Post by paddy649 on Jul 1, 2018 8:16:39 GMT
Catching up on June just as the month turns here is the sixth army I've showcased this year - HALFWAY! The origins of this army were in my unpainted lead mountain (where I had a lot of unpainted Minifigs knights) and also in the spear and crossbow left over from converting my Tectonics WRG army to DBA3.0. Flicking through the purple book I realised that putting the two together, adding a sprinkling of extra figures and painting/repainting new liveries would give me a Later Crusader Army. Brilliant!
Next problem - how to paint them? Here I did extensive research using the authoritative historical source for this period, namely Ridley Scott's 2005 file "Kingdom of Heaven." This convinced me that I'd need troops from the Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Kingdom of Jerusalem. Should be colourful! However, at this stage I discovered the absolutely fantastic "HOLYLAND" - The Crusaders' Kingdoms range from Legio Herocia and began lusting after their figures, especially the "King Baldwin, Raymond of Tripoli, Knight with true cross" pack. This nearly de-railed the whole project...why paint up old stuff I'd bought 20 years ago when I could buy new shiny figures......
......eventually I came to me senses and realised threat the aim was to dent the lead mountain and not increase it! However, one day I'll do this army with Legio Herocia figures.
The I hit my final problem - that army list needed 5Kn, 5Sp and 2 x 4Cb - which doesn't split evenly between 3 sub-forces of Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Kingdom of Jerusalem. So nothing else for it but paint up 3 forces each with 2Kn, 2Sp and 1 x 4Cb. It means I'd have 15 rather than 12 units to paint - but there was a warped logic to my thinking. Finally the LH and the 3Bw - I'd do those when I paint up the Syrian Army as a matched pair. Finally the painting! Well the Hospitaller are easy peasy! Spray black, dry brush grey, metal, wood, a white cross and outline black. The Templars aren't much harder, spray white, black ink, over paint white, metal, wood, a red cross and outline black. The Kingdom of Jerusalem figures were harder as the blue paint was a lovely colour but hard to use and the crosses too detailed. Then the flags - the fun bit.....as ever with me they are far too large to be realistic but look impressive on the table top. They are all hand painted. I like flags!
I'm rather pleased with the final result, colourful, distinctive and hard as nails. There doesn't seem to be much subtlety top this army. I've no idea how they play on the table top - but Spear is now good under 3.0 and Knights can steam roller into things. One minor thing is the basing style - which I've changed for this army. Textured paint, over painted brown and desert yellow as usual but this time a dry brushing of "skeleton bone" or similar colour and less flock than normal to give these troops a Syrian desert look to them. I suppose this means that I'll need to do a desert board at some time.
So the end result - The full army: