"Depicting Andalusians on the table" Topic

So I've been trying to decide which Saga Cross & Crescent to do, and I'm pretty close to settling on The Moors. That said, Iberia was conquered in 711 and it was over 300 years before the Almoravids turned up, so I'm thinking of narrowing down to painting up some models that look like they'd be around during the time of the Caliphate of Cordoba – this would be from 200 to 300 years after the conquest.

In this period, how would I go about representing the soliders of, say, a city militia? Would most of the soldiers available to Cordoba look and dress in long robes and turbans, or trousers and bareheaded, or some other combination? I was flipping through an Osprey on The Moors recently and it seems that aside from the patterned robes and shields (frankly this is most of the reason I'm interested – it looks a lot more colourful than other options) troops would run the gamut of Mediterranean looks from hair colour, hairstyle, mail coats, helmet shape, and shield shape.

If so, I'm thinking of maybe getting the Gripping Beast plastics box and supplementing it with some Andalusian troops from the Artizan line, and possibly some of the Conquest plastics to kitbash with. Does that make a reasonable amount of sense? If nothing else, if I can't… Andalusianise the Normans enough, I could use them to represent Iberian Christian mercenaries hired by a local governor or the like.

Tl;dr what did Andalusian military forces look like from ~929-1031 or so?

Many Berbers have fair hair even now and its likely more did then. Just saying in case you go that way.

The Warhammer Historical book on the Reconquista is a good source. Its what I used.

Hi Longstrider, I commented in your your thread on the Saga Forums so you know what I think: I would use a mix of the GB plastics and Conquest Normans with head scarves around their helmets and sashes about their wastes.

Saw some really nice Gripping Beast Andalusian infantry packs yesterday at Crisis in Antwerp.

I was looking at Saga Moors myself. Spent several hours reading the arguments on skin color. I never even got started on what they wore. Good luck!

I'm surprised there's really much to argue about as far as skin colour goes, anyhow. I suspect if you were to sample a bunch of people living in the western mediterranean anytime over the last two thousand years you'd get a pretty wide mix.

I'll see if I can get a hold of the WAB book, seems difficult these days but we'll see. As for metal figs, I'd expect the Beast ones would be pretty nice, but it's a matter of both price (and I'm not a good enough painter where the time I spend on the miniatures outweighs the cost of the models themselves – a thing I hope that some of the colourful nature of al-Andalus will help with). I'll check out their store when it's back to functioning again.

And thanks, Codsticker. I hadn't checked the ST forums for a couple days, and followed your link to the Warseer thread where your frankly brilliant models are on display. Very inspiring, I must say.

I'm thinking at the moment I might just go for a box of the plastic Arabs and a Norman knights box, and represent a group of Christians hired alongside some Arabized sorts, and then pick up a box of Norman foot on which I can experiment with greenstuff sashes and scarves.

Warhammer Reconquista was fun, back when I was gaming 28mm historicals:

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Sadly, my Andalusian and Almoravid figures and terrain are now stored away in bins, waiting to be put up for sale at some point in the near future.

Dan

Some 10th century Spanish sources:
Biblia de San Isidoro de Leon, Spain, 960
The San Miguel Beatus Codex by Beatus of Liébana, Spain, c.960
Horsemen on an Umayyad Casket from Cordoba, c.966-968
Ivory Pyxis with the name of Al-Mughira, Umayyad Spain, 968
Ivory Pyxis of Ziyad ibn Aflah, Umayyad Spain, c. 969-970
The Valcavado Beatus Codex by Beatus of Liébana, Spain, 970
Ivory Pyxis from Madinat al-Zahra, Umayyad Spain, 970AD
The Urgell Beatus Codex by Beatus of Liébana, Spain, c.975
The Gerona Beatus Codex by Beatus of Liébana, Spain, c.975

MIRROR SITES
10th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
10th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

One of the interesting things about those illustrations is there is virtually no difference between the Christian Spanish and Muslim Spanish and very little armour. Although in some of the illustrations it looks like the artist made an attempt to represent curly hair.

The term Mozarabic refers to the Mozarabs (from musta'rab meaning "Arabized"), Iberian Christians living in Al-Andalus. It is not always clear if biblical characters are being portrayed as contemporary Christians or Muslims.

Druzhina
Spanish & North African Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

I was under the impression that medieval artists generally portrayed philistines and such as Muslims or Arabs. I suppose Mozarabs would have had to have been sensitive about those portrayals and perhaps generic-ified Christians and Muslims in illuminations.

Contemporary sources show either lots of mail or none. I honestly think it is a matter of the artists preference. Cloth suits particularly well the flowing whorl like style of many Beatus manuscripts, armour is rather dark and sinister. I wouldn't say that any of the illustrations is unrealistic, rather that they are not a good source for us to decide how much armour is around.

I may be wrong as I am going by memory, but if the Osprey books are anything to go by, then armour is mentioned more in manuscripts then it is shown in illustration or sculpture. I am speaking specifically of the 10th C.; by the late 11th C. there seems to be more representation of armour. Perhaps that is an indication of artists becoming more skilled in the representation of those kinds of details more than an indication of the presence of armour.

Thanks Druzhina. I'm not familiar with the right techniques to interpret imagery from illuminated texts, but they're definitely interesting to look at, so I'm going to spend a while to try and parse them.

I'm using the miniatures mostly for playing Saga, and I'm inclined to go earlier rather than later since most of the other folks have Viking sorts, so I'm looking at 8th and 9th centuries mainly, so the GBP plastics with the long robes seem like they might suit for that.

I've got some bits from the other GB plastics boxes to fiddle around with for different head styles, and maybe see if I can kitbash and convert some combination of armour and cloth that looks nice. Saga itself is a ruleset that goes for evocative rather than detailed anyway, so I feel it's perhaps the right approach as well for my models.