Mongol

There has been a surge of interest locally in starting up a Lion Rampant campaign. Naturally, I’m all for campaigns and have been doing my best to encourage it. The campaign theme seems to be heading towards the Middle East, with (so far) one player wanting to take Crusaders and another Saracens. So it took me a nanosecond to decide that Mongols would be the ideal force for me. Mongols are good,as they fought a dozen foes, from Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Russians, Crusaders and Saracens to Khwarazmians, Song Chinese, Tartars, Korean and Japanese. Oh and they fought themselves (that makes 12!). 

I chose the Fireforge Mongols with additional reinforcements from Gripping Beast - as I had some of the GB metal Mongols and their Arab cavalry would serve well as allied vassal troops. Learning my mistakes from previous ventures (see my last blog), I was determined to keep my purchases strictly under control - this time! So, grabbing a copy of Lion Rampant, I checked what a standard Mongol army would consist of in the game.  

According to the rules, a Mongol army consists of 6x Mounted Men At arms with Bows, 2 units of 6x Mounted Serjeants with bows and 1 unit of 6x Expert Mounted Yeomen. That gives a total of 24 mounted models… hmm quite feasable to do in a relatively short period of time. As I was down at 4Ground last week, I picked up some cavalry bases from them to use. 

Now how should I paint them? Mongols don’t necessarily have to be dull, as they can be a colourful lot. The horsemen were said to wear a loose silk shirt (useful as legend would have it for catching arrows). I wanted them to have an earthy feel to them, so animal skins with the occasional brighness, representing a rich find or traded item. The heavy cavalry would naturally be richly equipped with brighter colours. I’ll have to watch a few movies to get some inspitration, while I may give John Wayne’s the Conqueror a miss, I’m sure the film Mongol will be the inspiration I need. Stay tuned for further updates!