Crusade battle - To the Strongest

Hi all - it has been a while since my last post. Our little group has been trying to run a variety of games to replace the summer battles Mike presented. It is still a challenge getting over his passing. But having said that we are pressing on and still enjoy our colorful hobby but miss Mikes quit wit and sharp humor.
So on to the game. I believe that in a previous post I had mentioned that for many years I had wished to run games based on the Crusades. Having grown up with watching TV of the 50's and 60's with replays of movies from the 40's and 50's my imagination runs wild thinking about games that remind me of these fantastic shows. I could not decide on a set of rules until Simon Millers' 'To the Strongest' came out. They are perfect for my needs. The perfect amount of detail and quick play with innovative game play. Now I just had to get the rest of our group to be willing to play  them.
This game introduced a couple more members of our group their first play and a couple of us another play at them. We have the typical opponents - Crusaders and Muslims.
The rules have you play on a grid laid out on the playing area. For our games I am using a large piece of tie died fleece material obtained at Jo Anne's Fabrics - total cost of $16.00 on sale. I marked off the grid using a brown Sharpie pen by placing a dot where the four corners meet. Unless you are aware of them they are very unobtrusive.
I added some scrub and hills and away we went.
Here are a series of pictures of the game. For this event the narrative is not so important as it was intended as a learning experience (My side lost - again). For the record though the players were Bill and Wendell vs. Jamie and myself.

 If you look closely you can see the dots marking the corners of the grid.

And here are some close ups of the figures. Flags are off the computer. Figures are old, new, plastic and metal.

 Thanks for stopping by and as always all comments are welcome.
Good gaming,
Greg