Heading Overseas with the Baron’s War

Another three Knights Hospitaller done. I had a week away on holiday, so found a bit more enthusiasm for finishing the black on these chaps after some time away from the painting table. A nice reminder that a break is sometimes just what you need to make progress.

Just finished up the first batch of the mounted counterparts to the foot knights. Almost getting bored of painting black now, but very happy I didn’t go for the white of the Templars, as I would probably be struggling even more. Luckily, there’s not many more knightly order figures left now – a few more mounted Knights plus some characters.

Got these chaps all based up and finished as well. Pretty happy with the end result, and they should contrast quite starkly against the more colourful Islamic figures.

Mounted knights are next up on the painting table.

Finally got these finished. Went with a really fast and simple base scheme, with just the odd dry grass tuft or bush to keep them looking dry and arid.

When I start a new project, I normally try to find something within it that is a bit different to challenge myself. For this project, it was either going to be painting white or black in a consistent and relatively easy way, both potentially challenging colours to paint. I decided I wanted my knights to be Hospitallers, so black is flavour of the moment.

This is a quick step-by-step of my method, more to act as a memory aid than anything else. I use four paints:

• Vallejo model colour Dark Sea Blue
• Vallejo model colour Black
• Vallejo Black wash
• Citadel Deepkin Flesh

I think this worked quite well to give some worn looking black robes, without them looking too grey. If any of the highlights ended up too jarring, a black glaze can knock the colour back. Painting under good light is fairly important for the highlight steps.

I’m waiting for some basing material to arrive, so frustratingly cannot finish any models yet. However I have been cracking on with painting.

First up were the armed pilgrims and a pilgrim monk. I tried to keep the colour tones fairly muted and plain, and I’ll likely weather them up a bit with dust when basing.

I’ve also got half a dozen Knights Hospitaller on foot finished (again bar some likely weathering with the basing). I wanted to make their black robes look a bit worn, but avoiding making them too grey, and I’m quite happy with the end result. I’ll write up more details about the process when they’re finished, as painting black can be a pain (although I find it easier than painting white, which is why these are Hospitallers rather than Templars or Teutonic Knights!)

Back in May last year, the latest iteration of the Baron’s War was Kickstarted, featuring lots of fantastic sculpts by the very talented Paul Hicks. The Baron’s War range had been tempting me for a while, and this new setting seemed like a great jumping on point. I quickly moved from a smallish pledge for a handful of models to jumping all in, figuring that this would make a great new project for 2023.

At the start of Feb a big cardboard box arrived packed with models. The plan is to get them all painted this year. There’s roughly 100 figures all told, about a third of which are mounted, so theoretically a manageable amount if I don’t get too distracted by other things…

Broadly speaking there’s two core factions, Christian Military Orders and Muslims, although there’s a bit of other things for the period of the Crusader States such as Turcopoles and pilgrims. I’m leaning into Knights Hospitaller for the Military Order models, and will probably tackle them first before getting stuck into the more colourful options for the Muslims.