HaT Andalusians

The standard Piquet 4 base unit is nice and easy to complete for skirmishing infantry, just the 8 figures to paint. I kept to off-whites for the HaT figures but I might go back and give them a wash of colour to distinguish them a bit more from the Arab opposition they are likely to face.

As mentioned last time, these figures have their issues: toy soldier poses, flimsy spears, some wonky detail... They are however incredibly cheap and the right size and proportions to match the LOTR Rohan.

They do not have the elegant sculpting style of the Rohan miniatures, so you do get what you pay for in some respects. No faffing about with greenstuff was required for these so quick to prepare.

This army does not need a lot of light infantry. Sensible archers will be skulking behind lines of spearmen. So these will do the job.

I also took a look at some more veteran figures that might work with the Riders of Rohan sizewise:

GW Rohan (2 & 4) Hinchliffe (1 & 3) Minifigs 5

The older Hinchliffe figure (middle) and the Minifigs (right hand end) are true 25mm scale so a little shorter than the Rohan figures. The newer Hinchliffe figure (left hand end) is 28mm to top of head and quite a good match, slightly chunkier. The detail is pretty good and they might work fine stylewise too. 
 

Hat Andalusians in my 9th - 10th Century Byzantine Army

 Variety is the spice of life?

That could almost be the motto for my miniatures collecting over the years. Once I am committed to an army or war to recreate in miniature, I tend to want to buy some of everything that is available. It is weirdly refreshing in a way to have the artificial limits on this behaviour, provided by the quite singular style and size of the Riders of Rohan figures, which don't mix well with much else. 

This is quite a limitation when considering that the Thematic Byzantine army can have quite a variety of possible allied contingents through the 9th and 10th Centuries - Persians, Armenians, Georgians, Bulgars and steppe nomad mercenaries. In addition they should really field at least a couple of light cavalry and skirmish infantry units.

The sensible, pragmatic option is to ignore the style differences and just buy these "missing " options from any range that strikes the fancy. This may be the way I go in time, but for the sake of this experiment I decided to try to find something that would match up with the GW figures. A strong possibility in size terms looked like the 28mm plastic offerings from HaT Miniatures. These guys are known more for their 1/72 ranges but do a very abbreviated offering in their own version of 28mm including an "El Cid" range of early medieval Spanish.

 

A couple of boxes were duly acquired, for a close up comparison and to see how useful they could be for Byzantine use. Or as a basis for conversion. The light infantry box contains 32 figures for around £10 - £12, so a bit of a bargain on just a cost comparison. There are 4 identical sprues inside, each with:

2 archers

3 javelineers

2 crossbowmen

1 slinger

For "usability" I considered that a simple change of some of the javelins to slings will give 4 units, 8 of each type. Although all nominally "light" infantry, they do have a right old mix of equipment. There are only 4 separate bucklers (for the slingers?) and one each of the archers and crossbows are armoured in mail. I did choose the box with the most generic selection of costumes. On their heads they are a mixture of simple turbans/headwraps and bare headed. 

The detail and poses very much show the plastic toy soldier heritage of these figures. They are slim and proportional in style and the poses are designed for fitting in a mould with minimal parts to stick together. This means most of the figures are a little flat, the only one with a separate arm highlighting this by its more natural look, when assembled. The detail is reasonably good if quite subtle compared to wargames figures. I have put a wash on an example of each (below) to make the sculpting easier to appreciate.

 

 

 

 

The only figures I have some reservations about drafting into my Thematic Byzantine army would be the crossbow archers. I have seen reference to them in 9th - 10th Century armies but they were rare if they did exist. The crossbows are some of the separate items on the sprues so can be replaced with less controversial bows or javelins without too much drama. Turban type headgear was apparently quite ubiquitous especially amongst the poorer recruits in the regional armies. The acid test for these figures is do they mix with the GW Rohan figures? By and large the answer is "yes".

The heights are pretty much spot on and the proportions very close, maybe a shade slimmer. This works fine for lighter equipped infantry compared to bulkier armoured and becloaked elements. I would not put the sculpting in the same class as the Perry's Rohan figures but few can live up to that comparison. Stylistically they do not clash too much. The next test will be comparing a unit with some paint daubed on. 

Negatives I have discovered so far include VERY thin weapons if in a quite durable plastic. Where it is a big issue is where the spears are attached to the sprue with bulky tabs that are very difficult to remove without damaging them (for me at least.) The flat poses I have already mentioned and if it bothered me enough I could do some surgery with heat and scalpel. How these paint up, with their quite shallow detail, remains to be seen.