Dismounted Knights of Saint Lazarus

Here we have a small unit of dismounted Knights from the Order of Saint Lazarus, The Leper Brothers of Jerusalem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Saint_Lazarus

This was a really fun unit to build and paint.
The main parts are from Fireforge Games but I switched it around with two metal miniatures that I dont remember where they were from and plastic bits from the Frostgrave Cultist box. I used the undead/ zombie heads but painted them in regular skin colours but with some added blood for that "nice" leprocy feeling... And I think the undead head was great.

For the painting i went for a white tunic with green crosses. I tested some different cross designs for the hauberk and the shields for fun, but I think the one that looks best is the standard "boring" cross and not any of those fancy Maltese cross designs.
The standard plain cross is probably the most historically accurate, the other ones looks a little to fancy... But I never claimed to be historically accurate, I only try to be semi historical accurate with some artistic freedom sprinkled in for looks.

The white/green with dark chainmail and brown leather is a really nice and striking design.
This could be a nice design to work further with.
Maybe expand this for a whole Lion Rampant warband sized force one day.

But here is the small 8 man strong dismounted knight strong unit I made just for fun.

Crusades, Lion Ramant multiplayer AAR

The saturday befor this, we had a great four player game of Lion Rampant.
I brought along some of my collection and mustered four warbands.
For the westerns we had a contingent of French and German crusaders, for the saracens we got the Ayyubid Egyptians and Turks.
We used random activation with a deck of card, when each players symbol was drawn that player got the chance to activate their forces.
The scenario we played was "Defending the indefensible", the Crusaders would defend the oasis with the all important water source.
The scenario states that the defender can start with 10points at the objective, with double forces we doubled that amount of points.

 I would take the field as the French commander.

 The Saracen forces gathers for an all out attack.

 

The defenders of the waterhole.

The Crusader knights lay moves in to protect their comrades.

The Ayyubid forces moves through the the village

The defenders stay put and wish their knights could hurry up...

Turkic horsemen moves forward in dashing speed.

After a slow start both the French and the German commanders decides to move forward.

The Saracen were really pummeling our troops with arrows and our troops were taking cassualties and are pushed back. We really neaded our knights to support now.

Our brave troops are ordered to move up in position again to not the Saracen near the water.

Our knights are finaly getteing near to support. And the Saracen are forced to split its attension to the relief of our infantry.

The French knights charges into the enemy commander. I wanted to make a show of force. To make a reall dent to the enemy Ayyubids. If I could take out the commander the morale of the Egyprians would be hurt.
Even with some cassualties on my own the enemy was taking more damage and are fleeing for the might of the French...

The brave German Commander charges straight into the Saracen lines.

Unfortinutly a lucky hit fell the German commander. But even with the loss of their commander the German are victorius and the Turkic cavalry are pushed back.

But now the Germans are surrraunded on all side by archers on horseback, not the best of positions.

Meanwile the Ayyubids tries to attack the hard pressed guards of the waterhole. But they are not able to push in force and are attacking piecemeal.

The French knights are now pushing up on the Ayyubid flank...

The French knights are pushing hard. And many small units are ridden down.

The French knights continues to charge the infidels... Deus Vult...

And the Saracen are slaughtered.

The last unit of German knights finishes of the Saracen infantry and the westernes infantry holding the watersource are relieved. The enemy were now so battered that they could not muster enought force to push for the water.
It was a victory for the Crusaders, the plan to capture our troops at the waterhole had failed.

Big thanks to Johan, Sofia and Daniel for a great and exciting game.

French light infantry crusaders

I wanted a lighter infantry option for my French crusader force.
But the miniatures are rather generic painted so I can through them into about any medieval force without looking wrong.

The miniatures are a mixture but are mostly Conquest Games - Normans and Gripping Beast - Dark age warriors with some Fireforge - Sergeants heads.

This is also one of those units that have stood halfpainted since maybe Christmas so it feels good to finish them.

As I wanted a lowly standard unit I tried to keep the colours down and not highlight to bright. This will make this unit somewhat dull but will make the knight units pop even more.

 In Lion Ramant I will use three bases and use wound markers, this for ease movement.

Lion Rampant, Crusades AAR

I found some pictures of a game of Lion Rampant my friend Johan and I had back in march. Some of the details are a bit hazy but it feels bad not to post them even if the actual aar will be a bit lacking...

This is a game in our Crusade project and I would be using my Frech crusading force. http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.se/2016/10/french-crusading-force-for-lion-rampant.html

The Saracen caravan

The French commander with a unit of crossbowmen is blocking the path.

A flanking force of Crossbowmen and mounted Serjeants.

The Caravan advances and the cavalry moves out. The light cavalry is met with crossbows and are pushed back.

My lone knight unit on the other flank is severely damaged after continues rounds of fire from the Saracens. But I didnt want to commit them as I wanted the deterrent they was and forced the Saracen to split their force and not be so strong in the more important front of the caravan. 

The French commander advances and later charges in.

A lone unit of crossbowmen inflicts heavy casualties.

My opponent used the tactics of forcing me to shoot at his lighter cavalry with greater charge range as the rules for choosing enemies forces you to first shoot at the units able to charge you, and with the light cavalries long movement his heavier Mamluks (mounted serjeants) was saved.

But in the end the combined charge of my cavarly and the heavy showering of bolts from my crossbow units was to much and I nicked a victory at the very end. A victory by the slightest marginals but none the less. The game could have easily gone the other way around.