Distractions and Submissions to the Painting Challenge

New Era and Ruleset: Longstreet

Something to Go on With

One can not help notice that all the bloggers are preparing for the now infamous yearly Painting Challenge put on my Curt at Analogue Hobbies. I have been making my own preparations and have also been very much consumed by a couple of terrain projects. I thought I would do a brief update on what I have been doing.

Conquest Miniatures French Indian War

As mentioned in the last post, I though I would put some photos up of my FIW miniatures. They are all from Conquest Miniatures, and they are really quite excellent. I painted these 40 figures without interruption  They were all primed white and then painted using the Games Workshop Paint system. Essentially block painted (still applied this quite thinly as the undercoat is white), then washed with one of their several washes. Some highlights were applied and then one of 4 glazes applied on some on the figures. The last process is interesting as the glazes act like filters and are especially interesting on light browns, they really can change the appearance of the figure. I then applied the darkest AP, but really this is a minimal application and is aggressively and immediately brushed off. I find it a great sealer. I think I ordered all 4 Rangers packs, Iroquois Pack B, the Ottawa Sachem, Colonial Settlers pack A and Frontiersmen pack A. Finally I bought a pack of Seminole Maroons from the Seminole wars range. As many of my British colonial units were Rangers, I needed to mix in some Indian and African figures. These generally appeared to be dressed in more European clothes. I think it worked out OK. 

A Game of Muskets & Tomahawks

We had our first game of Muskets and Tomahawks this past Sunday. I remember talking to Iannick a couple of years ago about SAGA and him pulling out the rulebook that he just got and I remember him saying that  this book was from the same writers. I was not paying a whole lot of attention then as I was focussed on starting to paint my Vikings. As time went by, it seemed harder and harder to arrange a game of SAGA and by then Iannick had enticed us into the French Indian Wars with a couple of games using the ruleset This Very Ground. I liked the era and the rules were quite good, but I am really just enamoured of IGOUGO rulesets and I knew M&T was card driven. At the same time, after looking at Iannick's Conquest Miniatures figures, I decided to paint some myself. I really had no idea about what I needed so I order the rulebook and figured out how to put together a force. I would have liked to do the French, but I knew there was no way to get my Quebecois ami to yield on this one so I was not left much choice but to do the British.

So, I decided to assemble around a 300 point force and before you knew it I had good old Major Joseph Gorham painted with some of his famous rangers from Massachusetts as well as a unit of Dank's and Roger's Rangers, some Mohawks, some colonial milita and some civilians. Forty figures, I believe, all pumped out in the last 6 weeks. I will try to take some specific photos soon to show off the figures in another post but you will see some below.

I had read through the rulebook a couple of times last week and they did seem quite straight forward. I made some accruements for the game, packed up some figures and drove to Montreal last Saturday. We had decided to have a 300 point match and used the rulebook to generate the terrain and the scenario. All amazingly straight forward. Both sides dice for objectives, Iannick got the Engagement Objective and I got the the Raid Objective. I know this sounds odd but the two objectives really meshed together easily, with the Victory Condition for Iannick to kill 2/3 of the English, while I had to destroy a small French hamlet by burning down the houses. So off we went, both for our first time, with this ruleset.

So here is the terrain, with the French village in the far ground,  we diced for it's position and then laid out the rest of the terrain. Essentially I started in the bottom right on this 4'x6' field and Iannick started at the top left.

One of the neat things about the rules that units designated as Scouts can start the game on hidden movement markers. For every 2 markers that represents a real unit you can place a dummy marker. You can deploy the unit when you want or have to deploy it when it is spotted( comes within 48" of one enemies units or markers in openterrain or 24" in light cover). In this game there is a lot of cover, so you really can get quite far as you can see before you are spotted. Most of our units had the Scout trait, so all my units but one were on hidden movement and I believe all Iannick's were on markers. I sent my dummies off to the right in order to force some of Iannick's units away from the village. An amazingly unsuccessful strategy as it turned out.

The French Officier

My biggest unit with 8 figures: Gorham's Rangers.

British colonial miltia, who were the heros of the day.

Iannick was very clever in putting together his warband: Canadian Miltia, the famous Courreur des Bois with a Native trait (-2 to hit in cover)  and nasty Algonquin Indians with  the Savage trait ( re-roll all misses in melee, can you believe it). Here we see my Gorham's Rangers hopelessly trying to hit the Canadian militia with muskets while they were in light cover, it was almost impossible!

Bang...bang....bang with no success, and every time I advanced to melee they retreated! Very clever.

Here we can see the action in the middle of the terrain with my unit of Roger's Rangers advancing to take on  another unit of Canadian Miltia. Behind the rocky outcrop is one of my hidden movement markers, with which I am hoping to ambush the Canadians. Little did I know at the time about the Savage trait of those Algonquin.

Roger's Rangers, before they were annihilated by the Correur des Bois. 

The nasty Algonquin as they advance, they take a -1 modifier for shooting in exchange for getting to re-roll misses on melee.

I missed a few pictures here, as they did not come out. But in the foreground from  right to left you can see Gorham's Rangers who have been driven back into the trees, the Colonial miltia who were just superb ( none of my Ranger's could hit a barn door) and to the right the my Mohawk who were armed with rifles. I really did a poor job of deploying them. In the cloud of smoke in the middle of the terrain behind the rocks is a brutal melee between Dank's Rangers and the Algonquins. The Savage trait is something I will watch out for in future games, you really do not want to melee this fellows.

The only time I saw some perturbation on Iannick's face, just after a unit of  his beloved  Correur des Bois threw a 1 in reaction to a shooting casualty and routed off the table. By now Gorham's Rangers had got their moxie and were pursuing the Canadiens towards the village as can be seen in the far ground.

They were dogged and almost made it to the village, but alas by now 5 turns had elapsed and it was all done.

Iannick pointing out the error of my ways. Well I believe a marginal victory is due to the French, neither of us had met our victory conditions, but certainly more British had died then French. C'est la vie!

We found the game very easy to play and after a couple of turns we really did not have to look things up. The rules are very well constructed with an easily remembered shooting and combat mechanic. I am not the best judge of how realistic the game was in recreating a skirmish encounter in 18th century North America, but Iannick who has a much better knowledge of the history felt the rules were quite good. Certainly a keeper, and I have already put n my order to expand my warband to 400 points and beyond.

Another Challenge!

SAGA: The Challenge

Chain of Command: Eastern Front 1941

La Haie Sainte: A Lasalle AAR done Twice!

Chronica Iohannis July 550AD

First Outing with Chain of Command

A Return to Gefrees with Lasalle

Battle of Kesselstadt

We had a great game of Lasalle 2 weeks ago in Montreal. Iannick acted as gamesmaster and myself and Rusti took on Nico. Iannick has just posted an AAR with lots of photos on his excellent blog par la bouche de mes canons. Have a look.

As an aside, I have my first game ever in Massachusetts today at the Hobby Bunker in Malden. It will be a replay of the Battle of Gefrees using the Lasalle rules. Stay tuned.

More Men in Black

The site this image is from is one of the best wargaming blogs I have seen. The work on these organizational plates is just amazing. What happened to JC? He has not been heard from since 2009. 

Four New Books

Over the last month, I have bought 4 new gaming books, 3 of them just published and one that I have been interested in for some time. I am not going to review them, they are much better reviews out there which I will link. I thought I would offer my thoughts on the books and my interest in them.

Chain Of Command: German Force

Of course it would be a little tricky to play a WWII skirmish game in Northern Europe without some Germans, so here they are. I found the Vallejo German uniform paint a little dense, so despite using a wash they were also drybrushed to bring out some extra detail. I do not know enough now about German orders of battle, but I am sure this platoon will eventually get identified. Again the details of the platoon structure for Chain of Command were obtained from the TFL Yahoo site.

Chain of Command: Canadian Force

I have just finished my 2 forces for the about to be released WWII skirmish game from Too Fat Lardies. Chain of Command is much anticipated and from what I understand from the Yahoo site, there have been over 1000 preorders, which I believe is pretty good. The release date is August 21st.

Finally Some Egyptians!

NKE Marine Slingers

Dark Age Additions

I am suffering the usual ennui in respect to posting photos on my blog, have been quite busy at work and it has been very hot, but I have been working away on things and have got quite a lot accomplished over the last month or two.

All Gripping Beast figures except the Oxen

Chronica Iohannes: April 550 AD

Chronica Iohannes

Memorial Day 2013

Back to Dux

Saxons to the left and British to the right

I have been really slow to photograph figures, mostly I think because I find it a real challenge to take good photos. I have a new camera, but you have to know how to use it. I have learned to recognise what some of the problems are, but am still working on it. I would love to get to a point where I just have to crop the photos and do nothing else. I did buy some daylight bulbs and usually use two swan neck lamps with as much ambient light as possible. My gaming table is just under 3 skylights so ambient light is usually not a problem. I actually had to increase the contrast in these photos as they were too light. I always appreciate any comments on how to improve. A few months ago Curt of Analogue Hobbies explained to me the problems I was having with the temperature, it was just an enormous help.

A New Wargaming Period

About 6 months ago Iannick got me in a weak moment and convinced me to build an army for a new period: Ancients. He had even ordered the War and Conquest rulebook for me! I try to be a man of my word, so after a bit of research and one false start, I settled on the New Kingdom Egyptians. I knew that Iannick was building a Canaanite army, and was focussed on the period of 1800-1500 BC (the start of the NKE era)

A New Scale

I really have been quite excited by the new set of rules coming this summer from Too Fat Lardies: Chain of Command. This is a platoon based skirmish game where the smallest tactical unit is the infantry team. It really looks like an exciting game which takes 1-2 hours to play. Richard Clarke has done a series of 3 videos which outline the gameplay, well worth watching, it certainly hooked me. There are also another 3 videos which act as an introduction to the game.

IR18, the 3rd West Prussian Regiment

Well the basing is all done and finally I can move on.

I have had 2 battalions of Prussian Fusiliers on the table for almost 2 months, so I will present them first.

The F/IR18 completes my second complete Prussian regiment for the 1815 OB, the 3rd West Prussian or IR18. These are Perry figures, mostly plastics, but with the metal Prussian Fusilier set of command figures as well as knapsacks with the correct sword. I must of learned how to glue plastic to metal as this was a bit smoother then the Hanoverians.

Update and the Joys of Basing

I just realized that I had not put a single post up in the month of May, so I thought maybe to keep people interested (and to assure them that I was not dead), that I should throw something together.

I have been actually quite busy with soldiering (my wife's term) over the last month, I have just not been able to get any photos done as I paint..paint..paint, but for some reason refuse to terrain the bases or apply matt!

Battle of Gefrees AAR: Rank and File Rules

Last weekend, I got to be a gamesmaster for the first time. It was an interesting experience, not all went to plan, but I did enjoy myself though and it was fun. It was also the first outing for  our small group of a new set of rules, Rank and File from Crusader Publishing.

Although myself and Iannick have a considerable number of 28mm Napoleonic figures available to put on the table, I have found that less is better, so I decided to go with a small division aside game. I wanted to field both my newly painted Brunswickers as well as a brigade of Austrians that I had painted a couple of years ago, which had yet to see the light of battle. I usually try to find a historical battle to recreate, this was a little difficult with these two forces, but some googling revealed that there was a two month period in the early summer of 1809 when a combined Brunswick-Austrian force existed in the XI Corps of the Austrian Empire. I had settled on recreating the Battle of Gefrees, fought on July 8, when I came across an article in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy Issue 63 with a wargaming scenario for this battle. A few modifications in the order of battle, I did not want to use cavalry in this first outing with this ruleset.

Four Months of Work on Sale (Germans) SOLD

Update: 4-19-13

I have sold the painted DAK. I still have the following unpainted figures available:

• Battlefront Panzer IV H Platoon GBX 10-5 tanks primed (1 armour skirt set missing) 58$
• Battlefront GE501 3.7cm PaK36-2 gun models with crew (in original pack) 17.50$
• Forged in Battle SS HMG Team-4 guns and crew (in original pack) 8$
• Forged in Battle SS Rifle Platoon-40 figures (in original pack) 15$
• Forged in Battle German Infantry G-INF-1 x 2 80 figures (in original packs) 30$

Make an offer, I want to get rid of them.

Four Months of Work for Sale British: SOLD

As a follow up to our Germans here is my 8th Army Force. Mostly painted with some extra unpainted Forged in Battle infantry figures.

Like I said in my first post, I am willing to accept any reasonable offers, and am confident that I am willing to sell these figures below market.

Rank & File Napoleonics: Musings before Game Day

Well in just a little under a week, I will get to try out the Rank & File ruleset with my friends in Montreal. There will be just three of us and I will be acting as the referee. Although I do not get to play, I find I am quite looking forward to the game.

In the fall we had a Napoleonic game with Curt from Analogue Hobbies acting as a referee and we all had a great time. We recently had a couple of skirmish FIW games using the This Very Ground ruleset with Iannick refereeing between myself and Nicolas, and that also went very well.

Certainly having someone who knows the rules and who can arbitrate any questions (we do not have disputes) that come up makes for an excellent gaming experience. I have spent the last month grinding through the rules and I believe I have a pretty good handle on them.

Rank and File: A Playtest

Well for our playtest, I went with a brigade aside with my new Brunswickers versus the French. I am trying to test all the rules I can, but have not used any cavalry. I have stuck with the rules as written here with no modifications. I have also decided to use a couple of very large units just to see what would happen. In my armies I have generally 4 and 6 stand battalions, I believe this might be a bit small for this set of rules. I also should at this level, being using 1 stand artillery batteries but I just do not like this look. So a reason for doing this play test is to see what happens, so I can make some adjustments.

So you can keep track, the caption refers to the photo above it. All phases are bolded red, while the turns are bolded blue. First up is the French:

A New Ruleset: Rank & File

As discussed a couple of posts ago, our small gaming group is still searching about for a Napoleonic ruleset. There are 3 of us and we try to game monthly (well maybe that is a bit hopeful) in Montreal. Our gaming time is somewhat limited because I live in Massachusetts, but we all do our best. I believe Iannick and Nicolas are relatively well known to the readers of this blog and sometimes Iannick's brother Gabriel makes a fourth. We have not been completely satisfied with our gaming experiences to date so we decided to start a search for a new set of rules. Our plan is to test 3 new sets, with each of us being responsible for working out one set of rules and being the non playing games master. We have selected 3 rulesets to try Rank & File from Mark Simms, General de Brigade from David Brown and Shako II from Artie Connick. I have collected multiple rulesets over the last 5 years including Black Powder, Piquet, Piquet Field of Battle, Le Feu Sacre, Republic to Empire, Lasalle, Napoleon, Warhammer Waterloo, Shako II, General de Brigade, March Attack, Fast Play Grande Armee and Field of Glory Napoleonics. A lot of rulesets! As noted previously we as a group have played Black Powder and Field of Battle and I have a personal acquaintance with Le Feu Sacre, Lasalle, Republic to Empire, Waterloo and Field of Glory Napoleonics. I am unsure what Iannick or Nicolas played prior to us meeting up.

Well I purchased Rank & File 3 years ago and unfortunately it sort of got lost in the number of new rulesets that came out at the same time. Well a couple of months ago it got dusted off and I had a look. What I saw I liked so I decided to have a close look and selected it as my choice to present to the group. 

Personally I like a system with the simplest possible combat (melee and firing) mechanisms possible. That means 1 dice throw to decide casualty. There are a lot of other things that are important to me, and although R&F does not have them all, it certainly has the above. Here is a summary I sent to my gaming colleagues as an introduction:

General:

• Written for the horse and musket era, little Napoleonic chrome, no info on national characteristics in book.
• Stand based: each unit is comprised of 4-9 stands, except artillery.
• D6 only required
• Has multiple optional rules to add detail

C&C:

• Units in Brigades, with Bde Commander
• Brigades under Div Commander
• General orders issued to each Bde at beginning of game
• Moving ADC's to change orders.
• Casualty is stand removal but can use markers.
• Casualty test for attached commanders when stand is lost.

Game Sequence:

• Sequence is simultaneous except for movement which you dice for each turn.
• Sequence is Charge,Rally,Initiative Roll (throw d6), one side moves, second side moves, firing, morale, melee, Turn End (check Break point, move leaders, ADC's, reinforcements enter)
• Movement very simple in inches. Change formation, sideways, backwards, oblique 1/2 movement cost. Change facing 1/4 cost
• All the usual Napoleonic formations.

Unit Characteristics:

• 3 levels of Morale Class (option for adding 4th-Elite): Green, Regular or Veteran
• These units are in a regular, unsteady or routing condition

Combat:

• This is the real beauty for me of the rules, as it is done exactly the same for firing and melee and it is one step with no saving throw.
• So each unit is comprised of a number of bases: Meleeing and firing units count the number of bases in contact or in range and throw that number of D6's. To hit is 4, but is modified by in 1 table for each type of combat. 3 hits you remove a stand and voila....c'est ça.
• Melee is resolved in one turn, one side retires unsteady or routed.

Morale:

• Different value depending on unit class.
• Sometimes required when charging.
• Is tested after stand loss from a single simple table using single D6.
• Rally is based on same table.
• Failure of test changes condition of unit.

Skirmishers:

• Both specialist firing and movement rules and the ability to screen firing from enemy

Victory:

• Is decided by reaching a break point. Calculated by 2 times the number of units and 1 times the number of artillery bases

The three weakness I felt were:

• It has a somewhat weak command and control.
• Our units are on the small side in respect to infantry and cavalry (ours being 4 and 6 stands) but being on the large side for artillery (ours being 3 and 4 stands).
• The ruleset has skirmishers as battalions rather then companies.

I decided though that this was OK, I may be wrong but I believe it simpler to add rather then subtract. Before I started checking the rules I got some clarifications from the rules writer Mark Simms on the Crusader Publishing Forum. There is not a whole lot of activity there but Mark appears to check the forum daily and has been very helpful in clarifying some of the rules (really not much help needed) but also offered some solutions to some of my concerns listed above.

Once educated, I have started to test the rules with a couple of units per side, really they are quite nice and easy to play. I have now almost completed a playtest of the rules using a brigade aside. I had planned to put the play test in this post but it is quite long already, so I will post it in a couple of days. I have found that my playtests of rulesets have been the most read posts on my blog and I really like to take my time with them.

So stay tuned.

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The Prussians

As an aside from painting and learning a new ruleset, I thought I would try to learn a little more about the Prussians. I have also been going through the lead pile and the biscuit tin that holds the Prussians is particularly heavy. I have already painted 11 battalions and am on my 12th of infantry, 11 squadrons of cavalry and 6 artillery stands as well as lots of command pieces. So well on my way.

I am particularly interested in the 1815 period, but really it is easy to extend my units back to the 1813 period, just a bit of a change in the brigade structure. I like to paint coherent historical units, and decided to try do this at the brigade level (divisional) rather the corps level. I already had some units painted from my Walmoden project, so I that somewhat effected my subsequent choices.

I like a variety of figures and the brigades I have selected support this. When looking at the 1815 OB, the units that stick out are the black coated IR25, the grey reserve coated IR 23 and the British uniformed IR 21. I could have also gone with the Russian uniformed IR30/31, as well as the white coated IR28/29, but as usual I have to control myself. I am also quite interested in the Battle for Placenoit, so that affected my choice. Having had a careful study of what I have done, I decided to eventually plan of three brigades, that is 27 infantry battalions so is still quite a lot of work....... a long term project shall we say. I did feel better though with a clear vision of the future!

So here is the clear vision:

The highlighted units are done, still lots to do, but it fits with what I have on hand, I believe this will exhaust the lead pile with the only extra figures another unit of Lutzow's Freicorp (2/IR25). I am getting all done with plastics I like the Perry plastics, although I will probably never paint another Victrix figure again. But even with the Perry's I am snapping off bayonets, I am rough with the figures, and they are always getting loaded on planes or cars for trips. The only bit to which I may have some resistance, is the 6 battalions of Silesian Landwehr, may get bored there, who knows maybe I will substitute in some of those sky blue faced Berg.

So that was the easy part, next up was how to organize the command structure, clearly a Prussian brigade is similar to a division in other armies. That is not to difficult as most of my games feature 1-2 divisions aside, but the number of sub commanders to assign to each brigade (division) gave me some pause for thought. Using a sub commander for each 3 regiments from a gaming perspective seemed a little excessive; 3 battalions is a small subcommand, even if I attach a battery of artillery or a couple of squadrons of horse.

What to do, what to do? Well the Miniatures Page is always an interesting adventure so I said why not post my enquiry there. You really can get some excellent advice there, but at the same time you really have to be ready for those who really want to see their knowledge (biases) in print. I really got quite a lot of responses and two posters were really quite helpful. Of course, Stephen Summerfield is all things Prussian (I have all his books) and I found Michael Collins very helpful. Michael has his own ruleset called Grand Manoevre, look at his website very impressive.

Anyway the message string was quite interesting and I got the information I wanted in order to make a decision, I also learned quite a lot as well. Both the 1813 and 1815 Prussian brigades were mixed arms tactical units which really were made up on an ad hoc basis as needed for the tactical situation.

So for wargaming purposes, I felt I would go with the nine battalion infantry brigade with an attached artillery battery and 2-3 cavalry squadrons. I really liked the following tactical formation that I found with the Fusilers out front with Jaegers with the musketeers in a second line and the Landwehr regiment in reserve in a third line.  












I have over drawn the red lines, looks impressive does it not. Usually from what I understand the foot artillery would be in the front line with horse artillery and cavalry in the rear. I plan to use 2 sub-commanders with the Brigade Commander. Probably with the reserve and horse under the direct command of the Brigadier.

I have my Prussians stored away, otherwise I would have put out a brigade on the table and made some photographs, I am looking forward to seeing them on the table. Well back to learning a new set of rules.

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More Brunswickers and some Austrians

Well here is my 15th and final submission to the Painting Challenge. These figures just push me over my personal goal of 1700 pts and I have to say that I am done with the brush for a bit. Rather then finishing with the 18 figures I need for my Romano-British force or the 16 figures left in the Hobbit box set I decided to finish off some Napoleonics.

Here are the final 2 units needed for the Brunswick Light Brigade at Waterloo. The 2nd Light have yellow facings and the 1st have tan facings. They join the 3rd with orange facings as well as the Avant Garde and the Lieb battalion in the Light Brigade. All I have to do now to finish off the Brunswick Corps are the 3 Line battalions, they will be next up as I they really have great looking flags, which were not available for the light troops. I just received some amazing flags from Flagdude. so maybe I will be unable to rest the brush for too long.

The final two figures to get over the 1700 mark are 2 Austrian commanders. A couple of years ago I started an Austrian unit, I am not sure if I will ever finish it, but I have 2 battalions of line, 1 battalion of grenzers and 4 companies of jaegers done as well as some artillery and a regiment of cavalry. A nice brigade sized force, but no brigade commander. So here we have an Austrian Major General with his ADC. These are Front Rank figures and are just very nice to paint. As you could see from the close up of the face I could have easily painted some eyes, which I have not been keen to do, but thankfully I have still resisted.

Well where to next? Well it is time to start playing some games. We are having another weekend in Montreal in about a month time. We have been struggling a bit looking for a Napoleonic ruleset. We have had several games of Black Powder, 2 games of Piquet Field of Battle, and 1 game of Curt's Food for Powder. We like them all, but we are still looking (Curt's ruleset is not completely developed yet, so we will be trying it again). We did a poll of our rulesets and have decided to test a new ruleset on each of our next 3 outings with one of us acting as a games master and being responsible for the scenario and presenting the rules to the others. I am up first and I am hoping to do my next posts on the process and then a report on the actual game.

In respect to painting, I have pretty well accomplished what I set out to do with SAGA (painted three 6 point war bands) and Dux Britaniarum (only 18 figures left to go for two starter forces). I also have promised to do an ancients force to tackle Iannick's Canaanites. A lot to think about there, but where most of them will be half naked, I am hoping to be able to get them out quickly.

So really I am keen to get back to filling in the gaps in my Napoleonic armies. It seems I have really lost control of myself here, I have a lot of soldiers with no where to put them. The only new force I am planning and I am going to stop there is the 2nd Netherland's Division at Waterloo. Otherwise I have started to look at filling the holes, ie. adding units up to bring things up the armies to coherent division strength. Anyway that is the plan!

Finally I have to say that I am amazed at the number of page views I have had for my last post, the army of the Taifa of Seville. In eight days I have had over 4600 page views of this post alone! This is a 1000 more page views then any other post I have done in the last 5 years. I am a little puzzled, but thanks for looking.

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A SAGA Warband from the Emirate of Seville

Here is my penultimate submission (the 14th) to the Painting Challenge, and I am happy it is almost over. Well maybe not as happy as Curt is.

Well here is the Army of the Taifa of Seville, a SAGA warband to repel Nico's Frankish infidels under Raymond of Toulouse whether in Al-Andalus or County of Tripoli. Aside from the Warlord, Abbad al-Isbili  who is mace armed, the Soldiers of God are all armed with javelins. This should be fun as in SAGA this means they can move and fire in one activation. I will most likely be using the Saracen Battleboard from the Studio Tomahawk forum. I am still trying to get Chessex Dice to reply to my emails about some nice custom dice.

The figures are from Musketeer Miniatures and Artisan Design. They are well sculpted, but horribly cast. The Artisan Design figures had the worst mold lines I have come across. Their Berber Javelinmen (they all look like one-eyed mullahs, have a look) and the Berber Light Cavalry horses were particularly bad. Not withstanding this as a group, I am quite happy with them and am pleased to have them off the painting table. 

All the banners are from Little Big Man Studios and I have to say they are really very nice.

The 5-point Warband is comprised of a Warlord, 1 unit of Syrian Heavy Cavalry Hearthguards, 1 unit of Armoured Andalusian Foot Hearthguards, 1 unit of Berber Blackguard Warriors, 1 unit of Berber Jinete Warriors, and 1 unit of Berber Javelinmen Levy. 

Abbad I

Syrian Heavy Cavalry

Andalusian Armoured Infantry

Berber Jinetes

Berber Black Guard

Berber Javelinmen

The one-eyed mullahs!

The Andalusian Emirs who ruled the various taifa relied heavily on mercenaries, mostly from North Africa, but also Christian soldiers from Europe. We will definitely see my Flemish mercenaries in the employ of the Emirate of Sevilla but also maybe some Vikings. 

Well one more submission to go, definitely some Napoleonics this time.

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