Rangers of the North WIP, an AdG battle and the Topkapi Palace

   Since I bought the miniature of Halbarad Dunadan in 2013, it stayed unpainted inside a drawer. It is time for him to find some followers and see some action.

   I had four warriors of Rohan with bows that I didn't need. So I decided to convert them to Rangers of the North. 

Halbarad and the Rangers

 Back in 2013 I used a little rock and a piece of blue foam 

to make this base.

   Recently I bought some nice Forest bases from Micro Art Studio and I replaced Halbarad's previous base with one of them.

Halbarad on his new base

   For the conversion of the warriors of Rohan I used Soviet WWII heads, Norman archers' left arms with bows, Colonial militiamen's tomahawks and Orcs' quivers! 

   I cut in half the orc's quivers and glued them on the warriors' ones but not before I had removed the arrows from the later. I needed longer arrows for the Normans' bows.

  At that point I tried to make hoods  from green stuff for the four Rangers but I failed. So, in order to have the appearance of a unit I removed their hats and left them bald. Now I have four bold but bald Rangers! I also added fur to their cloaks.

The family photo as WIP

   The other day a friend invited me to watch a game, that they played using L'Art de la Guerre rules. The rules remind a lot the DBM rules I think. The two opponents of the battle were Byzantines and Germans. My friend doesn't really bother to follow historical accuracy. None of the miniatures are mine.

The battlefield

Byzantines left flank,

center

the Emperor,

and the right flank.

The Strategos

The camp.

The Germans

left flank,

center,

right flank

and the camp.

The knights' charge

The clash at the center

The shooting

The clash of all flanks.

   The Germans finally won! Frankly, it was a nice and well balanced game. 

   Some more photos from my latest trip to Turkey. In particular, these are from my visit to Topkapi Palace which in English means "The Cannon Gate Palace".

The Gate

The entrance of the Gate

The Throne

The Library

The fountain

The view of Bosphorus strait

The model of Topkapi at its entrance.

And the model of the whole complex. Topkapi is at the center.

A part of the outer wall of the complex.

   That's it for today! Stay tuned for more!