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   The Bannerman is from Gripping Beast and in armour that is probably about 100 years out of date, but there was just something about the 'seen it all face' that looked perfect for the role.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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Getting On With The Crusade

   In a last minute rush to get the game ready for the day I'd suggested it being played on I was painting the odd bits left at really strange times of the day and these were the end results.

The foot serjeants. There is a mix of troops in here from the Knights Templar to regional troops. I put a baratheon in as the figures were left over from that project and it felt right, plus a few figures with the Cross of St Edward on for a similar reason.

   

A unit of crossbows, painted in the same batches as the troops above.

A shepherd with flock and baggage camels with handler for a bit of dressing.

   I also painted up cavalry movement trays for this game as a test to see if I liked them and also because if there was ever a game I was going to need them in, it was this. Plus I made some stands of trees using cheap plastic palms from China, but they aren't a good enough quality to be subjected to being photographed without something else in the photo.

In the end we played two games with me playing as the Moor/Saracens both times, with the 1st game being a disaster that was over within an hour. Both armies play very differently and it was a really interesting match up when the Muslims managed to pass some order tests. 

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Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem

   The second order I picked was a much smaller order (I believe they only had about 30 knights at their biggest) and were called the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem. 

   These were knights from other military orders who had contracted leprosy but were able to keep in service (at least for the time being) and I thought they were be the perfect accompaniment to the force as it would be easier to explain why the secondary part of the army was so small - there just aren't many of them. I gave them a unit of mounted serjeants as well as you just can't have a knight without a squire.

   My research didn't bring up much evidence of what colours a serjeant for the order would wear, so I stuck with the same white as the knights. The knights all have enclosed helmets as befits someone in their condition.

The mounted Serjeants

The Knights

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The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon

   I mentioned in the Moorish Light Cavalry post that the project had started suffering from serious project creep, and this is that first bit of said creep.

   I was reading a series of novels about the Knights Templar to keep me painting the last of my Moors and before I knew it, I was drawing out a little crusader force for an opponent - instead of using my Baratheons - and I looked at what it would cost me, decided it was worryingly reasonable, but thankfully Waylands wouldn't stock them so I'd have to wait for the post and would my enthusiasm last that long, so there's no point in doing it, brilliant, I've talked myself out of a project - wait, Waylands had what I needed in stock and I can pick them up on my visit to the store tonight? Crap.

   My little force is just going to comprise of two units of knights, two units of mounted serjeants, a unit of foot serjeants and a unit of crossbows. I want the army to look more like a ramshackle force than a crusading army that has just arrived. Maybe the knights templar are off doing something and have called in favours from other orders and any troops hanging about. 

   So I plan to have a unit of templar knights and a unit of their squires/laymen, a unit from a different order with their squires/laymen, and then a mix of foot troops from different places. This means the army can grow in the future if necessary as I can add units without breaking the theme.

   First up are the poor fellow-soldiers of Christ and the temple of Solomon or the knights templar. The figures are plastic Fireforge and are half a box of each of their Templar Knights and Mounted Serjeants. I painted the horse for these in my big batch painting of horses over the last couple of weeks*, which meant it was fairly fast to get the figures finished from that point onwards.

*probably 80+ mounted troops in that batch by the end . . .

The mounted Serjeants

The Knights

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Moorish Light Cavalry

   With my big time sensitive projects out of the way and some more wagons moving it feels like the right time to look back at projects that got half way to being usable but weren't quite finished for one reason or another. A prime candidate is my Moorish/Arabic army. 

   I finished the regular foot infantry a couple of years ago, which just left a few units of light cavalry and a unit of Black Guard. As it was the cavalry that were the real stumbling block, I spent a couple of days just building figures before I started painting in mixed batches, starting with batches of horses* before mixing them all back in and then randomly picking models out to paint the riders - all in an attempt to stop every dun coloured horse having guys in yellow robes and every flaxen chestnut having white robes etc.

*which included horses from another project

   Essentially, the riders are painted the same as the regular infantry but as they are likely to be slightly better off I've tried to add slightly more patterns to their robes or horse blankets but sticking to my bright colours theme I started with the infantry.

   There are 4 units in this finished batch - in Lion Rampant terminology there are; 2 units of mounted yeomen (mounted archers) and two units of mounted serjeants with bows (spear and shield units with quivers on the horse). This makes for a very mobile army that should give a crusader force a real problem if they can't get into range to hit something.

   As mentioned before I mixed in horses from another couple of cavalry units as I painted these, and I've then added more cavalry from even more units into later horse batches, so we are fast heading towards an accidental Cav-uly.

   Also, this project has definitely suffered from serious project creep over the last week. You have been warned. . .

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Not Another New Project - Honest

   Answering the title, no, I'm not counting this as a new project* as I bought a unit of Moorish Black Guard as part of a Footsore Miniatures order a couple of years ago, however, the bulk of this project will be made up of recently bought** Gripping Beast plastic Arabs. I have got another couple of new projects on the go too, so I wanted to explain this one away before them.
   I plan to make a 24 point Muslim force loosely based on a Moorish army, but vague enough that I can move it around the Mediterranean as needed. So lots of light horsemen and even lighter infantry with a unit or two that will help place the army depending on the game.

*Against all the evidence
**January



   Because of the brightness of the clothes the figures are wearing, I held off doing unit posts as I finished each as my batches were just painfully obvious, a bit more mixed up like this and I reckon they look alright. The next job is about the same again in horsemen . . .

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