Kali Yuga: The Age of Conflict

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.