The Battle of Ascalon 1099 - Cotswold All Dayer - Part 1

36 Hours to go before the Cotswold all dayer.

The plan is a game based loosely on the Battle of Ascalon set during the 1st Crusade where the Christian Armies catch the Fatimid/Egyptian Army outside of Ascalon in August 1099.

Using Lion Rampant we will have 4 commands representing the Christians forces, with a further 4 Commands for the Arab forces.

Each command is 36 points strong with chits per command to decide on who takes each the first turn. It's been quite the effort over the last few weeks with two of us spending most evening ploughing through ranks of cavalry and spearmen. The Arab forces now out number the Christians by quite a margin.

A well deserved day off tomorrow as I wait for the Varnish to dry on three more cavalry units.

Gripping Beast Cavalry with shields from Little Big Man Studio

I am not a fan of painting cavalry and this was only meant to be a small project but I appear to now hold the largest collection of cavalry across all my collections with still another 4 units to make up and paint..... Not sure how that happened......

With another one of our merry band painting a similar number it should look quite intimidating for the Christian forces. Let's see if their Elite Norman cavalry can break through our mass ranks of horse archers and light cavalry.

Perhaps something green for a change next.... :-)

Outremer Arab Spearmen

Back to Outremer. 

Having decided on the plan for the next all dayer - It turns out we might be woefully short of Arab foot types. 5 weeks nothing like deadline to focus the mind.

Not usually a fan of plastics for gaming, I tend to lose bayonets and spears during regular game play, but you can't argue with the value for money. Gripping Beast offer 40 figures for £25.00 - 62p a figure can't be bad.

The box contains 8 sprues with enough to make a mixture of spear, bow and sword armed units together with command elements horns etc.

The Sprue contains 3 round shields and two teardrop so plenty of mix for the various units, while there may not be obvious leader types they are very useful to fill the ranks of generic warriors.

Good quality casts with minimal mold lines and and they detach really easily, limbs are pre-molded carrying spear or sword so construction is minimal.  

The Gripping Beast figures fit in well with other manufacturers hidden amongst the masses are a bunch of Footsore and some Black Tree Design

The shield designs are from Little Big Man Studio such a good time saver.

Next up more cavalry.

Perry Miniatures - Muslim Armoured foot.

 After a few weeks away time to get back on the brushes..

The seems to be a distinct lack of Islamic armoured foot in the market, these are from Perry's Crusades range and are very nice, they might be slightly larger than the Footsore castings but will be just fine in a unit on their own.

When used within Lion Rampant they form up in units of 6, which makes use of the pack from the Perry Twins, Shield designs are transfers from Little Big Man Studio, such a time saver.

Next up..... more Saracen heavy cavalry.

Arab Light Cavalry - Outremer

The Crusader project rolls on.

After the Christian Foot Knights time for some Arab cavalry, these have sat in the draw of shame for several years and the Outremer project is just the nudge needed to get these on the table.

I used Footsore shields to ensure they mix with the rest of the faction currently on the paint table, the decals are from Little Big Studio and are such a time saver, it's doubtful I could get even close to a similar output or standard.

The horses are a little larger than their Footsore counterparts, I will post up a comparison in a future post. But based up with scrub and scatter they will fit with the larger collection.

The Muslim forces are coming together nicely.

Footsore Arab Spearmen - Outremer States.

The Crusaders need someone to ride down.... after a couple of evening sessions the Arab Spearmen finally clear the paint table.

The garish colours once based and given a Army Paint Flesh wash blend rather well together, lovely castings as always from the guys over at Footsore so much character in their sculpts.

Still a little on the cold side for a matt varnish but that will help take the shine off the shields and help protect the decals - so much easier than trying to hand paint the shields with Islamic script.

Whilst it's take a little more time far better to get all the spearmen completed on in one group, with two groups of 8 and 4 swordsmen it gives me plenty of options on the table.

I have mixed the colours across the spearmen so they should come across as non-uniformed vs the more orderly Christian forces, although the pilgrims will be in a dull mix of browns and greens..

Really pleased how these have turned out itching to get them on the table top but will certainly need some better armoured support to stand up to the Knights Templar.

Nice to get a mention in the Footsore News letter this morning.

Toadily awesome (mailchi.mp)

High praise in need given the quality of the painting on the Baron's War Facebook group no pressure to the get the rest of the Kickstarter complete then.

The Outremer Fortified Hospital is up for auction on e-bay - not yet available on the Footsore site.

As much as I would love to get it made and painted the projects are backing up - Still in the box the Kickstarter came in.

Original price £200.00 but all reasonable offers considered.

Footsore Miniatures Barons War Outremer Fortified Hospital Crusader Fort | eBay