Saladins Cave or a Day at the Office

 

As Assassins and Templars is approaching its publication date it is time to add the final touches, take a few last pics and create some publicity videos. With this in mind I arrived at WI Tower to meet with editor Dan Faulconbridge and historian Professor Steve Tibble.

 It’s always a pleasure to visit the home of the Premier Wargaming Magazine, the team are very welcoming and always make me feel at home…they even keep a box of my favourite tea bags for my visits!

Steve , Dan and myself in a still from the promotional video

Wi is a treasure trove of wargaming essentials! Every wall has shelves groaning under the weight of porticoes and palaces, hovels and haciendas, castles and cottages…

  There are boxes and boxes of figures from every possible theatre and racks of modular terrain

 Every time I go there I find something new…

There are dozens of boxes of scatter terrain …

...you could represent the world’s biggest market…

...and transport it!

Dan Faulconbridge is the man responsible for all this madness although he tends to shrug the blame off onto his predecessor Duncan McFarlane. Dan and I have been working on Assassins and Templars for several months now and have developed an excellent working relationship. We both like to play with toys and it is a pleasure to watch Dan set a table for a photo shoot as he readily transforms into a ten year old version of himself as he gleefuly places his favourite bits and pieces

Dan is the production engine but the inspiration for this game comes from this man…the Prof… Dr Steve Tibble.

    Steve is another friend that I have made through this hobby, he has a growing reputation as the Crusades Historian and, particularly, for his knowledge of these maniacal Orders of fanatical Warrior Monks.

  It was his initial idea that the conflict between these two ideologically opposed but surprisingly similar groups would make an excellent subject for a wargame, he spoke to Dan and Dan recruited me… and the rest... well…

 

 I first became aware of Steves’ work when I listened to Templars "the knights who made Britain" as an audiobook and subsequently bought Crusader Armies,  an excellent book, in which Steve writes with an easy style and a descriptive flair that feels more like story than history and provides a vivid insight into the real reasons for these constant and seemingly interminable wars.

 Steve is a wargamer as well as an historian and this shows in the details of his writing, he brings battles to life and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the strategic and tactical aspects of war. The book is well illustrated with some excellent maps and is a must have for all those gamers who have an interest in the Crusades.

The book that started it all! This book too is superb! Steve very kindly forwarded me a pdf of this book before it was printed so that I was able to gen up on these strange sects and gain an understanding of how they operated.

  Steve’s almost lyrical style is engrossing, and this particular book is a real page turner, you just have to know what happens next. Steve adds extraordinary detail to a little known history and brings these warriors to life.

Thrilling stories abound and provide a whole catalogue of potential scenarios, it is another excellent read and it's top quality production values mean that this is a book you will pick up often, riffle throught its creamy white pages and sniff!

We had a full schedule and a busy day that Dan had sketched out for us with several interviews and the filming of some game sequences, but there was also time for friendly banter, informal chats and all round fun. I feel that we all got to know each other a little better and now we are ready for the sequel!

Assassins and Templars! Some of the toys on the table. Post production adjustments from the clever Wi-zards will make this scene really pop!

Assassins on the attack…

…and the Templars respond

Assassins and Templars, the book, published by Yale University Press and available from all good booksellers

Assassins and Templars, the game, published by Wargames Illustrated on November 1^st, and available from your local stockist or https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/

Mounting the Nizaris

 

The Nizaris a horseback

What’s worse than a deadly fanatical Assassin? A deadly fanatical Assassin on horseback! 

The Nizaris were accomplished horsemen, indeed, they excelled at all things equestrian and so I have to have a mounted version of my Retinue and as I used the fabulous Gripping Beast Arab infantry for my foot it was only natural to choose the Gripping Beast Arab Cavalry to mount my Characters.The two Gripping Beast Arab Cavalry sets are as excellent as the infantry sets, if not better as they have more bits and offer a wide range of possibilities for kit bashes and conversions.

These sets pulled me back into the hobby after a hiatus of many years, I saw them in the window of a model shop in Salisbury, and I just had to! I still have remnants of the LC box as is demonstrated by the rather beaten up box.

I mostly used bits from the LC set for these figures with the occasional head or weapon from the HC set, however I forgot to take a picture of the light cavalry frame before I got chopping …d’oh!

These are GBP 05 Gripping Beast Arab Heavy cavalry and

GBP 06 Gripping Beast Arab Light cavalry

You get a fair old bit for your pennies. Each frame creates 3 figures, yet you get eight very characterful heads, six bodies each with a different style of armour, mostly lamellar, three sets of legs, four bow quivers each in a different style.

There are three sheathed swords, one of which is curved in traditional although possibly inaccurate eastern stylee, four right arms bearing spears, two with swords, and one with a straight horn. There is also a hand holding a mace, so plenty of scope for arming them all in different ways.

There are three right arms flexed with open hands that have just released a bow string and five left arms holding bows in a variety of positions.

 Finally, there are six left arms mostly flexed in suitable positions to bear one of the three splendid large shields 

I like the horses, they are a good size and you can force the sides that aren’t supposed to go together - together to create a few more different poses. You may need a dab of green stuff to fill a gap or two oh and cut off the little lugs or you won't get them to align at all

Both sets share the same steeds. These are nicely styled with a horse hair tassle hanging down below the neck and what appear to be leather tassets hanging at the back of the harness.

 The reins are modelled separately which is a nice touch

The nags!

The Heads! These are excellent in my opinion, they come with a variety of head wear and each oozes character, each has a tale to tell.

However, I only used a couple of them for these figures, I am looking forward to using them all when I create my Ayyubids/Seljuks/Turkic Retinue 

I wanted to match the mounted Nizari to their counterpart on foot.  Here are the Heroes.

The background is from Peters Paperboys

  It was fairly easy to create these guys, I just used the same heads and arms that I used for the foot version and glued them onto a LC body and legs. 

I did the three archers in a similar fashion although I used the top half of the foot archer on the right instead of the cavalry figures torso, using a razor saw to separate it from its legs

the boss! The Fidais Shaykh. I rarely paint black horses, I can’t remember the last time that I did! For this one I used Army Painter Fanatic matt Black highlighted with Citadel Dark Reaper and a final very light highlight of Citadel Thunderhawk Blue to create a blue black effect. I then glazed with black ink to make the highlights more subtle. The reins and bridle are Citadel Mephiston Red and its highlights. This horse has four white socks and so has bone coloured hooves.

 For the saddlecloth I used Citadel Thousand Suns and its derivatives, the pin stripes are Stone Golem 

An Assassin, this was another case of copying the figure I had previously painted. The horse is painted using the Foundry Buff triad. The Reins and harness are Citadel the Fang etc with a glaze of Tyran Blue 

The other Assassin. They look a bit strange with a weapon in each hand, but I guess this speaks to their superlative skill as riders and their martial arts training.

For this horse I used a Mark Taylor Vallejo recipe Cavalry Brown, highlighted with Orange Brown and Light Brown. I always glaze horse flesh, in this case with Citadel Sepia ink

This guy rides a very brown horse Citadel Mournfang , Skrag and Death claw glazed with Agrax, the horse harness is done with Citadel Balor Brown etc

The saddle cloth is Citadel Caliban Green and its brothers

This horse is a bay, it has black tail and mane and black legs therefore it has black, or they could be slate grey hooves

The reins and harness ar Citadel Khorne Red. I painted each of the riders the same as their counterpart on foot.

This horse was done using Foundry Dark African Flesh, its another bay. The leather harness is painted using the same leather recipe as I usually use, see previous posts, the saddle cloth is Citadel Khorne red, the spots are stone Golem with a light blues, I forget which, picked out in the centre of each white dot

The Captain horse and foot

This has been a fun project…

…it’s great to have a “dismount” for each of my riders…

…or is it a rider for each of my warriors on foot?

Either way it increases the flexibility of this Retinue. I mounted the archers because I like the idea of Horse Archers and now I really want to produce an Ayyubid/Seljuk Retinue of Turkic Horse Archers and Ghulams/Faris 

I was careful to reproduce the name of God arm band on each rider in the same style as the Characters on foot

That’s, my Nizaris nearly complete, there just remains a couple of figures to go, what these figures are I cannot yet reveal, but it is part of a very exciting project that I have been working on with Wargames Illustrated …

  More to follow…