SAGA Gripping Beast Vikings

I have painted up another point of Viking warriors armed with spears. This will allow me to field a few spear armed units which I think should give my force a more realistic look. Indeed I now have enough Viking figures to look beyond Saga if I wish.

I went with quite basic colours and no high or low lighting leaving it to the ink wash to make these look a bit more appealing. I have also swapped out the Griping Beast shields for Black Tree shields where possible.

I really like the poses and amount of detail on these figures, just enough to break up each figure but not so much that it's a bit of a drag painting them.

I mixed the colours so that no two figures have the same tunics though two from above look the same in the photo. I still have quite a few of these left so may do a few more during the challenge, I will have to see.

I also mixed up the tufts across the eight models to keep them looking nice and varied. For Saga I am thinking a few units like these, a bow armed axe fodder and some elite troops. I have some more berserker types as well.

Here they are all together, now I just need to get myself organised and get a few more games in. The Boy has his Anglo Danes and I know Lee has done a bit more work on his faction. Before that though we have a games day of 6mm Naps with a side of Dead Mans Hand, I have some buildings to get done.

Replacement Killers Gripping Beast Style

Whilst I am a fan of the vast majority of my Black Tree Design Vikings I had two models that I was less fond of and as such choose to replace them and give the two unwanted lads to my son as he is now starting work on his second Saga Army.

I actually plan to have another go at adding a banner to the spear as I have one banner with my Little Big Man Shield decals I bought with the plastic Vikings so you may see the guy on the right again if that works out.

I realise the guy on the left would be a commander and not strictly Viking but he is a mean looking bugger so will get used for sure.

I really like the animation of the spearman and I am pleased to report that the Black Tree Miniatures and Gripping Beast fit together very well allowing you to have a great mix in your units without it being obvious they are different suppliers.

The figures got block painting, ink wash added by brush and then highlight picked out in the original colour. I now have a reasonable sized warband but have loads of figures that I plan to paint up to allow us to try a few larger none Saga games. In the meantime we just need to find time to play Saga again!

Viking Test Figure

Wanting to do something totally different I decided to beak open a box of Griping Beast plastic Viking Hirdmen. Not that I had any business doing so with so many other figures needing attention but lets face it, reason is one of the smallest ingredients in this type of cake.

With the plastic's you have a lot of choices for weapons, heads and even purses! This one I went with the dagger attached, though I am fairly sure it could be missed off and not make much difference to the finished model. Indeed if not for the fact that these will probably end up being used for SAGA then I would miss them off.

Clean up and assembly was fairly straight forward, much better than I had feared but I am guessing if I was doing the other 43 as one batch it would be a much different story. Maybe I will do them in batches of five or so?

Being a test figure I have gone fairly basic with the colours and pattern. I think one from each batch may get a far more detailed patterns though I do like the fairly plain look for most of them.

I meant for his hair to be more blond but in the flesh it's not so brown. I love the scabbard as it's suitably long with the hilt of the sword also proportionally long, this figure could never had been cast as one and that's a big bonus that plastics have.

 The base is a good old 2p coin which gives the figure some nice weight and makes up for it being so light. I will be basing all the WWII Winter War figures the same way. Funny thing it's cheaper to base on 2p's than it is to buy the same size bases from Warbases so I am saving money by using the coins.

You won't see more of these though till I have painted up Mats 6mm Zulu's that I would have thought I would have finished by now, oh well they will be on the desk soon competing with my 6mm Naps for time. Did I mention the Winter War stuff? I guess my tables going to be rather full of figures jostling for pole.