The Viking Horde...

The Viking Horde grows ever stronger!

Thought I would post a couple of pics after I dug out all my Vikings / Saxons / Dark Age Villagers etc to see what I had.

I was surprised to find I now have over one hundred and twenty painted Vikings! These are mainly Foundry but there are a mix of Artizan, Gripping Beast and Black Tree too.

Above we have the proud leaders of this horde - the old man, Thoruiv 'the Flatulent' and his eldest sons Jarl Ragnar (on the left) and Jarl Grim (on the right). In the background are the berserker Rurik 'the Restless', Sonja 'Queen of the Hill' and 'Big' Bergfinn, brother of the now deceased Bergthor.

Here we have Brother Thomas and some dogs leading some local down-trodden villagers and below are Kraki, Gudrød the Hunter, with Ingulbjörn behind them and the insane old berserker Folkmar in the foreground.

Next is a pic of Thoruiv and his 'berserker' personal guard, with Rurik and Folkmar.

Lastly, a shot of the entire horde including one hundred and twenty plus Vikings, seventy 'Saxons' and twenty odd villager types.

On the workbench, I still have about another twenty Vikings in progress, plus the original batch of villagers and animals that I never finished! Once these are done I also have about another seventy or so unpainted Vikings. As I only ever really intended to play skirmish games I doubt they will get painted up in the near future as I have plenty to occupy my time with Doctor Who and 7TV stuff...see my Level 2 blog.

Workbench Update - More Saxons.

Despite the major distraction of primarily working on some WW2 bits for our planned Troops, Weapons & Tactics campaign over recent weeks I have made a start on the next batch of Saxons/Vikings etc and thought I would put up a quick post.

Above are 12 new Saxon types and an early Saxon Chieftain to the right. The are all Gripping Beast miniatures from the 'Saxon/German Tribes' range. I have managed to get most of the basic painting done on them so only need to think about detail and flesh work. Slightly anachronistic but in the background are some partially done Crusader Miniatures WW2 Germans and a wonderful Foundry sentry with his rather upset alsatian guard dog. Also on the back line are some Musketeer 'Inter-War Period' minis and the stunning 'Male Werewolf' from Reaper, probably one of the best werewolf sculpts I have come across.


Figures by Gripping Beast, Crusader Miniatures, Wargames Foundry, Musketeer Miniatures and Reaper Minis.

Viking Horde!

Nearly done! Been ages since I posted anything (distractions including real life and other projects) but my 'Viking' project is almost there. Thought it was about time to take a couple of pics to record where I have got to so far.

There are about seventy or so miniatures here, most are complete other than finishing touches on their bases and a few need some flesh work or other bits and bobs.

There are a few Saxons in the background of the above too. Again, they are all but done, though they need a splash of varnish and the bases flocked.

I also need to finish the handful of villagers and the Longship. No livestock yet, or indeed anything else for the Vikings to actually help themselves to!

Quite a scary looking bunch from this angle!!

My other project 'distractions' can be found here:

Zombie Apocalypse in a Green and Pleasant Land with The Dead Hate the Living.

WW2 Wargaming with A Project Too Far.

A Very British Civil War in East Anglia with Hard Times of Old England.

And finally Pulp, Horro and Sci-Fi with Level 2.



Viking Progress...

Finally managed to do a little more work on the Viking mob thats been sitting on my workbench for a while. Thought I would put up a couple of pics! About 40 or so in various states of completion (I really should just finish a batch before I start on a new one) so plenty of work to be done on these chaps...

"Grrrrr..."

Weekend Work!

Managed to get a little bit more done on Sunday and took some more pics (of course) I need to actually sit down and get painting as I keep spending all my time doing prep work at the moment!

Dug out the Revell Viking Longship at last and began the basics on the model. It looks good and the scale (1:50) seems to work fine with 28mm. Clearly it needs a good paint job and some modifications - not too sure about the plastic sail. Some folk have also worked this as a waterline model and it looks great but I am not sure if I am brave enough to do this as I have been a long time out of modelling! Check out Herrodadog's Viking Longship & Kevin Barrett's Longships among others for some nice examples of how the ship can look.

As far as being an accurate model I found a helpful quote by 'J Tilley' from Model Ship World -
"The Viking ship kit was based on a full-sized replica that stood at the time in Lincoln Park, Chicago. That replica was, in turn, based on the Gokstad Ship, one of the two major Viking ship "finds" now preserved at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. The Revell kit is a quite accurate reproduction of the Gokstad Ship - with a few parts simplified (e.g., the insides of the gunwales, where the straps on the shields are supposed to be hooked) and a few others based on speculation and inference. The most obvious in the latter category are the "dragon's head and tail" at the bow and stern. The actual Gokstad Ship was buried in a funeral mound, and the bow and sternpost projected into a higher, more acidic layer of soil. When the archaeologists excavated the ship in the late nineteenth century whatever ornaments had originally decorated the bow and stern had rotted away. The ones on the Revell kit are reconstructions based on other Viking artifacts of about the same period."

A few pics of the model...

Basic hull of Longship constructed (with Bolli onboard getting rather excited at the prospect of going 'viking')

Another view with the mast in place.

Before I went any further I decided to give the hull an undercoat before I started any of the fiddly stuff! I also took the opportunity (and advantage of the nice weather) to basecoat my final group of Vikings.

The motley crew and longship apparently stranded on a garden chair.

Looks pretty good - the basecoat brings out the grain quite nicely. Now I have to decide if I am going to risk destroying the model by cutting into the hull for that waterline look...

Progress this week

Actually not that much done this week to be honest! Little bit more painting done on the Gripping Beast Saxon / Viking warband (still can't decide what they are yet...) and some bases started.
Also selected what I think will be the final batch for painting - some more really nice Foundry and Artizan figures plus a few 'villager' types. No doubt I will paint more at some point as I still have a mix of old Citadel Norse and some remaining Gripping Beast shieldwall folk but for now I want to finish what I have done and get to work on the Revel Viking longship I recently picked up!

 The GB Viking / Saxon warband (one figure complete!)

 The final warband group to be painted (for now anyway)

The villagers (Foundry Vikings) plus a few stragglers in the background from the old Citadel 'Norse' range.










Group shot!