Kitbashing Turcopoles-WGA Light Horses

 

pic Icon of a Saint equipped as a Turcopole St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, late 13th century

One marvellous thing about the modern hobby is the advent of plastic multipart kits, these little beauties open a wide world of kit bashing possibilities. This is particularly true at the moment with so many manufacturers putting out such a wide range of figures from all eras and theatres of war. The recent increase in interest in the Medieval period has led to an eruption of plastic figures all excellent grist to the mill of any kit basher.

After kit bashing Turcopoles on foot  for my Templar Retinue see previous post https://wilgut.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-brotherhood-of-poor-knights-of.html I wanted to create the same figures but in their more natural role as Light Cavalry,   Mounted Characters in Ruckus terms

Variety is the spice of life or so it is said and it is certainly true of skirmish games where each figure represents an individual person, having them each distinctly different helps not only to recognise them on the table but adds a certain narrative quality. Every figure tells a story…

Having already kit bashed these figures I was able to replicate them as their mounted versions by simply using the rider legs from the GB Arab Light Cavalry set however, I wanted to make them a little different from the mounted archers I had already made by using different steeds. 

I chose to use WGA Light Horses. This is a lovely little kit with many possibilities. I think its better than the previous General Accoutrements “Horses” set in that these steeds have a narrower girth… the previous set are very wide and only the most straddle legged hombre can sit upon them without considerable surgery!

 Nice clean plastic with minimal cast lines or excess plastic and sharp mouldings, a treat to work with

Beautifully sculpted flowing manes and tails. The reins setup is a bit fiddly at first, but you soon get used to it, I found it easiest to dry fit first, then stick the “plate” of the rain bit to the neck of the horse, allow this to dry before fixing to the body.

You may have to try them all out to find which head goes with which set of reins...or at least I had to!

I wanted to make the horses look a bit more “of the time” and so extended the saddle blanket with green stuff and added a horsetail decoration to the harness. The horsetail came from a Victrix Islamic Cavalry standard 

For this one I added the “disc of crescents” from the standard to the front harness and the horse tails to the side harnesses 

This horse was painted as a dappled grey bay 

   Based with sand painted with Citadel Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone

Tufts are Gamers Grass

  I like this horse the best, it’s a lovely posture and stance although I think I could have done a better paint job, the shading is a little too dark…

I cocked up the shield a little too! The writing is much clearer on the foot version 

This horse is done with the Wargames Foundry Buff triad

I think for this figure, the dropped loose reins are perfect 

A brown horse! This was painted with the Citadel Mournfang range 

 I like the effect of the disc and horse tails

 

The tricky bit! Replicating what I did with the shield! A nightmare as I could not remember what colours I had used!

A fair match, I think…

…until you compare the shields…WOoops!

I did a better job with this shield

I had to kit bash a figure to represent this Footsore figure, I think I got it close enough

I think they look grand! Now I am thinking that I may have to create some more... exactly the same but wielding lances for when they are “Arm’d for Combat”

They also make me want to create some more to be horse archers in my Ayyubid Retinue