Slitherine

Hi everyone,

I have been wargaming for 7 years and just tonight brought my first historical miniatures, after playing my first game of Field of Glory last week.

I have a few questions that I would like answered so that I don't muck up when painting them. I have brought an Early Crusaders army.

1. I feel that it would be best to mix the heraldry on my knights within a battlegroup. What do you think?

2. Would I paint spearmen and crossbowmen in similar/same colours to my Knights or different ones? (eg: I was thinking it might be cool to do maybe 4 or 5 of each footsoldier in the same style of heraldry as each knight)

3. Would it be historical to do a snow basing scheme for my army?

Do you have any hints or tips for painting up early crusaders?

Sorry if any of these questions seem silly. As I said, I am new to the whole historical aspect of the wargaming hobby. Thanks for your help.

Welcome to the addiction!

Try www.fanaticus.org for pictures on tons of 15mm armies...

additionally Tim Porters site www.madaxeman.com has a bunch...

Those two are good choices to get a feel for your palate...

Madcam.

A Crusader army would typically be a motley collection of small units and assorted individuals banded together into larger units. It might look credible on the table with some matching heraldry, and some not matching. Color schemes would again be a combination of small clusters of matching stuff banded together with a few unrelated elements. One or two of the larger or better contingents within the army might actually have a homogeneous set of weapons, armor, and heraldry. The poorer the troop quality, the less the individual elements would likely have in common.

kingma15 wrote:Hi everyone,

I have been wargaming for 7 years and just tonight brought my first historical miniatures, after playing my first game of Field of Glory last week.

Welcome to historical miniatures.

I have a few questions that I would like answered so that I don't muck up when painting them. I have brought an Early Crusaders army.

1. I feel that it would be best to mix the heraldry on my knights within a battlegroup. What do you think?

It depends slightly on the army you are building but in general as each knight had his own arms then there should really be no two knights the same. There are exceptions, mainly in the military orders so Hospitalers and Teutons for example are much more uniform.

2. Would I paint spearmen and crossbowmen in similar/same colours to my Knights or different ones? (eg: I was thinking it might be cool to do maybe 4 or 5 of each footsoldier in the same style of heraldry as each knight)

For a War of the Roses army doing bases of troops in the same livery to represent the bands of one of the wealthier knights would be nice but most medieval armies I have seen have very varied foot troops.

3. Would it be historical to do a snow basing scheme for my army?

It depends on the army. Teutons fought in the snow as did War of the Roses armies. I am sure there were more wintr battles but they weren't the norm.

Do you have any hints or tips for painting up early crusaders?

Don't base them on snow

More seriously you are probably best to root around the web for what other people have done. Tim's site is a good one as is http://www.miniatures4wargamers.com/dat ... usader.php

Re basing on snow. In the ancient and medieval period armies generally went on campaign in the spring / summer / autumn period, so winter battles are relatively rare.
But the main problem I think with snow bases (and this applies to any period, even WW2 Russians), is that unless you play on a snow effect table, they look silly and out of place.

For my Medieval Swedes I vary the heraldry within bases for my mounted units, and all of the foot troops have a unique color scheme.

I am tossing around doing one of my militia units all in blue and yellow just to give that 'royal regiment' look.

If you are new to historicals, you may want to check out 10mm figures as well. They have good detail, are quick to paint, and look great in massed units.

Here are links to some 10mm Crusaders-era:
http://www.magistermilitum.com/prodtype ... istory=cat

http://www.pendraken.co.uk/darkages.htm

http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=93
The OG figures don't have pictures, but you can see (and BUY) them here: http://www.greathallminis.com/Ancient_1 ... c10_og.htm

Here are some great looking 10mm armies if you have never seen any: http://fieldofglory.free.fr/index.php?/category/22
10mm uses the exact same bases sizes as 15mm figures, so there is zero issue playing against each other in game terms.


Feel free to ignore my 10mm propaganda if it's frowned upon in your area for some reason.

Wow! What great responses. Thanks for the help guys.

careful! the early crusader period is TOO EARLY for heraldry! knights would have simple patterns on their shields, but it was not yet heraldry, the pattern wasn't assigned. and assuming that a knights' man-at-arms would share the same heraldry would be purely conjecture. look at pictures of the bayeux tapestry for norman shield patterns. an early crusader army wouldn't really look too terribly different from a norman army. the shields in your battle groups should be very different and varied.

snow? no. they might have encountered snow a couple times crossing passes in anatolia, and it might have snowed an inch or two around jerusalem once or twice, before it melted in a couple hours. but they certainley never fought in it. now the teutonic knights on the other hand, heck, they fought on ice (bad idea)

hope this helps! the crusades are my favorite era too!