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.

Dark Age Villagers.

Rob (GM) has finished the painting commission for me of the selection of Dark Age villagers by Black Tree Design and Trent Miniatures so I thought I would put up a few pics of his excellent work. I still haven't quite finished all of my other villagers but a some point I will post a pic of the whole set up!

First up is Lady Angarad of St. Osyth, daughter of Ealdorman Godric.

Lady Angarad.

Next is Lady Angarad and her family, Ealdorman Godric and his wife Mildrith, uncle (and village blacksmith) Cynred and brother Hunberht.

Cynred, Angarad, Hunberht, Mildrith and Ealdorman Godric. 

Here we have Osbeorth, a local farmer and his family, wife Inga, sons Tohrwulf and Sibbi, daughters Waerburh and Bebbe.

Inga, Tohrwulf, Osbeorth, Waerburh and Bebbe, Sibbi.

A picture of the villagers together.

The villagers gather outside the Ealdormans house.

The next pictures are of the local druid Cadwallon and some slaves captured from a rival village.

The gathering at the stones of Crocky Grove.

The captives under guard.

Cadwallon and Frithegith prepare a hapless 'tribute'..

Stigath, Frithegith and Cadwallon.

A close up of Frithegith and Cadwallon.

Sorry looking captives wonder of their fate...

Next are some 'casualty' figures. Various injured and dead.

Ouch.

Lastly as shot of all the miniatures together.

Figures are all 'Ancients' from Black Tree Design apart from Lady Angarad who is actually the Trent Miniatures Maid Marian figure sculpted by Mark Copplestone.

All figures painted by Rob A aka GM.

Commission Update.

Have been a bit behind on everything lately, my daughter was ill in hospital for close to two weeks.  She's up and well now so I thought I'd better get back to our hosts painting request. Here's the latest Mark.

Commission.

I have never considered myself a professional painter but I have on occasion been thought highly enough of to represent both Ral Partha and Grenadier at Gen Con (yes that was donkeys years ago down in Butlins) and once in a while someone says paint me some figures and I'll give you lots of money. Well I need the money what more can I say. Recently that person was the writer of this blog and I am about a third of the way through his job.

I'm not going to start giving painting tips but I though just to show progress on his figures a little photo diary of the work to date might be of interest especially as my Saxon archers seem to have been so well accepted.

As received.

Basing.

Undercoat.

Base Flesh.

Fleshing out Flesh.

Experimenting with base colours.

 

Hey! Is that Crazy Gun Stacks moonlighting in Asgard?

I should point out that due to time constraints on my part one of the stipulations of me doing anything was that it was not too involved. So the figures are simple no fuss wargaming standard fair with simple no fuss mounting.

Rob.

Workbench Update 2 - More Work in Progress.

In addition to the new Saxons I have also made a start on various other minis to swell the growing ranks of Vikings and Saxons.

First up are a few 'Viking Heroes' I bought from Simon of the Big Red Bat Cave. I have based and undercoated some of them including a Thor figure, the huge 'Rollo the Granger', 'Brogger the Bold', 'Happy Thoruiv the Flatulent', all from Foundry and Gripping Beast's 'Sven Forkbeard' swinging the large Danish axe. I feel sorry for the ones standing behind Thoruiv the Flatulent...

"What's that smell??" (middle row l-r) Brogger, Thor, Sven (front l-r) Rollo and Thoruiv.

Next are a small unit of Viking archers (also from Simon) all from Foundry.

Sigurd indicates which direction to fire in...

Lastly are a few Saxon villagers and an oxen pulled cart from Foundry, plus an unidentified plastic pig that I have no idea where she came from. Based and undercoated she seems to fit ok as a big ol' sow though!

Some Saxon villagers go about their daily business, blissfully unaware of what lies in wait for them.

A quick snap of the whole lot...



Figures from Foundry and Gripping Beast.

Our group are still leaning towards the Strandhogg system for our rules of choice, despite the release of Saga. They look to be a simple but effective set - for a great detailed review of them check out Cor Blog Me!

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!