Moor Heavy Cavalry

   Carrying on with the crusades theme are a unit of Moorish/Arabic 'heavy' cavalry along with a drummer (definitely Moorish) and a bannerman for the army. As with my other Moorish/Arabic units I plan to be able to use the army in both ends of the Islamic world depending on which units get picked for any game.

   The heavy cavalry are another (half) box from Gripping Beast and the command figures are both metal Gripping Beast as well, ordered at the same time as the Warlord from last year, but didn't make the game he was painted in time for.

I'm actually getting distressingly close to finishing this project now, even with the extras I've added since the last game. . .

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Back To The Holy Land

   This is a bit of a mixed up post of bits from all over the two projects but as I wanted to play more games set in the desert this year, I thought I had better get those projects finished. There is still more to come, but in the meantime here is what I have managed to finish.

   First up are the commanders for my Crusader army. A Templar Warlord, Templar bannerman and a Bishop in a vaguely Templar colour scheme.

   The Bannerman is from Gripping Beast and in armour that is probably about 100 years out of date, but there was just something about the 'seen it all face' that looked perfect for the role. The other two figures are both from 1st Corps to give a bit more flavour to my force.

   Then we have a unit of Ben Youssef's Black Guard plus some left over plastic infantry. The black guard I've just painted exactly as their name, everything black including straps and scabbards, only adding colour where it is completely necessary as I wanted the unit to look like it was definitely wearing black and not a unit that happened to be mostly in the colour. I'm not 100% sure where the whole unit came from but I think the command figures are from Gripping Beast and that the regular infantry and from Footsore Miniatures.

   Then we have a 'unit' of monks. I was making bases of carts* for a raid scenario and I saw a monk on a donkey from Conquest Games that I bought from a different project sitting on a shelf next to the monk from Colonel Bill's cart driver set and I had an idea. The two spare monks then fell out of a cupboard while I was trying to find something else and were perfect to add to the base.

*in the painting queue

I've got another couple of boxes of Arabic horsemen I really need to get painting next, lets see how that goes.

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The Conquest Continues

   I called this post the conquest continues because it features the plastic Normans from Conquest Games and a quick review of what I thought about them as the end result is very different to the Gripping Beast figures I've been using for my Normans up until this point.

   The first unit is a couple of sprues of Norman Knights that I bought separately from Conquest Games instead of buying a full box*. I've got a review of the infantry further down the page, but the knights I have much less to say about, figure wise they are absolutely fine with very little I'd change, except that the horses are much too big compared to what the Normans would have actually used, being little bigger than ponies in real life.

*I just couldn't face another 12 horsemen

   Next up is a unit of plastic Conquest Games Norman infantry. The Gripping Beast order had already sorted my needed 3rd unit of infantry out, but as I was buying a whole box of infantry to use as the base of the forth coming Anglo-Norman/Anarchy army I had spare figures, so they went into bulking up my Norman army.

The review part: 

Good points - the shields and bodies are properly nice. My mate Neil's Norman army is entirely made from Conquest plastics and it looked so good on the table - as you'll see in the end of year post. There are less armoured bodies than you normally see, which I don't think is a bad thing and the poses are dynamic without being silly. I also really like the bare head on the sprue as it screams Normans with the haircut.

Bad points - only 5 heads for the 5 bodies gives a lack of real options. One more head on the sprue would have made a big difference - for example the chainmail body will always have the chainmail head as you can't use it on any other body. The weapons are my biggest problem with this set - 5 bodies per sprue but only 3 spears, 1 sword (and all the bodies have sculpted on swords in scabbards that are hard to remove) and 2 great axes. I would have preferred more spears even if they came on the command sprue in the box, as it was I've raided my knights sprues for a couple more swords**.

**leading to a few guys with 2 swords each

Overall, I really like the infantry, its just a real shame they didn't just add another head option and spear to the sprues***.

***also do a deal with Battle Flag and put the shield decals they sell for this set on your website to save me doing two orders.

I have used up every bit of space in my Norman storage box so anything new in the future will need to spill into a second box, which always gives me pause for thought.

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Conquering For The Bastard

   I've got a big Anglo-Norman/Anarchy era project that I've been buying for coming to a blog near you at some point soon but first I thought I had better finish adding the units to my regular Norman army before I get too distracted with that project.

   My Normans were definitely missing at least one unit of regular infantry but I always had plans to bulk it up by at least two units and maybe some knights. So an order to Conquest Games (and a quick bolt on to a Gripping Beast order) and I had the bits I needed for both Norman projects.

   This post is the metal element of the project and there will be a plastic element post coming very soon.

   The infantry unit is slightly under numbers as I painted slightly too many Normans on my last big push, and it was this realisation that gave this first unit of infantry the real push into a basket as it saved me a third of the cost of a unit of metals. They are all from Gripping Beast and use up the last of my LBMS shield decals. I used one of the smaller banners just to add a bit more colour to the army.

   Then we have the slingers from Conquest Games. These were a bit of an after thought, on the back of an order I was already making. They came as a full skirmisher sized unit for Lion Rampant, so I figured for the price they would make a nice addition to the collection. The sculpts themselves are positively gorgeous and I very much recommend them even if I'm not sure they will see the most amount of use on the table.

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The Sleepless Awaken

   For some reason I put aside my important painting projects for a bit and mass painted Necrons. No idea why, so I'm not going to try and justify it but I made some serious progress in a short amount of time.

Second unit of Warriors

Royal Warden - 1st HQ

Third unit of Warriors

Fourth unit of Warriors

Immortals

Death Marks

Fifth unit of Warriors

   In one fell swoop I've very nearly completed everything I own for this project, mostly due to a simple colour scheme and the vast bulk of this army having been built and sprayed in advance - thanks past Mike.

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WW2 M5A2 Coyote

   Wait a second you are thinking, a what? So I'm straying into weird war territory here, so bear with me. I really like Bolt Action as a ruleset, it has problems and limitations, do I think its better than Chain of Command or Battlegroup? Probably not, but for what I use it for, it's brilliant. In spite of all of that, I have always been Konflict '47 curious.

   However, you scroll through the Warlord Games websites looking at the weird walkers they sell for the game and then take a look at the price tags and you'll quickly see why I've not taken the plunge earlier. My plan had always been to use a regular WW2 army and just add a walker or two and maybe a unit in the future and call it done, but had never been able to justify the price tag. Then I saw that the Coyote was only £20 on Wayland Games' site and it seemed like the right price to dip a toe in and see what I thought about the resin and metal figures.

   In game, I'm not expecting a huge amount out of this. I've got the rules coming from Warlord Games, so I can't see points or slots but I'm assuming this will replace the tank - although armoured car would be a great result for me - as the walker only has a mmg and hmg as its ranged weapons.

   I've named it Mercy as I'm a fan of a series of books about a shapeshifter who turns into a coyote. When I saw what this was called it had to be done.

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