Project 2024: 28mm saracen army

[dberna67]

Hello,

I am about to finish the 2023 project, which is a Roman legion of the early roman empire: 9 courts + 1 double of Pretotians (I know they shouldn't be there but it's poetic license) and 4 auxiliary units including infantry, archers and cavalry plusvarious leaders.
In all about 250 miniatures

So now I'm planning the new project for 2024: a Saracen army of the crusades in 28mm without historical claims and which will almost certainly never be used with any rules

I've never taken much space to plan what to do in detail but this time, having some time, I dedicated a lot of time to it and I really liked it a lot.
From seeing what the market offers in terms of miniatures, what size to use for the bases, what to get for the shields and banners, how many to get, where to find the best prices (bear in mind that being in Italy it is often not convenient to buy from the UK and even less from the United States so it is sometimes essential to find local sellers), etc etc

However, in the next few months this should be the shopping list at least to start with, if the desire remains there can be no limits:

3 or 4 Gripping Beast infantry boxes
1 or 2 Gripping Beast cavalry boxes
2 or 3 Fireforge miscellaneous boxes
TBD metal miniatures Gripping Beast/Footstore/other ??
4 or 5 or 6 Hat cavalry boxes (replacing the heads with Gripping Beast leftovers to make them more compatible in size)
70/100 bases 60x60 (Baueda)
Decal Banners and Shields for Everything (littlebigmenstudios)

At this point the doubts that still remain are:

base size (60x60): after asking some people on the forum I think this is the best size also from a visual point of view, right?

Decal shields/banners: I saw that littlebigmenstudios offers the best selection but I'm not that expert, are there other manufacturers for this historical period?

Still on the topic of shield decals, what do you recommend for Fireforge miniatures? I asked and googled but couldn't find any answers
And the same for Hat cavalry, I didn't find anything

For now it's all just in my head and on scraps of paper scattered around the house 
Any other suggestions are of course welcome

Thank you to everybody

[Ran The Cid]

I used a mix of Perry Brothers, Footsore (the older Armies of the Caliphates line, not the new Barons War line), and Gripping Beast for the cavalry units.  All three companies have great detail, with Footsore being a little "chunky".  The only decals that I can find are from LBMS (same as your searches). 

I have some of the FireForge Crusader kits, both cavalry and infantry men-at-arms.  I like both kits.  Although the figures are sculpted slight to moderate in the body, all the elbows, caps and weapons poke out at various angles causing the figures to take up a lot of space on a base.  Its not a bad look, just something to think about compared to metal figures.

For bases, I'm more rules driven.  I'll either single base infantry with 20mmx20mm or multi-base at 80mmx40mm; and cavalry with 25x50 or 50x50.

[valleyboy]

Best of luck with the project
Take a look at Artizan Miniatures from Northstar
https://www.artizandesigns.com/list.php?man=17&cat=116&page=1

[Phil Portway]

Good luck fella, I did the same about 10 years ago, and have a lovely big army now. Used various makes and mixed them up where size was similar! Here they are fighting My Crusader army at Crisis show a few years back!

[dberna67]

For bases, I'm more rules driven.  I'll either single base infantry with 20mmx20mm or multi-base at 80mmx40mm; and cavalry with 25x50 or 50x50.

How many cavalry for base?

[dberna67]

Good luck fella, I did the same about 10 years ago, and have a lovely big army now. Used various makes and mixed them up where size was similar! Here they are fighting My Crusader army at Crisis show a few years back!

Great, really wonderful
what did you use for shields and stendards?

[Ran The Cid]

How many cavalry for base?

One cavalry per 25x50 base.  I'll use 12 of them (6x2) on a movement tray for a standard size cavalry unit in Hail Caesar.  Simple, boring and practical.  But if I need to change game systems, its an easy matter of using a new tray. 

One of these days I'll get around to making more dynamic stands of cavalry.  Following the HC unit system, I'll use bases 75mm by 100m with 4-6 figures.

[Phil Portway]

Great, really wonderful
what did you use for shields and stendards?

I made some from images, I also got some sent from a Pal
pm sent!

[pws]

Ciao,
as you I'am italian, I did my Al Andalus army (http://pippoweb.blogspot.com/search/label/al%20Andalus) a couple of years ago, they are all metal figures.

I did not use decals, my suggestion is: keep it simple and uniform. Shield design can be hand painted easily.

My army is Lion Rampant 2 oriented and I base them on 2x2cm square bases, than I 3d printed some trays, you can download for free on Thingieverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4981453
Basing them individually let me use units for many rules - just change the tray - and transport is safe with feldeherr foam.