Crusades - Game 1 Prep

The Situation
March 12, 1148. A troublesome Syrian amir has been raiding into the Christian areas east of Reynaud's lands. Reynaud has summoned his forces and ridden forth to do battle.

Game Overview
I will play this first game as a straight-up battle with a Syrian domain list led by a leader with stats identical to Reynaud's. The Syrian army points available will be equal to Reynaud's with one plus/minus randomizer card. I will use the Early Crusader list for Reynaud as I have not drafted the Early Frankish Settlers list. Since this project is being tackled as a "just in time" endeavor, item one on the immediate term ToDo list becomes "draft Early Frankish Settler" domain list to have it ready for game 2.

Summoning Reynaud's Army
Army Points (AP) will be his household (HH) value (SR3 plus Esteem 2 = 5) plus three random draw cards. Cards are a 4, an 8 (max of his household value, so reduced to 5), and a Queen (faces are value 5). So his three cards are worth 14. Plus household of 5 is 19 AP. 19 AP divided by 3 is 6 units with one AP left over. That can be used to purchase an SR1 leader. There is a new Household Units rule that lets you pick a few units off your domain list before randomizing the rest. For a HH 5 leader, this is 2 units. The obvious choice here is to take 2 units of knights, which I will do. The remaining 4 units are rolled for randomly, and answering Reynaud's summons are: 2 units of spearmen, 1 additional knights, and 1 turcomen light cavalry. Just to use the new Mercenaries rule, I will make the additional knight unit a mercenary unit and say that they are Byzantine adventurers fighting for pay on the frontier.

The Syrian army of Amir Habib
Syrian AP will be 19 and a randomizer card, which is a black 5, meaning plus 1 AP, for a total of 20. This equates to 6 units with 2 AP leftover, which allows the Syrians to have an additional leader or two. To make them more flexible, I will choose a pair of SR1 leaders rather than one SR2. Habib's household units will be a pair of heavy cavalry. His remaining 4 units are rolled for and come up: 2 horse archers, 1 light cavalry and 1 infantry unit. Not an unrealistic force.

Postscript
I will now either re-base enough figures for these units or maybe play this first game with the figures still in old standard basing. I just went down to the basement to check on one unit of knights that I re-based on a basswood sheet base as a test, and the results aren't pretty. The basswood bases are large enough that even though they are thick (3/32"), the amount of glue put on top to glue the figures and the sand texture at the same time have caused the base to warp dramatically. Looks like I need a plan B...which most likely means an order of Litko plywood bases that should be dimensionally stable. Looks like ToDo list #2 becomes "order bases." Bummer.