Never Mind the Ghulams - More Units

 

A year or so ago I successfully adapted Andy Callan's excellent Never Mind The Billhooks WOTR rules into a Crusades game. Working title- Never Mind the Ghulams.

Carried away with the achievement I bought a bag of Anglo-Danish Housecarls from Legio Heroica.   I thought they would do as Byzantine Varangian Guardsmen.  In their Anglo-Danish incarnation that is.  I knew getting the look I wanted was going to be tricky so they went on the to do list.  

In the meantime their creator Guiseppe, a most amiable man, has sadly died. Like all creators he lives on through his work.  I'm pleased to see that his nephews are going to keep the Legio Heroica outfit going.

My take on the exiled English* Varangians is that they were very much Christian warriors.  We can also recall that the lad they worked for was considered the Equal of the Apostles.  I wanted to reflect this in the iconography of the unit.  That, for me, means no Raven Banner. They, some of them at least, had torn that down at Stamford Bridge.

In reality this means shields and banners.  There is a limit both to my painting skills and to how much detail a 15mm figure can take.  What I needed was a fairly uncomplicated shield design.  I took some inspiration from this image of a Varangian.

 

I also researched Byzantine images of the Archangel Michael and made a banner for the unit. 

More appropriate for the victors at Stamford Bridge you might think.  Although, in fairness, King Harald was a Christian too and a previous Commander of the Emperor's Guard. There is a Blue Moon figure in the mix of this unit.

Next, a Pisan contingent. Without the maritime Italian Republics the Crusades would have fell at the first fence.   I thought I should represent this. 

The citizens were quite martial and the richer ones keenly elbowed their way into the aristocracy of Frankish Outremer. One of them pipped Gerard De Ridefort to the altar in the pursuit of a local Frankish heiress.  He got the girl, the land and the title. Gerard never got over it and joined the Templars. There, he prospered-seething. We all know how that turned out.

The Italians were never cheap to engage. Standard terms included that a quarter in any city captured went to them.  Within that quarter they were subject only to their own Republic’s laws and got to set all terms of trade.  They dreamed of monopolies.  Without them the Crusaders simply lacked the wood and the engineering and siege craft skills to capture fortifications.

As you might expect the Republics hated each other.  To be an ally to one was often to be an enemy to the others.  They frequently fought.

Western arms and armour were constantly imported into Outremer.  The Italians pretty much controlled the trade. The citizens of Pisa could go to war properly equipped.

The colour scheme of the units reflects the white on red of the flag of Pisa.  The figures are Museum and Blue Moon.

Last, but not least, we have some Zanj for the Fatimids.  They used a lot of Sudanese troops.  Those soldiers came in two kinds regulars and tribal contingents.  The Zanj were the latter.  They seemingly could nip about a bit and throw javelins to some effect.  King Baldwin was wounded by one. 

I intend to have three units of Zanj.  These ones are from Blue Moon and work well with Legio Heroica.

Another Crusades game soon.  In other news my next post will be another Spanish Civil War game of Arriba é Non Pasaran. 

*  The couple of thousand or so who went to Byzantium do seem to have been English rather than Anglo-Danes.  King Harold's sons were given sanctuary by the High King of Ireland. I guess the more Danish you were the more options you had.