Friday 17 January 2020

Reconquista at Partizan 2020, Andalusian Noble Cavalry

Things have been a bit stressful of late with various close relatives in and out of hospital but I have managed squeeze in the time to get quite a lot of painting done! I'm not sure where I found the mental resources let alone the time but it has been managed!

I have delayed posting these pics as I had entered The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and the rules state I must wait one day before I can publish anything I have entered on my Blog- which is fair enough of course. I was drawn to the Painting Challenge as a means to keep the impetus going to get the right units painted up for the Partizan show on May 17th of this year. It's a tall undertaking but I am armed with enthusiasm, a love of painting miniatures and with the added impetus of the Painting Challenge all should be well.

A word in regarding the planned Partizan game. Nothing is written in stone yet but I feel myself moving away from what I had originally planned, that being the Battle of Sagrajas 1086, to that of the Battle of Consuegra 1097 which followed a siege of the town by the same name. This will allow for city walls to be introduced to the tabletop which will add two important factors; as well as a historical 'flash back' at the preliminaries prior to the battle, it will serve as a nice focal point and help counterbalance out the masses of miniatures with a large section that is all terrain and scenery. In fact I have the city walls on order and will be picking them up at Vapnartak on February 2nd!

Back to the subject at hand! Andalusian horses were famous throughout Europe for being of the finest quality and were often bread with other breeds in North Western Europe to produce warhorses. Whilst being strongly built, they were compact yet elegant creatures. These steeds were ridden into battle by Andalusian Nobles and lesser men alike.

I decided to move away from the dark I used on colours of the unit of Yusef ibn Tashfin's Black Guard and to go for it with a colour scheme on each mini with both complimentary and contrasting colours. Due to the limited time I have to prepare for the game I was not able to be as lavish as I would have liked, for example, no complicated patterns of the hems of the clothing, no patterns on the silks gowns. This is something that sits easily with me as the unit looks good enough in my opinion. It is not my best work but for the purposes of the game, given that one looks at a game from a metre or so away, it is detailed enough.

I went with a uniform shield colour and pattern to visually pull the unit together using neutral grey as to avoid any 'violent' colour clashes that might otherwise have occurred. 









14 comments:

  1. You do justice to this fascinating period, wonderful figures and presentation!!

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    1. Thanks Phil. Very kind of you to say so :)

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  2. Very nice work they will look impressive on the table, I have found with my arabs it seems to take a lot more time to give variety to units so nice work ! Ps we will probably also be at Vapnartak our annual pilgrimage so if you fancy a cup of tea let me know we can catch up 🙂

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    1. Thanks Matt. I agree, an army which naturally wore silks of various different hues takes a bit of time to get into tabletop condition. It's kind of fun (at the moment!) as I've been out of the hobby for a while until a few months ago and I'm still trying to find my feet again as far as painting is concerned :)

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  3. Cracking them out mate, fabulous brushwork too, we both seem to be inspired and on a roll!

    Cheers
    Mattt

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    1. Cheers Matt mate. TBH, the timing of post is a bit deceptive as the pics were held up a bit by the analogue Painting Challenge as I had to wait until a day later before publishing them myself.

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  4. Excellent work, I find painting figures can be a very therapeutic escape from the pressures of real life so can understand how you are doing so too.

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    1. Yep, i know what you mean; I can go quite Zen when I'm painting :)

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  5. Beautiful cavalry! Very impressive.

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  6. Great looking cavalry. The flags really make the unit pop

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  7. They are delicious! I like Muslim armies and you do them very well 8)

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    1. Thanks Klingula. There should be more tomorrow morning/afternoon.

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