Second Group of Vikings

I'm trying to clear my shelf so I can lay out the Romans as they are finished. Here is my first unit of Bondi all based up. They are mostly Artizan with a few Gripping Beast. I've got about 700 points of Vikings done now but can't see when I am going to do any others for a while. .

First Andalusians

I've always wanted to have a go at some Reconquista armies and I bought these Artizan crossbowmen as we were doing a game at the club. Unfortunately, I was ill again so couldn't make it. This was doubly annoying as I had painted them all in one week. They were lovely to paint and I will definitely get some more once all the Romans are dealt with. I need some Moors to pitch against my Carolingians but don't know enough about them to know if the ones from 200 years earlier looked the same. Obviously they wouldn't have had crossbows. I am not sure when the helmets with nasal pieces came in. I'll have to do some more research.

Dark Age Comparison

Following a post on TMP here is a picture of (l to r): Foundry Viking, Artizan Viking, Renegade Anglo Saxon, Crusader Byzantine and Crusader Irishman.

To be fair I don't own any Crusader Anglo Saxons but that was because they looked rather small compared with the Foundry and Artizan Vikings I had. Maybe I will get a pack to see. As you can see the Byzantine figure is much shorter than the Irish figure. If the Anglo Saxons are similar they wouldn't be compatible with Renegade's at all for me.

First Unit of Vikings

It's not really. These Gripping Beast Vikings are the first 28mm metal figures I bought, about five years ago. I have since switched to Artizan and Foundry but I recently re-based these and there are a couple of Foundry Vikings in there. The painting isn't that great but I tidied them up a bit. Nice Little Big Men banner helps a lot.

It makes a nice big tough WAB unit but it's over 400 points. Should be tough though! I've decided to build a Danish Viking Army from Shieldwall so I can pitch it against my Carolingians.

All the Dark Age stuff is on hold, though, while I get my Roman Army done for the SOA Battle Day in May.

It's a Goth..no it's a Saxon..no it's a Goth..

Got totally confused as I bought packs of Saxons, Franks and Goths at the same time then muddled them all up. Here is the Goth captain. Blurred picture as my batteries just went but haven't got time to do a proper one as I have to go to boring Ankara tomorrow and I need to pack but within the mad new security limits.

He's a nice figure with a Spangenhelm and a cloak.

Carolingian Standard Bearer

I've no idea what a Carolingian banner looks like. The shape of this one is based on the picture in the Osprey Carolingian Cavalryman. I'm going for a red, white and blue colour scheme for this unit as its more..French! The banner was made from a Gripping Beast spear with a crosspiece and a paper banner. It looks OK!

Carolingians

My most recent Dark Ages army is a Carolingian one. I wasn't going to start another army until I saw Mike Owen's Artizan figures. Slimmer than his Vikings but still compatible, oddly. The cavalry are lovely and it's just as well I've got over my hatred of cavalry as 50% of the points value have to be milites (I suppose some could be on foot) in WAB.

I've started a unit of mounted milites and a unit of liberi (light foot). The only problem I've found so far is that the foot figures don't rank up too well. To get their shields facing the front their spears tend to stick out to one side and collide with the next figure. I think I will get more of the standing figures and just use the advancing ones for the front ranks.

and just drill out a Gripping Beast spear and stick in a cross-piece.
I've solved the problem of the traditional "winged" spear

Newline Dark Ages Figures

Someone on TMP was asking about these today so here are a couple of comparison shots.

The three on the left are Newline Franks the one on the right is a Gripping Beast Early German as comparison. They have separate shields and weapons. Although referred to by other TMPers as "chunky" I think they are slimmer and more elegant than the GB figures The camera distortion doesn't really show this). This is largely because they have in-proportion heads.

Here we have the Goths (centre three figures) with a Black Tree Design late Roman on the left and a GB Roman Briton on the right. Some of the Goth figures have separte scabbards.

The man at Newline I bought these from told me that their EIR were designed to match the Perry Foundry Romans and I suspect these will go better with the Foundry late Romans than any other make. They are nicer figures, even with just an undercoat, than I had realised in the bare metal but are half a head shorter than GB. I might finish these off now!

I have set up a number of blogs over the last six months to record my progress in painting a number of 28mm wargames armies.

Mostly progress has been slow due to the fact that I cannot concentrate on any one army for very long! Recently I have spent a lot of time painting Dark Ages figures and so it seemed sensible to pull progress on these armies together in one site.

The first historical metal 28mm figures I bought were some Gripping Beast Saxons and Vikings about five or six years before at Salute 2001. Up until then all the figures I had bought and painted were 20mm plastics, which I liked for the realistic anatomy as compared with most metal figures which seemed to have ridiculously big heads. However, when I saw the GB figures at Salute I was convinced for the first time to invest in some lead and bought a bunch of Saxons and Vikings.

I am now currently working on 8 Dark Ages Armies: Late Saxons, Vikings, Carolingians, Early Saxons, Romano-British, Byzantine, Irish and Seljuks. I am also contemplating some Reconquista armies and a Crusader army as well. Usually I pick my armies on the basis of a figure range but this has not always been that easy with my Dark Ages forces and so I have struggled with some armies.