Hidden Gems
February 23, 2020 by Possidon

Black Knights & The Horsewizards

Have you ever noticed that amongst the great heap of trash that you can find in the Blacksmith, every once in a while you can come across something that is truly great, yet has slipped through the public eye to become lost to time?

Well that is where this brand new feature comes in. Many of you are probably aware that I love to post reviews; I especially love to dig deep into the blacksmith to find something new. Over the years I have some across a bunch of undiscovered gems lingering in the depths of the Blacksmith waiting to be discovered. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to do just that. Every month I will be introducing you to some of these files which I have found. Many of these will be smaller files, that may not necessarily warrant their own Blacksmith Feature. These will range from smaller mod packs made up of a single unit or two, to minigame scenarios or maybe even something slightly larger that might not have as many downloads as it deserves.

For this months feature I will be introducing you to two interesting units from the early days of our heaven.

Black Knights – by Big Travis
Every scenario needs an antagonist. Do you ever feel like sometimes you can’t find a unit in the editor that looks evil enough to portray that evil warlord threatening the land? Then let me introduce you to the Black Knight, a nifty little unit by Big Travis. A well respected modder back in the early 2000s, Big Travis is perhaps best known for his two large conversations Axis & Allies and North America to Arms. As the name suggests, this unit is a knight in black armour, equipped with a bright red sword. In reality this is just a recolour of a two-handed swordsman, but done exceptionally well. Have you ever wanted a better unit for your evil villain or a demonic knight for your fantasy scenarios? Well then this is defiantly I unit you should check out.
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The Horsewizards – by Theodred
Fantasy scenarios are a common occurance, you can find a large number of them in the Blacksmith. Many of these feature characters that practice magic, and there is a good variety of modded units that you can use to represent them. Agammemnon’s Wizards & Warlocks is probably the most popular of these, or you could use Gandalf from one of the many Lord of the Rings mod packs. However, sometimes you might need a magical character thats a little bit faster, maybe something that can ride a horse. That’s where the Horsewizards come into to play. This unit by Theodred is another old gem from 2001 that I discovered a while ago. This unit is decent copy and paste model that merges the Priest from the original Age of Empires game onto the horse of the Conquistador. Adding some lightning bolts into the units attacking graphics then turns this interesting unit into a mounted wizard, hence the name. A great addition to any fantasy scenario, this is also one of the only mod packs that I have found that adds a mounted wizard into the game.
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It’s important to note that both of the units are quite old, and were uploaded as AKX files. For those of you who do not know, AKX files were used for the most popular modding tool of AOKH’s early days: Mod Pack Studio. Unfortunately, Mod Pack Studio no longer functions on modern operating systems and we now directly use SLPs files rather than AKX. However, that doesn’t mean these units are useless. There are various tools that you can use to extract the SLP files from the AKXs, Turtle Pack, SLX Studio and 7Zip can all be used and there are guides in both the University and the Forums that can help you with this.

So, there you have it, two unique and interesting hidden gems from the depths of our Blacksmith that you now know exist, if you didn’t already. Go and check them out now!

What do you think of our new feature? Have you found any hidden gems in the Blacksmith that you would like us to feature? Let us know in the comments below?