After a bit of a lull on the paint front, I managed to get the blockage moved and got some stuff finished last week, adding another couple of units to my Crusader collection, this time a 24 figure Crossbow Unit and a 24 figure Spear armed unit.

Spears to the rear, apologies for the 15mm Napoleonic figures in the background

The figures are the Foot Sergeant plastic box set from Fireforge, a great set with 48 figures in, ideal for two 24 fig units ! The detail on the figures in good for plastics, they are however quite chunky for a starved Medieval Army and I’m not too sure about some of the half crouch half standing poses but in general as an Army Builder they are a great set.

Spearmen close up

The figures are based on a 60mm frontage by 50mm depth, standard frontage for the period but slightly extra depth, for me it allows a bit more space to protect the figures and their bendy plastic weapons, that and it makes basing a bit easier. Getting filler in between the legs of tiny warriors in double ranks is never easy !

I have gone for a generally uniform look, mostly because it’s a whole lot quicker and easier to paint after doing 12 individually liveried Gendarme I needed uniformity !
My Crusade armies are based roughly around the third Crusade and the Outremer States. Taking the yellow outlined cross on the red background of the County of Tripoli as a basis I have simply transferred that to these figures to give MY interpretation of troops from that state.

All the shield decoration is hand painted and relatively neat, my Laphroig / blood level must have been in the correct range band at the time of painting.

Crossbow

The addition of these foot troops will add a different dimension to our Crusade battles as most of the finished units are shiny Knights dashing around on horse back, all my fault as I like shiny Knights, especially those of the Military Order variety !

Still on the hunt for rules, personally I still prefer Deus Vult, they have a lot more of a Crusader feel (whatever that is !). I enjoyed Strongpoint but they were a generic set of Ancient and Medieval rules rather than Crusades specific. As the collection, slowly gets bigger it will be easier to judge the right set.

And after getting that paint mojo going again I am away from the paint table for a month, let’s hope the enthusiasm is there when I pick up the brushes again !

I am experimenting with turning off Google plus comments as the platform is being shut down, it seems to have deleted all the previous comments, my apologies. Please feel free to comment under the new system to see if it works, thanks.