15mm Arab Conquest Swordsmen and Skirmishers

After completing a 15mm Daylami army the week before Christmas I very much wanted to continue the theme and focus on an Arab Conquest army. To provide additional motivation, my first Saturday game of 2026 was today, fielding the Arab Conquest against some Norse Irish. 

With that in mind I decided to focus first on the Khawarij option within the army list with a view to fielding 28 elements of 'fast' (ie less densely packed) warband, which therefore also allowed me to field a large contingent of heavy cavalry (Fast knights):

The Khawarij were essentially a breakaway radical Islamic sect who rebelled against the ruling Caliphs and mainstream Islam. There is an interesting 'The Rest is History Podcast' on all the toing a froing that went on during this period and which has made for good listening while I have been painting them up:

The Forged in Battle packs contains a generous amount of different poses which adds a fair bit of variety and keeps the interest levels up. I still have another 120 of these to paint and base as more densely packed swordsmen or 'blade' for the mainstream Arab Conquest army, so no doubt they will be starting to wear a bit thin by then:

I also completed ten elements of skirmishers and four of auxiliaries which can be used across all variants within the Arab Conquest lists:

I also completed the last six elements of middle eastern horse archers. These don't actually make an appearance in the Arab Conquest army but will be useful if I want field a Seljuk Turkish army and a few other variants:

We ended up fighting a long hard-fought draw over four and a half hours in the Irish terrain, which was all wooded hills and difficult ground, but it was an entertaining game.

That's it for now. I hope to have the rest of the blade/swordsmen and some slingers finished within the next few weeks, and then onto the last twenty-four elements of cavalry and a few elements of camel-mounted scouts to complete the army.