It took me much too long to paint 68 of the gorgeous Tekumel Club figures for the Legion of Sérqu: Sword of the Empire. Once again, Howard Fielding has done an excellent rendering of the drawings from canon Tekumel as 28mm figures. There are three types of Archers, three types of troopers and five different command figures.
The figures were the second release by Eureka Miniatures in Australia and first came out in 2006. I actually bought my first batch of these during a 2007 trip to Melbourne, where I visited Eureka’s workshop. Howard recovered the molds after he amicably parted ways with Eureka and the figures are now cast in North America. They are currently in stock from the Tekumel Club.
The Legion of Sérqu is familiar to those of us who started on our Tékumel journey with Empire of the Petal Throne. The Legion is based in Jakarta and the barracks is listed on the Jakálla map included with EPT. It provided the color for countless “Just Off the Boat” adventures in the hobby’s early days. By 2355 A.S., the Legion had moved to Khirgar, where it anchored the Northeast front in the war with Yan Kor.
According to the Army Book (i.e. The Armies of Tekumel Volume 1: Tsolyanu), the Legion is fully fitted out with 20 cohorts (8000 soldiers) and has three more cohorts in training. The current Kérdu is Sérqu hi Chaishyáni. According to Deeds of the Ever Glorious, the Legion has one of the longest histories of any Tsolyáni legion and dates back many thousands of years to the early days of the Bednálljan Empire. From very early in its history, the Legion has been associated with the Golden Sunburst clan and mostly consisted of worshippers of Karakán. More recently, the Legion has participated in nearly all the wars of the Tsolyani Empire and unlike the Legion of the Lord of Red Devastation does not seem to have aligned with the losing side of any rebellions or civil wars.
A semi-mythical story is told about the 17th Commander of the Legion: Sérqu the Swath of Red. An epic poem recounts how this Sérqu fell in love with a Pecháni princess and how Chnur, the King of the Ssu, was a guest at their wedding in Mechaneno. Barker elaborated on this story in a December 5, 2000 Blue Room post, where he writes “the Pechani have always had a sort of ‘honourable enemy’ relationship with the Grey Ssu, and it is no surprise to encounter this sort of rare visit. In reality, the Ssu ‘king’ probably was provided with a separate room from which to view the ceremonies. Communication between Ssu and humans was done, as it is today, with gestures. Neither side speaks the other’s language. The Pechani are adept at this. They still fight the Ssu regularly but have occasional non-hostile contacts as well.” These details are fairly startling and difficult to square with other Tékumel source material that describes the Ssu as implacable.
Twelve of the twenty cohorts of the Legion of Sérqu are armed with short bows. However, it is important to distinguish those legions dedicated to missile fire from the many legions, including the Legion of Serqu, that equip some of their troopers with short bows. The dedicated archer, crossbow, and slinger legions are lightly armored and try to avoid melee. Their missiles are also much more effective. For example, the Army Book lists the elite cohorts of the Legion of Girriktéshmu, also stationed in Jakálla, as having a ranged attack factor of 10. The regular legionnaires equipped with short bows, like in the legion of Serqu, expect to shoot a few volleys of arrows before they engage with sword, axe or mace. In the Army Book this type of archer always has a missile attack factor of just 1.
Next up on the painting desk: The Legion of Ever Present Glory!