOP) and have found a happy place inside my head to get things done. I am, however, finding my hobby butterfly flitting a bit as I try to stay focused. Being a creative sort of person has this disadvantage.

Knowing a scant little of the history of ancient Indian warfare and only a bit more on the modern movement to keep Indian martial arts alive I have found that the forthcoming army could use figures with talwar wielding men sporting bucklers (dhal). With only minor modification the figures to the line I found, at present, could be made to sport the image in my head but I really want to do less and get more paint out. Wargames Foundry had me covered to begin with before I kept thinking.

In that continuation of pondering I reached out to Paul, the friendly fellow at Blitzkrieg, and proposed the notion. I was happy to get a response that it was already a thought and would be worked on in future. For me this is great. I’d put forth, eventhough this is private at present, the best option would be to have a 3D print of the shield seperate which could be added later and have the sword just be a hand option attachment to lower the amount of models needed to be sculpted. I guess this is an old fashioned mindset as everything is a print on demand model of sales. Eh *shrug* options.

Some video of gatka and other visual splendor of the things I find inspiring.

Weapons of Shivaji Maharaj

After realizing the great scope possible with Saga Age of Magic I blame Gerry. There is nothing more to say about my direction in interest of Asian conflict. I will say that I also hold Warren accountable to some degree. After going into the search for his 25mm scale Asian elephants I found more than I bargained for. I developed my own case of elephantiasis of an Asian persuasion just as he did. I will also refer back to his questions about African elephants and taking tea in the XLBS to comment, that was rather silly. Its like tigers in Africa. He can keep his homage to Hannibal in future should he creep into 28mm scale. Both would be tickled by Blitzkrieg Miniatures as I was.

I already am developing my force list from the offerings Blitzkrieg has to offer on eight points. This will have the best elements of serious gaming and hardcore humor. I’ve put down point values and addendums as supplemental figures to round out the units.

2 Handed Swords x2 [1pt]

Indian Archer Regiment x1 [3pt]
Indian Command Pack x3 [supp]

Indian King x1 [warlord on foot]
Indian Parasol Command x1 [supp]

I’ll use the king the same way I did with my Arabs to stand multiple figures on a base with drummer, parasol and a commander directing with his sword.

Indian King on Elephant [warlord on beast]

Lord Boobs will rumble forth on his pachyderm pride and joy, the epic elephant, Dropapu.

I plan on running a Horde list so I’m torn on the use of spearmen. I can double their use as footsoldiers or as Levy javelineers despite the fact there are javelin throwers sold in units of four.

I think there was some tweaking of the rules for The Horde as far as abilities ao I’ll likely add some fast attack as well.

Indian Heavy Chariot (V2) [chariot-1pt]
Indian Cavalry Pack x2 [1pt]

Here we have the monsters as most of the interesting part of the list if the rest already hadn’t been noteworthy.

What’s life without more elephants?
Elephant with crew [monster-1pt]

Kali statue from “Golden Voyage of Sinbad” [monster-1pt]

I’ll need to get some work done to get a proper Harryhausen statue for this so it’ll be a while. Giftmas is coming and it doesn’t come cheap.

I’ll put more thought in later but this is my base sketch.