MONGOL SAGA WAR BANNER AND TROUBADOUR

Mongol War Banner and Troubadour: Gripping Beast Mongol Riders

In order to round out the options for my SAGA Mongols, I needed two specialty figures: A War Banner and a Troubadour.  Well, technically, I already had a War Banner, but he is a light cavalryman, which works well with my Warriors.  I wanted to have a Warbanner that was tailored to fit in with my Hearthguard and Warlord (hey, specialty figures are as much about the look as the effect, ne'st-ce pas?).  This post, dear readers, will provide a brief study of my treatment of these two specialty figures.  As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

The riders are from the Gripping Beast Mongol line.  Specifically, the Trumpeter is from the Heavy Cavalry Command set and the War Banner is from the Mongol High Command set. 

The horses you get with these sets tend to be a mix of armored and caparisoned.  The  Gripping Beast Timurid Medium cavalry come almost exclusively with these caparisoned horses. 

I had collected sets of Timurid command as well as mulitple Mongol heavy cavalry and command sets, leaving me with a healthy mix of both types of horses.  I concentrated the armored horses in my Hearthguard, leaving me with a pile of caparisoned horses left over, which I used for my Troubadour and War Banner (being more colorful).

For the Troubadour, instead of going with yellow and bright red, I used Humbrol Matte Cream (which comes across as yellow) and Model Master Guards Red (a dark red). I then went with flat yellow for the pom poms and ornaments on the quiver and bow holster. 

On the War Banner horse, I wanted to make the neat detail of the studs stand out as much as possible.  I tried something new and used a goodly wash of black (these were white primed) to bring out the seams before painting in the squares on the caparison (normally, the wash comes after).  In this way, the colors were brighter and would not be dirtied by washing them over after they were painted.  Although this worked well, I found that I still wound up adding a very weak wash and some touch up to the finished caparison after the fact.  I then went back and did the studs in black and tipped them with brass.  After matte coating the horse, I went back again and touched each stud with Model Master Gold in order to brighten them up and give them a bit of shine.   

Although I'm probably not likely to field a Troubadour or a Hearthguard War Banner in a SAGA game, these figures can be used, and probably will, among my Tartar contingent in my Smalle Warre system (perhaps sooner rather than later: one always likes to play with one's new toys).  

Uukhai!