Thursday 26 June 2014

Saracen Cavalry

I tested to batch paint a whole unit in one go.

It saved up on time and I managed to paint a whole unit in less time then it would take to paint them i lesser parts. The idea with batch painting is to use one colour on all models before switching to a new colour and work that one over all. I used a brown primer as a start on these as I wanted to have lots of brown horses and leather on the riders, all meant to speed up the painting.

The miniatures are a mixture of Magister Militums historical Saracens and some of their fantasy miniatures mixed in, and the Hornblower was given a steed from Gripping Beast.
I like the riders and they got a nice mixture of equipment and looks good. The horses on the other hand.. some of them is far to small.











For a light horse unit as the previously painted it works but as I initially wanted to have a heavy cavalry unit I dont think it looks believable.
So I think I shall downgrade these miniatures. They are carrying chain mail armour, helmets and shields so they could be used as heavy cavalry but as some of the horses are really small I plan to downgrade these into a sort of medium cavalry unit and threat them as a milita or levy unit compromised of somewhat richer citizens drafted to make up for a cavalry unit. They are missing the training and horses of a proper heavy cavalry unit.

With that in mind I opted for a more brown colour palette then some of my previously Saracen cavalry units but still with some details and colour. And I skipped on some of the fabric details and so on.


I plan to take some miniature comparison pictures later so you can see the difference in sizes on the horses as I think that on their own they actually look pretty descent.


So the verdict on Magister Militum... I like their infantry and most of their cavalrymen but dislikes their horses.

4 comments:

  1. Nice looking unit! Shame about the horse sizes though.

    Painting in large batches really is a great way to get things done, but can get really dreary. But at least units like these have a bit of variety between figures thanks to different clothing unlike more unified units of more modern ages.

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  2. Nice work. I see what you mean about horse size. Seems that some of the riders are foot dragging on the ground. Perhaps, they rode into battle on ponies?

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  3. Lovely job, it's funny I hadn't noticed the size of the horses until I read your comment.

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  4. Thanks guys.

    I guess small pony size horses might actually be more historical correct but it somehow looks wrong. On the light horse shown earlier I think it suits better to have smaller horses.

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