New pieces for the Crusades!

As I had the 'arid' terrain tiles out on the table for the Sidi Rezegh game last week, and as Graham isn't quite there yet with a big Commands and Colors Napoleonic game, Peter suggested that we might slip in a Crusades game using Ager Sanguinis rules.

Only the week before I had come across a Jiffy bag containing two undercoated Dark Age onagers and crew in my 'one day for ebay' box.  I've had these artillery pieces kicking around for a long, long time and I had just about forgotten all about them - they are by Gripping Beast. I bought them when I was seriously thinking about building some city / castle walls for siege games. When I worked out the amount of storage space such terrain pieces would take up I regrettably gave up on the idea - ho-hum.

On Saturday afternoon, following my boy's eleventh birthday party bash at a local bowling alley, I got them out and quickly slapped on some paint. By wine-o'clock they were pretty much done. I finished and based them on Sunday morning. 

Although not strictly 'open field' weapons, I've added them into the Frank's OOB for tonight's game. 

It's a straight forward attack / defence game with the Franks attacking. 

The objective is to force all enemy commands / units from the table within eight turns. 

If the Franks fail to win in that time the Saracens can claim a marginal win.

The Franks deploy in the red deployment zone, the Saracens deploy in the Green one. 

The fast flowing stream is type II and all troops are down 1 for fighting in it. Troops on a steep bank can claim a terrain advantage when defending attacks from the stream. 

Hills are type II with no cover. 

Woods are type II and provide type II cover. 

The village is type III and provides type III cover. 

Troops moving on a road in march column do not fail to move if they roll a 1 on their motivation die - they can move once.

The army of the Saracens. This force is not based on any historical one that I'm aware of. The presence of Armenians gives it a northern flavour, and the amount of foot makes it more Arab than Turkish. So, perhaps it is the force of an Arab noble who has attached himself to a major Turkish warlord.

A fairly typical force of Kingdom of Jerusalem Franks of the 1130s or 1140s. It has some local flavour: Turcopoles, Maronite Christians and Bedouin scouts.

They fight tonight!

EDIT: Having added a few figures, I've just totted the whole collection up. For the record it is:

• Mounted figures: 409 (including command).
• Foot figures: 656 (including 109 civilian / pilgrim types, mostly for the 1st Crusade).
• Wagons / artillery: 5
• Draught / baggage animals: 28