Building the Saracen Army part 3

Just before Xmas I shared with you my progress on the Saracen army I was building. I am now delighted to report that a further 80 plastic Gripping Beast Arabs are now painted and have been added to the infantry ranks. This brings the total number of infantry to about 240 figures. The final total may well be closer to 300 by the time I have added a few personalities and added some extra bits and bobs.

If you want to start to read this project from the beginning head here

 

http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/building-saracen-army-part-1.html

 

I still need to finish the bases on these and sort out the shields. Transfers have been ordered from Little Big Man Studios (link below)

Little Big Man Studios

The next 80 - two boxes

 



I have been a little more ambitious with these adding stripes and coloured hemlines !

 

I haven’t neglected the cavalry. I think I mentioned in my last post that I intended using a range of manufacturers to build this rather eclectic force. Including HAT, Fire Forge, Black Tree, and Musketeer to name a few

The latest additions are 24 Fire Forge Mongol horsemen who have now been transformed into an arab looking force using all those spare Gripping Beast heads. I have based and primed these Of course these guys deserve a coat of paint and this will be applied shortly.

24 Fire Forge Mongols ( to be painted as arabs)

 

Whilst talking about heads I still needed to chop off those silly little heads on the HAT figures and replace these with GB arab heads – thank god I had enough.

I thought a few photos might go down well for others with same thought but had not taken the plunge

Original Gripping Beast spearman



Gripping Beast head on Fire Forge Mongol Horse



Gripping Beast head on 28mm HAT Arab

 

So in summary I can now field almost 100 cavalry figures (including camels). Even though the riders have not been painted I just had to put them all out for one big charge !!
To put this into scale if you placed one figure behind another the line would stretch for 5 metres 

 

On a final point I saw that Black Tree design were running another of their fantastic deals so I bought a few Viziers for command units, another eight crossbows allowing me to field a unit of 16, and some of their Saracen horsemen from the fantasy range. Sixteen of these guys at around £2.80 each.

Finally I bought a mage on a flying carpet – you never know when you might need one!

When they arrive I’ll be sure to post some photos...

 

By my reckoning I have now applied paint to half the army so with a fair wind the end of March is still looking possible, and for those of you fed up with my mediocre painting don't worry a new set of terrain builds are in the 'thinking stage'...