The Old Man of the Mountain

Well as I mentioned in my intro I have been lumbered with Haqqislam in Infinity, however given my love of crusader history this isn't actually a hardship.  Kit, a member of our local gaming club and owner of our local store (abzgames.co.uk) was getting rid of his Haqqislam models, so I got a nice collection off him for very little, I am very grateful, I bought a couple of other figures and now I have the the Red Veil box set, Ghulam box set, Haqqislam Bahram box set, plus several other Hassasin figures and a few other sundries, in total they add up to just under 400 points and a SWC of 10!  SO basically I am well onto the way for creating a Bahram Sectoral force, and if you are wondering about the posts title, the head of the Hashashin (original Assassins in 11th Century Middle East) was called 'The Old Man of the Mountain'.

Ghulam

So now to painting, I used the traditional colours of Islam as my basis, these are Black, White, Red and Green (each was the banner of one of the 4 main Caliphates that ruled the Arab World) and Brown, Purple and Gold.  Each colour has a meaning in Islam and a different meaning in flags of modern Islamic nations, between these meanings I have managed to come up with an interesting colour scheme (well I think so, hope you do too!).

My two main colours would be Green (traditional colour of Islam), which I would use as a unifying colour for the army and Brown (colour of peace), which would be the main colour for my standard troopers, that is those units that make up the core of the army and can be included in all lists (Ghulam, Muttawiah, Naffatun, etc).

Hassassin Muyib

At present there are 2 factorial lists for Haqqislam, but there is a third coming out (or so I hear...), so each would get a colour assigned.  Red represents swords, as such I couldn't help but feel this was appropriate for the Hassassin list.  Black stands for battles, and so I will use this for the Qapu Khalqi and finally white stands for actions.  If you look at the units that are not in either sectoral list one of the most interesting is the seven times cursed Al Fasid Regiment (one of which comes in the Red Veil starter set), given their background of being full of criminals and rogues a colour representing their actions (in this case awful!) seemed appropriate, given that white in the west is used to symbolise purity whilst in the Far East it is the colour of mourning, it seemed most apt for this regiment (and associated units which I hope will be in the next sectoral lists).

Al Fasid

I have had a few games against Ben and Martin and have been beaten every time, but I have pulled off a few surprises, my Hassasin Ragik dropping behind their line put a bit offer into Martin, as did Hussein Al-Djabel who started a game hidden in Martins deployment zone and charged his line with his first action, he didn't do articulately well, but it has made Martin very wary of what my Hassasins can do.  I think the next step for my force is to add a few more models so I have a better variety and selection for battles and that may give me a slight edge.

Well I must go, my master, the Old Man of the Mountain has sent for me, this must be bad news for someone....