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For our next supplement we are focusing on El Cid and the Reconquista up until the fall of the Almohads in the 13th century.

This painting project will be completed by the end of October, ready to take photos for the book release for Christmas, so essentially I have about 7 weeks to the day to complete everything! This is of course a tight schedule, but that makes it more fun doesn't it?

I have made a 'test' army so will be painting the most essential units first, but I have bought plenty of figures from Crusader and Perry Miniatures to use whatever I like in the army.

Below are a few pics of about half of what I have bought...

I decided to do the worst part first in my opinion, which is the horses. Using the airbrush I could quite quickly put down the base colours and highlights, whilst having quite a bit of variety in the colour of the horses throughout the army. As you can see, there is quite a lot...

I'll be updating this post with painted units and characters as I go along, as well as some pics of our battles muddled in.

Todays update...

I have painted all of the knights with swords that I bought, as well as some musicians.

The colours are mixed, as I didn't want anything to seem too 'uniform' but I have used colours that I expect would be relatively common on the knights of the period (red, white, yellow, black some green and blue and of course lots of browns!)

I've chosen the horses for each rider and prepped the base for them. All that I need to do now is paint the reigns and maybe some details on the horses and then sand them and these guys will be done.

I was thinking once I have painted all the knights I will mix the ranges together and then paint the shields for each unit, depicting a specific region (Castile, Leon, Aragon, Toledo etc.). I'm pretty sure this isn't 100% historically correct but for identifying the units on the table this will be nice. All shields will be hand painted too so that will be fun! Maybe some of you may know better than me how these would have looked? (I'll be using the colours of the region then will do similar designs to how Norman shields are, so straight lines, half and half, full colour. That's the initial idea anyways)

First unit of Caballeros Hidalgos completed, minus shields.

As these guys are all of the models I had with swords, I have painted them with different colours so I can fit them in all of my units, sooo although technically they aren't a unit themselves I'm aiming for units of 10-12 cav so I'm counting it.

Pics below. Once I get them into the right size units I will paint up their shields.

Latest update!

I have been working on these almost every day, but I thought it might not be as interesting to see half painted knights and horses.

I have finished most of the knights now for the army I have planned, they just need their shields so I wont take nice photos of them until they get done.

What I have finished though is a Priest attachment for the On Bloody Ground army. Because you can only have one of these in the army, and it can either be mounted, or dismounted, I thought it would be quicker and look nicer if i did both on one base and just tell my opponent at the start of the game if he's on a horse (he most likely will be!)

So here he is!

I've been enjoying seeing this project come together!

Guy Gavriel Kay's novel, The Lions of Al-Rassan, sparked in an interest in me for the Convivencia/Reconquista of Al-Andalus, and I'm currently reading Brian Catlos' Kingdoms of Faith and María Rosa Menocal's Ornament of the World.

I like how Victrix has been adding Andalusi elements to their Normans, and it would be cool to see Andalusi Arabs as well.

I will definitely be picking up these rules to add to my collection when they come out.

 infinite_array wrote:
I've been enjoying seeing this project come together!

Guy Gavriel Kay's novel, The Lions of Al-Rassan, sparked in an interest in me for the Convivencia/Reconquista of Al-Andalus, and I'm currently reading Brian Catlos' Kingdoms of Faith and María Rosa Menocal's Ornament of the World.

I like how Victrix has been adding Andalusi elements to their Normans, and it would be cool to see Andalusi Arabs as well.

I will definitely be picking up these rules to add to my collection when they come out.

Thanks! It is nice Victrix have the other options on their Norman sprues, especially now they also recently released their light cav too. Here is the latest update, and the rules will be out around December time, so not long now...


Just over 3 weeks to go before everything needs to be done.

Work has been going on behind the scenes, lots of commanders and odd miniatures are painted and only need to be based up now, photos will follow once done.

Just finished my Battlefield Bystanders, photos below.

In On Bloody Ground these are an option for either player to bring for free. They don't do anything during the game but are placed within 6 inches of your table edge. If they survive the battle you gain 50vp and if they die your opponent gets 100vp. A nice little thing to consider before the battle, and it allows you to put on a little diorama and make the battlefield more interesting.

On another note I have drafted a standard 2000 point army to figure out what needs to be placed at the front of the painting queue.

El Cid - done-
3 units of 10 x Caballeros Hidalgos with Medium Armour, Shields and Throwing Weapons -done minus shields-
8 x Skirmishing Jinetes with Shields -horses done-
18 x Guard Spearmen with Throwing Weapons
24 x Peones with Throwing Weapons
2 units of 8 x Ballesteros (Crossbowmen)
2 units of 12 x Archers
10 x Skirmish Javelinmen

I wanted to get a good mix of infantry and strong cavalry, whilst also having some ranged damage output. El Cid is a good commander with 5 Command Points and a good Command Influence.

Still have lots to do so back to work!

Applying the final touches to everything now.

I changed my army around a bit but here is the first, fully completed, unit of Caballeros Hidalgos.

I took some inspiration colour wise from Toledo just to have some uniformity for my units.

Figs are a mix of Crusader, Perry and Wargames Foundry.

Our latest book in the On Bloody Ground series has just been delivered by our printers!

'El Cid & The Reconquista' is ready to buy from our website, and is slightly ahead of schedule too! This is the second in the series of period specific rulebooks, which comes complete with all of the required rules and army lists to play the period.

This is what we have been working towards throughout this project. I haven't done as many update photos as I would have liked to have done, but we did complete the armies for colour photos in the book. I will use this thread as updates for games we play as well as photos of units now!

On Bloody Ground - El Cid & The Reconquista is a 64 page, perfect bound rulebook, with common sense core rules, including brutal combat and a system of orders that makes the game dynamic, exciting, fun and challenging.

The rules are designed for use with individually based 28mm miniatures, but can easily be adapted for use with any scale or basing.

This, the second book in the series covers Middle Age Spain during the 11th century AD, with the rise of El Cid through to the fall of the Almohad Empire in the 13th Century AD and includes army lists for Christian Spanish, Almoravids, Al-Andalus, Late Christian Spanish, Almohads and Late Andalusians.

If you have any questions regarding the game and it's mechanics, or more specifics on how the game plays, don't hesitate to contact us.

We have created a quick flip through of the previous rulebook on our YouTube channel which can be found here:

https://youtu.be/MPoWF77gJjk


On Bloody Ground can be found and bought on our website here:

www.wipgamesandminiatures.com