Spanish Crusaders

Small progress on the Crusaders, put the remaining miniatures on bases. I got custom cut round 50x25mm cavalry bases. Those will fit into "carrier" bases for other systems like Kings of War or Impetus, and will fit Saga as well as Lion Rampant.

In addition i build up the heroes 50mm round bases. I mounted the pewter miniatures on stacked plastic card, as it is more stable than glueing them ontop of cork. Around the stacks i build the first layer of cork pieces. Filled the gaps with spackling paste and added another one layer of cork, that i filled up as well. I am thinking about adding a casualty below the rearing horse, the Perrys have a nice set of muslim casualties, that will fit the purpose. Still need to prepare the banners.

I presented the general banner earlier, so i still need something for the heroes. The miniature of Godfrey of Bouillon, will represent a Duke Hector Bautista of Santander,  called El Lobo Gris (the grey wolf). Below you can see my idea for his banner, his banner shows the red-yellow colours of Spain / Castille, combined with a grey wolf on top of waves to show, that he is the guardian of the Bay of Biscay.
The miniatur of Raymond of Toulouse, as Ramón of Castille, carries a castillian banner into battle.

The whole mounted part of my spanish crusaders looks like this, including the Banner bearer and Bard / Musician. In the background you can see a mounted cleric, which fits just perfectly into the crusaders warband.

I'll need another batch of knights, around 16 miniatures, so i can set up these knights as mounted warriors, with a maybe a second mounted warrior unit and two mounted hearthguard as a holy order. I got the idea to convert them from PsychosisPC, he did a great work on early crusaders.

What did i do to get in mood with this setting, warband etc.. Well, first of all, there is unfortunately not that much that you can do. Osprey offers MAA 200 El Cid and the Reconquista, but thats rather general, no banners, a few color plates. The Crusade books, that are listed in their Campaigns setting cover the general crusades, all over europe and middle east, so not that much about spain as well. No books about the reconquista itself. And watching Kingdom of Heaven was okay-ish, nice entertainment but nothing historical correct and especially nothing about spain.