Kali Yuga: The Age of Conflict

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.