From Curt: Ottoman Laylar Fanatic Infantry at The Great Siege of Malta, 1565 (105 Points)

For the past few Challenges I've tried to make an effort to add a new unit for my Great Siege of Malta project. This time round I thought I'd add some more fellas to the Ottoman mosh pit with some Iaylar fanatics.

From what I understand, the Iaylars were a large, irregular force of religious fanatics which the Ottomans used as expendable shock troops. They were typically thrown in the the initial assaults to soak up missile fire, disrupt defensive lines, and generally pave the way for the more high-value troops.

It's rumoured that the Iaylars regularly used hashish to help put themselves into a religious frenzy before flinging themselves into the assault. I like to think that perhaps their imams stoked them up by telling them that the defenders held vast stores of Cheetos and Mountain Dew behind the lines. I figure that after a good hookah pipe, there's nothing like the prospect of a big munchie run to get your blood up. :)

These 28mm models are from Old Glory and fit the Iaylar bill quite nicely. They actually didn't look like much when fresh out of the packaging, but as with many OG models, they paint up wonderfully and look great in a mob. In order to give them a little more variation I bent a few limbs, drilled out some fists to add some hand-painted banners, and played around with their skin tones to reflect the wide variety of ethnicities which would have made up the ranks.

I've been quite taken with AlanD's wonderful 3,2,1 basing for his ECW Covenanters, so I thought I'd do something similar with these lads. This mob will give me two groups of 12 figures (plus one hanger-on) for any future 'Pikemans' Lament' scenarios. I hope to double the numbers for this contingent as I feel the Ottomans should have a schwack of cannon fodder, er, enthusiastic recruits willing to spread the word that Suleiman is rather Magnificent.

Points? Let's see, four of these mooks were done pre-Challenge as 'proof-of-concept' (as if you need such a thing for religious fanatics these days), so that puts it at 21 models for 105 points. This should also provide me another Squirrel Point and count as my 'O' (for Ottomans) in my Alphabet Soup Challenge.

Finally, this group will allow me to check off another subject on my ridiculously unrealistic Challenge Project List. Still, seven out of twelve isn't too bad.  Okay, you're right, it's pretty bad.

1. French Indochina
2. 10mm Fantasy
3. Moonstone
4. Malta
5. Italian Wars
6. Sisters of Battle
7. 28mm Napoleonics
8. Spanish Civil War
9. 28mm Modern
10. 20mm WWII
11. Retreat from Moscow
12. Dungeon Crawl

I think I have a few more posts left in the tank before the end of the Challenge, but we'll see what I can manage. Wish me luck!

Thanks for dropping in for a look. Have a great week!

- Curt

Always great too get a chance to vet the Snowlord's work and no disappointments here at all, these are wonderful (of course).  Love the movement in the figures and those flags.  And they look amazing ranked up against those ruined walls.

I agree with a lot of what you said about OG figures.  One can get sucked in by large bags at a good price and then get disappointed on opening the bag and looking closely at the figures.  But they do tend to paint up well and the end product in this case looks excellent.