Mongol Heavy Cavalry - Wow, these took longer than I thought!

    Six 28mm Mongol armored cavalry from Curteys Miniatures took a bit longer to paint than I thought

Six armored cavalry...and hey! The mounts are mostly armored, too. These should go quickly, right? Right?? Well, no. That did not prove to be the case at all. Especially when you consider the armor is not chainmail (which would have been a simple drybrush), but lamellar armor instead. For those who aren't sure, lamellar tends to be tiny plates sewn into a coat. The plates can be metal, horn, or even leather. I did some research, and it appears Mongols used a number of different looks for their lamellar armor.

 

    I thought the alternating rows of silver and gold (or steel) horse armor turned out quite nicely

One source said they shined the plates to a high, almost mirror-like polish. Another seemed to imply it was lacquered leather. And when you consider the number of Mongol warriors at the empire's height, and the breadth of lands they conquered, all of these could quite possibly have found their way into use by a heavily-armored, Mongol horseman. Since it could be a variety of looks, I naturally felt the urge to do all of them. Some of my Mongols would have burnished steel armor. Some bronze. Some both in alternating rows. And some would have colored lacquered leather. Now, you are probably beginning to see why these six miniatures didn't paint up quickly.

    I used a mix of different looks for my lamellar armor to reflect a more Cosmopolitan later empire

The ones that were the easiest -- and look very nice, I think -- were the horses with silver or bronze armor. I painted the lamellar barding a base bronze or silver and then put two coats of a dark black wash over it. I then went back and dabbed tiny points of silver or bronze or gold over the high points of the armor to give it more depth. I really like the way they came out. For some, I did alternating rows of silver, bronze, or darker steel. I also thought the horse armor on those came out nicely, too. I painted the cloth or leather edging on the metal armor various colors, which ended up (of course) coordinating with the color that the rider would wear or be armored in himself. Once the horse was finished, I started on the riders.

    I also made my Mongol troopers match the trim colors for their barding and their own armor

For the rider's armor, I mixed in a few colored lacquer armor. I alternated painting each plate, sometimes in a checkerboard pattern. To be honest, I am not 100% crazy how these riders came out. They didn't look awful, but I like the look of the metal armor better. I actually have another batch of six armored troopers I will likely finish up. I will try to remember for those to stick to metal armor and ditch the colored lacquer. The bow cases and quivers I painted to match the previous light horse, decorating them with my Micron pens. 

    My four army points of Mongols finished so far...2/3's of the way there!

 At this stage, I have finished 4 army points worth of Mongols. I will likely do another batch of horse archers next. I noticed that of the current 21 light cavalry figures I have finished up, only about 1/3 are wielding bows in their hands. Most have swords, axes, maces, etc. Time to put more archers in my horse archer army, I guess! I am probably not going to dive right into my next batch of Mongols, though. I have one more team of post-Apocalyptic figures primed and ready to go on the painting desk. I also have four masked vigilantes I need to do for my Mean Streets at Drums. So, those will likely take priority. Stay tuned, though -- more blog posts are on the way!