Another Soldier King "army" completed; although it represents the entire strength of the Duchy, it's more of a contingent of 9 units.
The Duchy of Sinistria is a small province on the borders of Hrvatska and the Electoral states of the Empire; as it has no Electoral city, I see it as nominally part of the greater Imperial states but independent and non-aligned. Originally, I had planned for an army half the size, but realised it's precarious position meant it was at risk on invasion and conquest; coupled with a revised mechanism for recruitment, a doubling of the force was necessary.
By the time I got to devising a uniform scheme for Sinistria, I was running out of ideas. A chance discovery in the Blandford "Uniforms of the Soldiers of Fortune" of a Dragoon in black uniform - a member of the short-lived Freikorps von Favrat was enough - the name of the duchy with it's hint of "sinister" seemed to confirm the choice of black as a uniform colour.
The rest followed easily; the family names of personalities tend to follow colours or colour related words in German; hence the Landgraf became Augustus Maximillian Schwartz with his army of the "Black Brigades". The heraldry was a mix of black, red and yellow which determined the flag colours; the heraldic symbol was originally a head - griffon perhaps? This morphed into a Griffon or Dragon. The Landgraf's rolled up character was that of an honour conscious, arrogant and corpulent individual. Out came the Fimo and a suitable "Grotesque" was sculpted - in fact he came out quite well, my "eye" being definitely "in" as it were due to multiple sculpts around this time.
Instead of a Freikorps, it was expanded into Dragoon regiments, musketeers, hussars and Pandours and artillery were added using Russian uniforms as inspiration. The Grenadiers all had head swaps (and Greenstuff additions) from the AWI plastic range added by Peter Johnstone - smaller than the original SSM but with Prussian style mitres. The Hussars were conversions to mirlitons - some old figures acquired in a host of plastics with odd bits of red and black enamel and individual names / ID on their bases - true veterans of some childhood battles! With a black undercoat, painting was relatively quick.
Due to his "corpulence" the names of units were derived from meat and fish dishes....there are not enough place names in the Duchy!
Landgraf Augustus Maximilian Schwartz von Sinistria
Son - Furst or Markgraf von Sinistria
Von Lorch and Von Monzel
The Leber and Truthahn Gragoons
Kopfel Hussars
Schnitzel and Wurst Regiments
Katenspeck and Schinken Regiments
Kabeljau Pandours
Artillery
The army on parade
And in their storage box
I am often asked "when will we see them in a battle?" Sadly, I still have more painting to do as well as buildings to construct (Schreiber and other East European card buildings). Add to which, I have nowhere currently to play. While the completion of Sinistria is a milestone in the Soldier King project - only Dupanen remains of the states - I also need to complete some "rebels" who will also double as civilian militia and bot Estavia and the Electoral states need expanding, Estavia having another brigade of infantry some cavalry and grenze to paint.
Perhaps a project for retirement?
