Gripping Beast Levy Archer unit for Saga

Had a few days of reasonable paint time this week so managed another unit. This time 1 point of SAGA levies. That's twelve figures though in fact two guys don't have bows.

Fairly basic paint job, base colour, ink wash and picking out of the main colour to look a bit more polished than a block and wash job.

I already have one point of levy archers so these are going to head over to Ebay. I originally got the castings off a friend who I was painting up other figures for. That means I have had these guys for about seven years! 

Under prep at the moment I have a bunch of 6mm and once those and the next lot of 15mm are done I should finally breach the 3000 unpainted figure mark. 

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.

Armless or Harmless Pack Finally Finished

I originally painted just the one figure from the pack, Gary A gave the figures to me and my son along with a mini mountain of Gripping Beast Vikings. I can't remember the details and I am hoping the supplier will get in touch again so I can post his details if any one want's to get some of these novel figures. I plan to use mine as villages in Saga and roleplaying.

For the most part I have gone for a fairly plain earthy look as it suits my campaign rather well and the not warrior Dark Age villager would have been rather more drab than the wealthier warrior. I really like the poses of these two, the one on the left should be looking at the other whilst that one says "What?"

The only exception to the drab rule is the guy drinking out of a flagon, something makes me think he is the gaffer of the poor bloke on the right, he is lugging a couple of bags of merchandise.

Mr Peter Pointer is rather down on his luck since he bought his clothes and is no stranger to dirty work, but is to a bath and the idea that clothes get washed before they drop off. The fellow having a wizz was painted up during the challenge so has been seen before.

The house in the background is a Loki creation he gave to my son at Christmas and was the perfect background for these shots. The castings were not as crisp as some but much better than the last Gripping Beast figures I cleaned up but have a lot of charm and great facial expressions, hopefully I will have the details so you can get some if you wish.

Gripping Beast Shieldwall

After painting up the little fellows I wanted a bit more larger scale painting and as such went for a bunch of 28's. These are the now unavailable shieldwall set (x4) that Gripping Beast used to sell. I can see why they were removed from sale as the amount of mould lines was painful and in some cases really difficult to remove. Also I had to drill out a number of hands to allow spears to be put in place. However I hope they are re-released as they are nice figures once you have sorted these two problems out.

I plan to sell them just got to decide if I need to sell them as a job lot or four sets and of course the thorny question as to how much?

 I am not sure how well these would go down with the SAGA players as they seem better suited to actual shield wall games than the more spread out skirmish style of play. That did not stop me basing them on 2p's though.

I went for bright again rather than the dour Dark Age look that is favoured by many. Not that I have anything against the dark look it's just that I agree that whilst dies were often not colour fast as today the way they were washed would have limited the die loss and you tended to dress up for battle.

I mixed in simple and more complex shields into the mix. All the figures are lacking in armour so I suspect these would be the less experienced and willing of the men involved and as such were less likely to have the posh shields of their more experienced comrades.

It's a fairly basic paint job with single colour and ink washed but on the light side so the shading is somewhat more natural. I am not such a fan of the high contrast way of shading.

So that's twenty figures, four sets of the shieldwall figures and an extra four general spear men to beef it up a little more. I have also found a further six large shield types that would mix with these well so they will also make it to the paint table, not sure if that will be this month but it's a definite possibility.

So if any one is interested in these send me an email (button near the top on the right) happy to ship at cost anywhere in the world. Now it's back to 6mm Napoleonic's that are so close to finishing.

Naughty Vikings 28mm Foundry

Almost to the end of the Challenge posts, which is handy as I am in the middle of basing up the last of my Romans. So today we have the naked berserker's from Foundry.

I would have liked more poses, though these all look fairly different I have another eight that will cause some repeats. The main issue is that you can't exactly paint the clothes different colours to mask the similar figures LOL.

You would think these would paint up faster than the clothed guys but actually took longer as I had to add more depth to the skin, not able to get away with a wash and touch up.

Time will tell if I can break my son's shieldwall with these guys or will they be beaten back with more than their ego's bruised.

I will leave you with a image of the last 28mm submission to the challenge, I still have a heap of Vikings and such to do and will be adding some to the queue once I have cleared some space. Tomorrow will see a new building in the works from Leven and tonight for me, it's time for the next Napoleonic buildings.

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!

The Youth of Yesterday

It seems that one thing remains constant through time and that's the general misbehaviour of youth. So it's only fitting this is represented on the tabletop. The idea came to me too late to use in the Comedy slot.

This dear boy is showing his disdain of the Norman's by using his head, just not the one he should! I don't know who makes the figure but as I got it from Gary Amos with a load of Gripping Beast I am thinking he me be said suppliers.

As the figure lacks a lot of detail it was fairly quick to paint up. Seeing as the lads acting like a peasant I dressed him in drab colours and off set this with a bright shield as I wanted most attention to be there and the stream of urine was provided by soft plastic glue, he obviously is a fan of Luke Skywalker too.

So a nice quick paint and a fun diversion, he will find his way into my shield walls but like my son I don't rate his chances of staying alive too long :-)

More Black Tree Vikings

One of my start of year goals was to create a further four points of Vikings for my Viking Warband. These twelve figures supply the last three points though two of the figures have been given to my son for his own Viking army (his second army after the Anglo Danes) so I need to paint up a couple of replacements.

These are a further twelve Black Tree Miniatures figures and overall they are just as good as the previous figures I have added to my collection but the two I am giving away really don't fit for me. One of them is the figure above in red. Nothing wrong with the figure I just don't like him.

Some of the weapon poses though are questionable such as the guy on the right with the axe turned around. The one in red is at ease with a flagon of ale in one hand and his axe at rest in the other. Shame then that I want the figure for a dynamic skirmish game where there is no time for a tea break. In fairness I can use him and others in other games but it's another figure that will be swapped out of my Saga army when I get more painted up. Meanwhile he will do fine.

I am doing a few painting jobs for a mate and part of the payment is a load of Stick on shield transfers from Little Big Man, having recently read a horror story about putting them on I was a bit worried but they turned out reasonably easy to attach and I like the results. As such I will be mixing in the rest of the transfers with hand painted ones.

This batch are a mix of axe and sword and gives me one warrior unit, one hearth guard and one point of Berserkers. I will actually be replacing the berserk figures with some nude fanatics that I was given by Gary. These will be painted up soon as my son also has some and wants to see how Dad does it.

So both me and the boy have amassed a reasonable force and need to give it a go again, timing is not bad either as I have taken this week off work as the kids are on holiday so maybe a game of Saga followed by cowboys will be on the menu in the next couple of days.

Black Tree Viking's for Saga (1 Point)

One of the plans for early 2015 is to build up my Saga Vikings for fighting against my Son and Lee when he gets his troops painted (hint hint). As such I had programmed a fair few into my Analogue Challenge prep work,, indeed I still have another sixteen figures ready to be painted in the coming two months. All figures are the very nice Black Tree Miniatures. 

Leader of this points worth of warriors is this guy. I wanted him to look suitably commanding so wanted to do my best on his shield so painted up this two headed dragon that came out a lot better than I expected as free hand is not exactly my strong suit.

The strange pose of this figure with the arm held close to the body had me stumped for a short while and then I thought why not have him wounded and quickly came up with the idea f a discarded shield, blooded tunic and blood running down his hand. Again it came out much as I had planned which is not the normal run of things here.

I used basic block painting with a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade followed by highlighting with the original colour. It's been suggested on the Challenge post that I should add a further colour to the highlight to lift it further so will try that with the next lot.

I painted a mix of hair colours, most dirty blond but a few with brown hair as well. I again went for the brighter colours and all but the first two have a more basic colour trim to their tunics as I figure lesser warriors would have less money to spend on fashion.

I also wanted to have a mix of more basic shield designs with some more complex. The slingers just had the basic designs befitting there lower warrior status (levies) whilst these would have to earn their crust in the shield wall, well the back rows but still.

The guy in the centre really reminds me of someone I worked with in the past, something I rather like. The poses are a little strange in a few cases whilst others are really good but the overall look of individuals rather than same pose different head is well worth the odd pose.

The yellow came through much better with the adding of the highlights and turned a problematic colour into a nice solid finish, glad I put in the extra effort, not that it was THAT much more effort.

Love the back of the shields that allow the wood grain to show with just a black base and light drybrush. Also the extra detail such as the knife held by two straps really help make the finished figure more interesting.

Lastly a very nice long house that Loki gave my son for Christmas (along with much more), really helped to make my sons day so thanks mate, I only borrowed it for the pics.

First Saga Tilt AAR

My son has fallen off the painting buzz at the moment, lots of other things going off so I thought it would be good to get in a game to get his interest back, after all it works with me. We just went with what we had painted up so I had three units of Hearthguard (four figs elite) and a depleted levy bow unit of eight instead of twelve. I even had to field my unpainted leader. My son had three Hearthguard and two warrior (eight figure units) and his painted leader. So I was playing with five dice against his seven but with me having read the rules and played other games seemed a fair difference.

My right flank was two units of Hearthguard with the left the third unit. The centre was made up of the levies. I was facing what seemed a hundred figures and he had set them up mostly on the hill I was facing.

The bright green is broken ground so could be fired over but would slow down movement, neither happened. My son had one unit painted up by Gary Amos and Loki all the rest are his own work though I had painted some of the shields for him. 

I started to move towards the warriors on his left flank hoping to beat them with the better quality elites but he saw the move and countered with one of his own Hearthguard, so much for going against a eight year old sheep!

He picked up some of the nuances of the Battleboard and was re-rolling dice and changing others at a fair lick. We were trading blows each losing an odd figure.

I managed to get two units to attack the same opponent one after the other which left him with just the one figure left in the unit. He was to move it into cover behind his warlord at his first opportunity.

Try as I might I was not managing to get rid of any of my sons units I could get them down to one man but he would drop them back out of the direct fight. I have the ability to remove the last three figures that are not Hearthguard so was not able to sweep them up.

My son had made a Hearthguard up of the figures given to him and painted by Gary A and Loki, he was looking at attacking my levies with them but also had a two figure Hearthguard as a possible target as well

The hill was now home to a shattered collection of Ango Dane units he was to move his warlord forward to fight alongside his last full strength Hearthguard and what was left of his warriors but by the time he got into position Loki was on his own and the warriors were quite beaten up.

Loki was a real mean guy though, I threw attack after attack at him and he refused to die saving one wound after another. Finally he went down but by then I had a stack of fatigue and was having to rest just about everyone. The game finally finished with my son's warlord being killed but I was almost out of troops as well by then.

So a close game and we had a lot of fun. Doubtless I did things wrong but overall I think I got most things. We both had a reasonable idea of how the game plays and are eager for another game. It's even got him back to the painting desk as he works on another points worth of troops, Levies this time.

Also played a game of Hail Caesar over at Kev's last Friday night but I forgot to take photo's. Lots of fun and laughs but I will leave it to Kev to do the AAR.

Viking Bow by Black Tree Miniatures

Finally got round to adding to my Saga force, not quite enough to give me a full unit of levies but I will be painting up four slingers in the coming week or so to go with these eight.

The end ones look to be bent over but it's tricks of the camera as they stand straight but how the work surface is and the angle of the figures makes them look odd.

I like Black Tree, their WWII are some of the best 28mm (not so much a fan of some of the French) and I do like these Vikings. Some have a few nice touches. I have about twenty left to paint in total which are all prepped ready for Friday.

These were actually used the other day, should have an AAR sorted out tomorrow if all goes well. Most of my figures seem to be running around or reaching for arrows, none of them seem to want to shoot anyone, they must have read the rules regards their chances of hitting anything.

Turned out a little darker than originally planned but not disappointed with the result. All part of the black undercoat really. Happiest with the yellow as that's always the bane colour. Vallejo flat yellow in case your interested.

I wanted all eight to be different poses which is why I also bought the four slingers as BT only do eight poses (not that eight is a small number). Some of the figures have simular poses but different heads etc. certainly don't look clones to me.

Very nice flow to the figures and clothing, more time spent on them would really pay dividends though the results of a quick paint works for me as they are to be used mostly for games with my son, though Lee is also building a force up as well so hopefully will see a fair bit of play.

Some of these will also get the odd roleplaying session as NPC's got to get your monies worth after all. Talking of which, they are not expensive figures but at times of the big sales they are probably the best value outside plastics you will get for SAGA figures.

Cleaning wise they are reasonably clean, the odd one needing a bit more work but most needing little work at all. They paint up quickly as well as the brush can flow across the detail, the surface is smooth as brush wear is kept down. I am certainly happy with the experience of painting these guys and looking forward to the next batch during the challenge