Defenders of the Manor - the rest of the family

 Here are the last four members of the Defenders of the Manor from Siberia Miniatures.  These are the remaining family members, including the matriarch of the family, the youngest children, and the husband of one of the daughters.

These two children are dressed in sailor suits, which was common for upper class kids from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  

The matriarch of the family.  While the lord of the manor was featured in my first post about this family, it's clear that this lady is clearly in charge!

Now to finish up, here is a gentleman, probably the husband of one of the daughters.  Maybe a lawyer, or banker.  

Defenders of the Manor - the Help

 Next up for the defenders of the manor are the staff - cook, chef, gardener and housekeeper.

First up is chef.  He is relatively generic, so could possibly be from anywhere in Europe, or the Americas for that matter.  Might even be Swedish (bork,bork, bork).  Watch out for that big chopper!

I figure that this one is the housekeeper, guarding the big set of keys for the manor.  She could probably do with a lesson or two in safe handling of firearms...

The next two are more obviously Russian, or at least Slavic.  Not sure this lady's role, maybe cook, or laundress, who knows?  I'd just be sure to stay out of the way of that grenade.

Lastly, the gardener.   

And finally, a group shot, front and back.

Defenders of the Manor - Daughters of the manor

Here are the next three defenders of the manor:  the daughters of the squire.  (aside - what was the pre-revolutionary equivalent of 'squire'?  Quick Google search says 'помещик', or 'pomeshchik', is the Russian equivalent to 'laird' or 'landlord'.  See, this hobby encourages research and ongoing learning!).

There are three of these young ladies, and they remind me of Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil.  I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which figure represents each of the Crawley sisters!

Defenders of the Manor - the military men

 Defenders of the Manor from Siberia Miniatures is a set of 15 figures (17 if you count the dog and the pony!), but rather than present them all in a single blog post, I'll paint them a few at a time and divide them over a few posts.

These three blokes include firstly, a former military man, probably the current owner of the manor, who has squeezed himself into his old uniform, and who is ready to sic his hounds on the unruly rabble marching on his home.  He is supported by an old servant, likely his batman from their shared army days, and a brave petty officer from the navy, who has somehow procured a Lewis gun to scare away any hooligans.

I have no particular plans for gaming with these figures, but they fit in nicely with my interwar/pulp era figures, so if I ever game with those again they will definitely find a role!

Russian Clergy

I've been meaning to get a Russian Orthodox priest for quite a while, to add as moral support for any or all of my Russian armies.  The timeless nature of the priestly garb means that the same figure will not look out of place over several centuries of history:  these figures can be used to support my Russian armies for the Great Northern War (Peter the Great), Patriotic War of 1812 (Napoleonic), 1880-ish Central Asia, or even WWII Red Army (in an unofficial role, of course!).

These figures are from Siberia Miniatures.  I painted these two first, so that I could start with the basic, all-black garb of the Orthodox church.  The priest on the left is a standalone figure, while chap on the right (I've decided to call him the 'deacon') is part of the Defenders of the Manor set, representing the denizens of a 'typical' Russian manor, preparing to face down a group of revolutionaries set on dispossessing them of their estate.

They are both very nice figures.  The priest's face is particularly striking, and makes me think it might be modelled on a real person!  Although the proportion is a bit exaggerated, like the 'heroic' proportions from Foundry or other figures from the 80s or 90s.  

More Um Bum

 So I got right into things!  I assembled all the Um Bum buildings, they go together very quickly.

First up is the chapel.  I've added some GNW figures for size reference. The grey ones are the new resin figures from Kordegardia, and the brown ones are the Warlord Games plastic WSS (marching pose) and Warfare Miniatures (the other ones) so there's a bonus size comparison!

The building interiors are detailed, and for the 'Mediaeval Town' series (including this chapel), easily accessible.  Buildings in this series size reasonably well with 28mm figures.

The rest of the buildings are 1/87 or HO scale, so are undersized for 28mm figures.  But that's not necessarily a problem, as there's a viewpoint (often expressed by Doug!) that buildings should be a bit undersized compared to the figures.  I've used a Perry Miniatures DAK rifleman for scale in the following photos.

First up is the 'Collective Farm Office', complete with a choice of three flags and three different banners!  The flags are for the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belorussian SSR.  You need to look at them pretty closely to see which one is which, however!  The three banners read 'Glory to Labour!', 'Five Year Plan in Three Years!' and 'Our Goal is Communism!'

The building interiors are decorated, but it's a bit of a bother to lift off the roof.  I won't be opening the buildings for a typical game! 

Here's the first of the two churches. This one is based on an 18th Century church from the Karelia region northeast of Leningrad.  

And this one is based on the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, dating back to the 12th Century.  This church is located in a rural area in the Vladimir Oblast east of Moscow.  Maybe not quite typical of a Russian village church in 1941, but too pretty a building for me to leave out!  And it's to scale!

This little factory is built around boilers - the idea being to boil water, then distribute by pipelines to individual buildings.  Again, I don't know if these would be present in villages, or if they'd be limited to towns and cities.  But for gaming purposes, it's nice to have the option to include a brick building, which can provide hard cover, compared to the light cover that the other buildings could offer.  The brick walls are not very sturdy - I'll probably need to scotch tape them if I want to use this on the gaming table, or else they'll be knocked over too easily.

And to round things out, here are the three new houses.  I was a bit careless in my purchases, the one with the green trim is a duplicate of one that I picked up last year.  My 20th Century Russian/Soviet village now potentially includes seven houses, two churches, a boiler/factory and the collective farm office, as well as a few sheds and other outbuildings.  I guess I should come up with some fences and/or hedges to  put around the various buildings!