A Small Piece of the Crusades

A selection of rules for varying levels of medieval mayhem

As far as the ‘middle ages’ are concerned my only interest has ever been the Crusades - and for far longer than I care to remember! Seriously though, aside from a detour via the ‘period’ of Robin Hood my interest in Western Europe during the period has been non-existent. Spain in the period of El CID and the later campaigns of the Reconquista are definitely on the radar, perhaps with the rise of the Ottoman Turks, but for now it is firmly Crusades based. 

As usual, any likelihood of me painting armies for the period is slim to none but that is not to say that I will not dabble in some fashion. I rather like the scale of Lion Rampant and in truth, forces for the Crusades using these rules would be as big a commitment in terms of painting figures as I would like to undertake. However, courtesy of a supplement in an edition of Wargames Illustrated called Assassins and Templars - released around the excellent book of the same name by the eminent Crusades historian Steve Tibble - I now have the opportunity to raise even smaller forces than needed for Lion Rampant. 

Steve Tibble’s excellent study of both the Assassins and the Templars and the Lion Rampant Crusades supplement - really useful!

Assassins and Templers - a Ruckus game - uses forces of up to around a dozen figures a side which is ideal or the reluctant or disinterested figures painter. I am quite happy fighting actions at this level using 28mm figures and so have been thinking about what I would need when along came Pillage, published by Victrix.

Pillage are designed around small scale raids, primarily set during the Viking era but are readily usable beyond this and in other theatres. I am rather taken with these and despite the inevitable glossy hardback book approach the rules themselves look pretty entertaining in an old school kind of way. There is also a useful painting guide and some ideas for making one’s own scenery. I did chuckle at this as there are instructions on making a simple cottage style building using coffee stirrers….

So what does all this mean then? Well, I am not averse to painting up a couple of dozen or so figures for each side so I suspect that acquiring the appropriate figures would be an idea. It is possible to buy individual sprues of most plastic figure ranges so some careful research should point me in the right direction. At first glance I rather like the look of Fireforge - mainly as the figures do not appear to require as much in the way of assembly - but there are plenty of others from Victrix and Gripping Beast. 

We shall see but for now it is back to the ironclads….