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05 January 2015

6th submission for the Challenge: 28mm Crusader Crossbowmen (40 Points)

Totally forgot to post my other Wednesday submission to the Challenge:

For my todays second submission I visited the hot lands of Outremer again to add some retinue to my Monsieur Jaufrè de Montalban whom I entered for the 'Mount(s) & Rider(s)' Bonus Round.



I've seldom had the 'joy' to have such poor sculpts on my table to paint. Considering the price Gripping Beast are charging for these figures it seems a rip off to me. Outdated and poorly cast figures for the money you normally pay for 'premium' historical miniatures like Musketeer/Footsore.

Rant over.


As they definitely were not to my liking they were sitting on my shelf primed and prepped since the last challenge all the time starring at me with accusing eyes. Because I really don't like to toss figures in the bin I've paid good money for and as I found nobody who wanted to give them a new home I thought it was time to give them some paint. I even gave them strings to improve their overall appearance at least a bit.


I went for a (for my means) rather dirty looking, speed painted approach using the infamous Army Painter for the first time in years. Only the bright white of the feathers and helmets/ the shield was later totally covered over. This however allowed me to finish these bastards in a couple of hours (obviously discounting the day the AP needed to dry). In the end I even came to like these guys.


One of the strings (outer right) burnt away while removing fine fibres with a lighter :-/
Now I feel they look rather striking in their subdued tunics and their bright white/ red helmets. Maybe I'll touch up the bases with some dried grass at a later point to break up the monotony of the sand. Not sure yet if this will develop into an army for SAGA 'The Crescent & The Cross' or some other ruleset (Lion rampant seems to be THE new kid in town) at any point or if they'll just stay in my cabinet.

This second submission should give me another 40 Points to my roster.

17 comments:

  1. They've been great !! I love the lights as given +1000

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  2. Beautiful, great job on the tunics...

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  3. As I said they look really nice and think they turned out just great!

    Christopher

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  4. Wow! You have done a fantastic paint job on these and with a great choice of colours. Amazed that they were a speed paint job and with the use of army painter as well. Poor sculpts or not, they are a great advert for GB.

    Your Blitzkrieg pioneers on your previous post are some of the best examples of these that I have seen.

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  5. Shame about the quality. A few clubmates were also complaining about the quality of these Crusader era minis from Gripping Beast. Must be some old stuff from them as I find their original Saga minis to be of good quality.

    Still great job on them even if the quality was far from ideal. I really like the muted colours on them

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  6. I agree about the GB sculpts - they can be a bit hit and miss. I don't think I'll be buying 'unseen' from them again.
    You've done these rather well - they look pretty good to me :)

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  7. You've done a great job on the Crossbowmen.

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  8. Lovely painting! I hope they turn into a new warband as they're much too nice to stay in a cabinet.

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  9. Though you told you didn't like the figures for their bad sculpt - you have done an excellent job on them. They look fantastic.

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  10. Sublime painting and shading! I'm cheering for Lion Rampant. While I like Saga, LR is probably the smoothes running rules I've tried, and very easy to scale up/down.

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  11. Fantastic work on these guys!

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  12. These have to be some of my favourite entries to date, just amazing work.

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  13. Wonderful work there and actually you have brought out the best in them.

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  14. Superb brushwork as always. Love the painted helmets.

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  15. One of the best entries so far in the Challenge, beautiful work.

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  16. The colours you use are so awesome ... I love this work very much!

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