By Saint Lazarus!

As often seems to be the case, I’ve been tempted by a new project. The lines of thought that lead me to it are too long to write out here, but largely it was excitement at Wargames Illustrated’s Assassins and Templars, rediscovering Assassin’s Creed, and then spiralling out into wanting to Wargames the Third Crusade because that’s just how these things go when you start to do a bit of reading. In the short term though, I bought myself a copy of Outremer Blood and Faith, and set about painting up a mini to whet my whistle.

During my reading and watching of various YouTube videos (largely along the lines of ‘Teutonic Knights: did they really wear such fantastic helmets?’), I came across the Knights of the Order of St Lazarus, and figured that would make for an ideal first figure. They are (mostly) knights with leprosy, charging into battle hoping to die honourably because that way is a fast pass into heaven - they are the Dwarf Slayers of the medieval period! 

So, here is my first mini for Outremer:

White really is a pickle to paint isn’t it. For this guy I highlighted up to pure white from a very light grey, but I wonder if white with a grey wash/glaze then highlighted back up to white wouldn’t be easier? 

My brief internet research suggested that leprous knights often wore masks, so I converted one for my mini - it’s a cut and carefully shaved down Frostgrave cultists head, transplanted onto a mail coif wearing Fireforge head:

I even highlighted the mask properly rather than just drybrushing it! Ugh, looking at my shonky freehanded cross on his shield in this extreme close up doesn’t make me happy, rest assured it looks much better at arms length! 

And here’s a picture of the back too, as always to prove that I painted it. Not a lot to look at, mostly white. 

I wasn’t sure what colour the ring around his head should be - is it supposed to be fabric, as some pictures suggest? It’s not sculpted like that, so I left it metal in the end…

While I was digging in my Game of Thrones box for historical sprues to convert my knight, I also came across a metal monk, and figured Crusaders could probably do with some pilgrim monks to fight over. 

It’s a fairly quick and dirty paint job - I went a bit too heavy on a drybrush and tried to knock it back with glazes, but with the end of the year looming and the Tally still… looking like it does there came a point where done was good enough and this was it.

No idea who made the mini originally - I feel like it came from Forlorn Hope some time ago, so is probably originally a Grenadier sculpt?

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

38 vs 255 = -217

14 minis to do before the end of the year to hit the challenge of averaging a mini a week, that’s doable right? I may or may not have dug out some minis to prep that only need very simple paint jobs…

What’s next then? Well, before I paint anything else, Tim the Necromancer has managed to squeeze in one more game…