Plastic Bashkir with Fireforge Mongols

I despise metal models, so even though Gringo40 do nice Kalmuks and Bashkirs, I opt for plastic. Thanks to the art of Azhat Kuzhin I came to conclusion, that Fireforge Mongols can be a good variant with some minor changes. Well, they are not.

The set

Fireforge set came with 3 sprues of riders and 4 sprues of horses. All horses are interchangeable. One sprue of riders has 4 bows, 2 swords, 2 javelins/spear, option for flag with two different motives and musician. There are swords in scabbards, quivers and bows for 4 models, which is nice detail. 6 heads, 6 hats, 6 shields. However the posing options are limited.

My thoughts about conversion

The biggest difference is of course saddle and chabraque. I plan to use greenstuff there, to reshape the shabraque / saddle cover into square as seen on Kuzhin’s art. Unfortunately the models has very high front part of the saddle, but that I will leave as it is, or use file and saw to lower it. But that is acceptable as it is.
Other thing are boots, as they are the only part of Bashkir equipment which changes from the time of Genghis Khan, so files and greenstuff would be my friend.
I am currently working on the article about bashkirs in 1812, so I have done some recherches, about equipment. Unfortuantely I found lack of chainmail bodies and turkic helmets in my bitz box, so, may be with some other models.
I found the regimental commander was major from Garrison Infantry Regiment, so I bought Frontrank regimental commander model and will use it as command figure/base, so I have one rider spare for some later changes.
I thought that I will put one rider on Frontrank S2 horse as loot, unfortunately due to traits of the raider mentioned bellow, that is not possible.¨

Horses

The horses are huge, like realy huge. Whenever you read anything about mongols and especially light cavalry, you read that small wiry riders were marching on wiry ponies. Here we have horses probably based upon scatches for animated move for Disney, they are very hight, bulky, they have weird poses. The positioning of neck is loose and needs some putty to cover the gap, and look very artificial. There is virtualy step between body of the horse and the neck, so it does not look natural. Looks more like extra head, than part of the body. Sure the heads, tails and half of the bodies are interchangeable, but this is not a horse, but some tzeentchy beast crossbred with my little pony with Disney action pose!

Riders

The horses are huge and bulky, it means the riders need long and bent legs. Like long, long, very long legs. Do you know Adriana Sklenaříková? Her legs are not that long. It also mean, you are unable to put the rider on any other horse, be it Frontrank, Perry or Warlord. I have spare Frontrank Light Horse, and the driver looks like giant on it. Also the legs are not symmetric – not sure if this is Mongolian style, or it is artistic expression for action poses, but it does not look very well on the models. The torso is bend, all Mongols riders has probably scoliosis and humps.The hands are, you know what? Long. Very long. If I recalculate the length of the hand in the scale, I cam to wonderfull 84cm. I have 60cm from shoulder to fingers. So probably the riders has been sculpted with orangutans in mind and the heads looks similar. Again all we know about mongol and turkic peoplee is that they have flat faces. Those has very nice Homo Sapiens Neandrtalis sculpts. But faces are regular issue with Fireforge. The heads are bald, you can put topknots or several choices of hats on the heads, which is cool. Except they roundness, they are quite nice.

Kitbash

Well, the change of hands is obvious kitbash which has to be done first. It’s also certainly the one most visible. I used Warlord British Infantry WW2 hands holding Carbines from Warlord Napoleonic Lancers. They look quite well on the model. Some of the hands I will cut and shorten a little with razorsaw. Otherwise I will use whatever hand I find in my bitzbox.
I will use my bitzbox often for trophies and any looted equipment including pistols, carbines, muskets and swords.

Conclusion

The size of the model is the size of the armed knight, which obviously is not right. I knew Fireforge models are heroic 28mm (and they new fantasy sets are almost GW heroic 28mm), but I did not expect the diminutive mongols would be that huge. The cavalry is the same size as Russian Dragoons and Opolchenyie Riders I have. The riders look big even for Warlord horses. The unit will look great if deployed far away from anything else. The size and proportionality issues are the major problem here, apart from the horse neck/head issue. If you are OK, with the size, the set is acceptable. If you have large bit box and you know how to sculpt the majority of the proportionality problem can be solved.

Autor: Dalcor

Art: Azhat Kuzhin