Converting the Perry Crusaders

A little something that I wrote up for use by Wargames Illustrated.  Its about the time when I was crazy enough to convert some beautiful Perry Bros. miniatures in to a time period that moved along a little bit in to the future, so to speak.  Enjoy. 

Link to their web page

Another MAN DOWN! 2

 Saxon Thegn this time.  Actually its a crusader from the Perry Brothers' line.  Cool miniature line. 

 This in particular is a cool piece that I have had for a long while.  Nice to get it done.

Some Perry Priests...

I'm beginning to paint my Saxons and thought that I really needed some priest/monks.  So I picked up these.  The one I'm going to use with my Crusaders.

Very cool models.

My Crusades army gets some additions

 I had a fairly small unit of foot for my crusades army, so I wanted to add some more models to that unit.  Most of the models, all of the ones with swords are Conquest Games plastics Normans. I still need to add the static grass and floc that you see on the Spearman, but they are basically done.

 The spearman is a converted Perry model.  The model next to him with the axe is a model that I cannot remember, the axe is from the Gripping Beast plastic Viking range.

The Conquest Plastics are not the best quality plastic kit out there, the details are a bit shallow, but they are workable with a bit of effort.  Good comparisons of the metal models to the plastics shown below.

Even more to come.

My Crusades Infantry Unit...

Well yesterday we had the meager infantry additions.  Today we have the unit thus far.   I think it looks pretty good.  Right now its at 23 models, I'm going to see if I can't squeeze a couple more before Adepticon.

I still have not gotten around to replacing the banners yet.  I will get there eventually.

Its a nice colorful unit.  The spear man in the front rank are getting excited about poking some Saracens at Adepticon.

Crusading Infantry additions...

More of the meager additions.  My Perry Miniature Infantry...it's a love - hate relationship.  I sure hope that Conquest Games releases some good looking plastics.  If you know me well, you know that a pet peeve of mine is metal miniatures, I generally dislike them. 

 In a lot of ways wish I would have taken the time to separate the spears from these miniatures.  The metal is so soft and one little bump bends the dug-on spear.  I like working with plastics, not this stuff.  Anyways, meager additions again.  3-more English like models, and 3 more infantry from Jerusalem.

They turned out okay for back rankers and quick paintjobs. No real conversion work, other than the use of some plastic shields without the bosses.   Hopefully next time we see these they will be with the rest of the unit.

Some more Knights...for my Crusade

My meager reinforcements for the Perry Knights.

I must have bent the legs on the one on the left, will have to fix that.  Amazing what you see wrong when you take pics.  The middle guy is actually carrying a sword from the Gripping Beast Plastic Vikings.

You cannot buy that Hospitaller like that from the Perry's, its a shame too.  Note I converted the sword arm using a Conquest Games arm.

Meager additions, that all it is.  Next up the Conquest Games unit or the Infantry.

Crusading....The Knights in WIP...WAB

What's on my desk, some more knights getting treated with some color.  I'm still working through deadlines at work and still not feeling well, trying to get over my cold.  So my progress has been greatly hampered.   Most all of the mounted knights are Conquest with a couple of Perry's. 

One in the middle right with the couched lance is actually using a Gripping Beast Viking spear.

A few additional spearmen in the background for my spear unit.  Someone was nagging me about getting things done, so I'm attempting to do that.  Haven't seen his progress yet, so there you have it my gauntlet has been tossed, will the Old Coot Butcher respond?  lol....all in good fun....jab..jab... poke...poke...  For me painting horses is like painting 3 human miniatures, I still do not feel comfortable painting horses for historical use. 

If you are going to Adepticon this spring and playing the big WAB Crusades game, I will be on the Christian side.

A lone knight....You Cannot buy this from Perry Miniatures

Oh but I wish you could. Below are some pics of one of my converted Perry Miniatures knights. A single model is a bit easier to view sometimes than a whole group of them. I converted some their normal Normans to look the way I wanted them to look.

Their normal Normans just have mail armor, I wanted a sleeveless surcoat.

The horses are normally just naked, I wanted to change that also.

The shields normally have bosses and are a bit smaller, from the 1090's period. I wanted something to change that, and these GW High Elf shields were close to the style and shape that I wanted.

The basing is the same as the Hospitallers.

Painted Norman / Crusader Spearmen Unit

A very small spear unit. Definitely not done with these dudes. No movement tray yet. I did go with a variety of looks. Some English, some French, some crusaders, some from the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The goal of this army is to play over a variety of periods and different settings.


The banners did turnout better than the Hospitallers. I also did do a bit of converting adding some surcoats to the mailed Perry Normans.

Some of the figures are from the Perry's HYW line. Note that quite a few of the shields are from GW High Elves, I was trying to get rid of the bosses and this was a quicker way of doing just that.

Not sure when I will get back to expanding this unit. I was disappointed recently to hear that Conquest Games' plastic Normans on foot were going to be delayed considerably. So I will probably wait, and do some more knights in the mean time.

Warhammer Ancients Norman Cavalry Progress

Making some progress on my Perry Miniature Norman Knights. Got all of the horses done on the first unit and most of them done on the second unit. I was worried that my sculpting of the sleeve-less surcoats was a little rough, but after the priming and I painted a couple, that worry soon faded. I'm still not as good as the Perry's, but I think my work is holding up.

Different view, you cannot buy them from the Perry Brothers like this.

Below is one of the robed Perry Crusader Knights, that model you can buy from them like that, minus the paint.

And below for comparison, is one of mine with the sleeveless surcoat and horse with a caparison.

Still have a long ways to go, have to do all of the heraldry type stuff. Paint all of the shields, all of the washes to define things. I plan on painting all of that after everything is basically done. Mainly because I'll be using one of my better brushes, a Kolinsky sable, and for consistency. Most of the stuff is just sitting in my head at the moment. Basing will be the last thing to do.

2nd Wave Warhammer Ancients Crusaders

My second group of crusaders. This time using the Perry Hospitallers. Mostly converting the horses, but I also decided to remove the bosses. I'm going for that transitional period.

I think the horses are turning out good and can't wait to start painting these guys.

Struggled a little with the backs of the horses, I went for a bit smoother flow since they are all running.

Also had some troubles with the lances until I took a hammer, old piece of railroad iron rail, and a dremel to some steel pins that Mr. Butcher had given to me. Beating on things takes out some frustration.

There you go. Second batch. Still not settled on how I'm going to paint this stuff. Need to figure that out soon.

Also working on figuring out how to do the banners, the Saxon Dog gave me some insight on how he's done some of his ultra cool banners. I've a few ideas now, working with GW Fantasy stuff the last few years, banners have always been conversions of plastic. This though is different.

Next up...back to Romans and poking fun at my lack of gaming skill.

Crusading preparations...Perry style

I've been converting away, trying to get things somewhat ready for painting. I've converted a bunch of Perry Miniature early Normans to get them a little bit further into the crusades. And of course make them very different than your normal Perry Miniature Normans. Something I like to do.

Note the plastic shield is a GW High Elf shield. This is what I came up with after looking at reams of reference materials.

In the end I do think they turned out good enough.

I do not however plan to put caripsons on every horse, just way too much work, but quite a few of them will have them.

For Adepticon I plan to field at least two units of 8. One probably being a Holy Order, still need to figure that out before I start painting them though.

The Crusaders...so it begins...again

A bit more ambitious project than what I really wanted to do. This is the beginnings of my 1000 points for next Adepticon team play. I'll be teaming up with the other half of the grumpy old coots...Mike Butcher, who should be bringing the foot soldiers.

For me its knights. I love the Perry crusaders, but I want to get out of the 1090's. And I don't really care for the Gripping Beast models, and Mirliton is in Italy and shipping from Italy is sometimes suspect, especially when I'm not sure about their scale.

So what do you do? Make your own.

Now I certainly am not going to do this for all of the horses, but some will get this treatment. Its an expensive army points wise, so the units will be rather small.


As you see above I'm converting the riders also. I believe in the early to mid 1100s they started wearing surcoats over the mail in the holy land. Also note the helmet on the one on the right, not the full bucket helmet.

Below you see something new. Conquest Games came out with some new plastic knights. Mr. Butcher ordered a box for some of the plastic horses and donated a sample sprue to me, so I could get a look at them. I must say I quite like them. Now I don't know how big their plastic horse is, but here you see one of the riders on a Perry horse. Very promising. I will be getting some of these. Hopefully they come stateside soon.


Another angle. Another rider.

One of the Perry crusaders on my conversion. I think its working....

With these being mostly all metal , I'll be using the GF9 bases. Boy its alot of work, but so far its fun.