The Great Table E Crusade - the story of an army list

 If all had gone as planned, we would now have been in the middle of our summer Crusades campaign. As this has had to be postponed I thought I'd take the opportunity to record my painting progress for this project. This was actually finished months ago but I've only just got around to  posting anything.

The concept, cooked up at the end of last year, was a lighthearted, multiplayer, crusades based campaign using our 'Rampant Fistful' rules (a version of Lion Rampant fused with the Fistful of Lead activation system). Each player committed  to providing a Lion Rampant sized force based on a crusades theme; the umpires providing the Turkish / Arabic forces.

At that point I had exactly 8 figures, for the project, mounted and foot versions of 4 knights that I had painted up for last years 'Steel and Steed' Christmas game. So with the addition of two more knights from Irregular Miniatures, handily sold as single figures, these became my first 2 units.

After these first two units the 'army' grew on a whim with no real planning, largely based on what Fireforge sets I could lay my hands on. As it happens I already had a box of  unassembled Fireforge Sergeants that I had previously purchased for another Lion Rampant project. This gave me two units of spearmen and two of crossbow, which I painted up in the colours of two of my 'Steel and Steed' knights; Sir Erasmus Pea and Sir Oberon de Finchale (aka the Finchale Faerie).

Sir Erasmus' Crossbow

Sir Erasmus' Spear

Sir Oberon's Crossbow

Sir Oberon's Spear

I was quite pleased with these, so when I came cross a box of mounted sergeants in the local model shop I jumped at the chance to add these to my force. I made up half as mounted spearmen and half as crossbowmen. The spear I painted up in Sir Erasmus' colours but the I based the crossbowmen on Templar sergeants.

Templar Sergeants

Sir Erasmus' Sergeants

As this was the crusades, it didn't seem right not to have some Templars in their iconic white robes, so I next added a box of Fireforge Templar knights. I only used half of these as Templars and painted up the other half as troops from the Kingdom of Jerusalem. For the latter I used a mix of parts from the Templar box with leftovers from the mounted sergeants; to hopefully create a unit that could stand in as knights or sergeants as required.

Templars

Kingdom of Jerusalem

At that point I thought I was finished - until a fellow crusader suggested that we split a box of Gripping Beast Arab light cavalry. These fellows were destined to represent a unit of Turcopoles. Admittedly, there does not seem to be a consensus on either what Turcopoles looked like or with what they were armed but mounted archers, in the Turkish style, sounds quite fun.

Turcopoles

The final addition to the army was a selection of game markers. I would need battered markers and something to denote 'schiltron' would be handy. For battered, I went with discarded shields, and a couple of standards for schiltron.

I think that will do, for now. I should be able to create a variety of forces from these boys but as we are still awaiting the publication of the Lion Rampant Crusader States supplement, who knows what extra figures I might 'need' in the future.