Dark Age Irish

   After claiming the Moorish army wasn't a new project, this one definitely is*. Ever since the single unit of Norse-Gaels in my Viking army became a project in their own right, I've had my eye on a home bred opponent for them, pricing up a metal Gripping Beast Irish army more than a few times, but with the Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish kit, I knew I needed to pick up a box to have a look.
   This isn't the first box of their plastics I have tried, I already have a box of their Ancient Greek Skeletons, and I stand by what I said in that review. I'm not a fan of the plastic they use, but it goes together well and the casts are crisp, they just feel too much like the old bendy plastic toys.

*And some more confessions for later

   As per normal, I'm building the army to Lion Rampant unit sizes as this will allow the units to be broken down to suit smaller unit games like Saga if needed. The bulk of the army will be made up of Yeomen stated troops with javelins which should give a very different game dynamic to the normal dark ages shield walls we play.

   I've got another box of these on order, which will give me enough troops for 4 units of regular Irish and 2 units of wolfhounds which I will use as Ferocious Foot (although I only plan to use a single unit per game), then a unit of Foot Sgt stated fighters will round the army off with a more elite household bodyguard for the army's lord.

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For Freyja!

   As we are at what would have been the weekend of Salute, I figured it was time to start posting about the other big project I bought at last Salute 2019. Viking Shieldmaidens.

   To be fair, this wasn't a project I caved and bought on the day, Gripping Beast had been doing sneak peaks for a few weeks before hand and then helpfully did a preorder scheme so you could pay in advance and pick up on the day. One drink lead to another and we all know what happens when you drunk shop. In the end, between preordering, picking up another blister pack on the day and a quick order when they released a unit of archers, I reckon I have about a 24 point Lion Rampant army which might need the odd unit or two topped up with one of the Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens that are currently in my main Viking force. Plus with the two units of wolves from an post earlier this month, I'll have just over 30 points for a Dragon Rampant army.

   The unit below is the first fully finished unit in the army, and is the basic foot Sgt (Lion Rampant terminology). The big thing that surprised me when I opened the box was that Gripping Beast have tried a new system for their weapons on this release, instead of drilling out hands the hands come with weapons already in them and its the hand that needs to be stuck to the wrist with a pin and predrilled hole. They were actually nicer to build than the older Gripping Beast ranges. It was another one of those projects where I topped up my wire spear collection ready and then didn't need to use them.

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Solid block of infantry

   As I said on the first of this quick trilogy of Norman posts, I was a lot busier in the last week or so with my hobby than my blog has suggested, but now I am starting to slow down again, it felt like the perfect time to get back up to date with the posts.

    I always like the idea of at least two solid blocks of infantry in a game of Lion Rampant, so when I was planning my Norman I knew I would be buying more spearmen. The Gripping Beast starter box set comes with 2 units of Horsemen, a unit of archers and a unit of crossbowmen and I already had a unit of spears which were bought to be mercenaries for my late Saxon army. So another quick trip to Gripping Beast got me the numbers I needed to boost units from Saga to Lion Rampant sized units and got me the extra infantry unit I wanted.

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Norman Crossbows

   Following on from my Norman archers is a unit of Norman crossbowmen. For my Dark Age armies, I wouldn't tend to run two shooting units but both came with the Gripping Beast 4 point starter set (although I had to boost this unit's numbers for Lion Rampant) and I'm not going to leave them unpainted just because I have archers already, however, I have slightly more than 24 points worth of troops, so I can leave a unit out if I want to play a 'standard' sized game*.

*Although, we rarely do



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Norman Archers

   I've been fairly busy lately which has slowed down getting finished units onto this blog, but I'm going to try and sort my game out and start posting regularly again.
   First unit to post about are my Norman archers to carry on my Norman army for Lion Rampant / Saga. The figures are all Gripping Beast from their 4 point Saga starter box. They have been painted alongside my other Norman units in my normal batch painting method.

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Whose Fyrd Is This?

   As I am currently working on at least 2 projects at the sec, it made sense for me to add a few backlog figures from a different project to the front of the queue . . . No Wait . . .
   Let me restart. I've had the last couple of Saxons sitting on my painting desk for ages, but for some reason I've struggled to find the motivation to finish them, however, with my Normans working their way past my paint brush it was easy to put aside the next group for a bit and do the Saxons instead.

   In the photo, the ones that were finished last weekend are the banner bearer and the armoured guy at the front. In my head, this unit has become a thegn staying within his fyrd for the battle, rather than joining a more elite group of his peers. This is now my Saxon project complete until I buy more - which will happen . . .

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Horse power to run the invasion

   While they weren't finished in time for the game, I knew I wanted a unit of the knights finished early in the painting schedule. I still enjoy sitting down in an evening with a base coated batch of infantry to start on than a base coated unit of horsemen, but that tends to be a good reason to make sure the horsemen aren't left for last, and I'm glad I didn't, as I am pleased with how they have come out.
   Again, they are Gripping Beast Normans and a mix of a couple of packs. the bit I enjoyed the most in the process was while building them, I was looking to see if each model had his sword still in the scabbard so I could make sure they were armed correctly.

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Another invasion force

   It came to my attention a few weeks back that we were right in the middle of the anniversaries of the battles of the 1066 invasion period. It was the anniversary of the Battle of Stanford Bridge when I realised and this meant I had a couple of weeks before Hastings itself. So I proposed a Dark Age game at the club using Anglo-Danes vs the Normans. My mate, Neil, had a painted Norman army and I had a painted late Anglo-Saxon army, so we had the bases covered, but more troops is never a bad thing, so I dug into my Pile of Potential and found my languishing Norman army.

   The first unit (and the only ones finished in time for the game) were a unit of Norman spearmen. The models are all from Gripping Beast and are a mixture of different Saga races and packs, although I think they all actually come from the same Norman range in the long run. I've mixed heavy armour and no armour in the same unit, and plan to do the same for any of the following ones too as I think it looks better on the table.

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Back to the Dark Ages

   A slightly bigger gap between posts than I had planned, as I had my first days off work due to illness in I think 4 years and, while I normally dream of days off to get on with my backlog, I struggled to do anything but sleep. However, I am back and basically fixed, so here we go again.

   One of the things I picked up at Salute* was my pre-order from Gripping Beast of a box of their new Shieldmaidens. The dark ages are my favourite period in history and I seriously doubt I will ever stop adding new armies, warbands or units to my collection, however, my backlog of projects for this period has gotten a little bit daft. Since Christmas, I have had a couple of Norse-Gaels on my desk at any one time as I'll paint a figure whenever I have a flash of inspiration, but that isn’t how you get an army painted, so I’ve decided to go back to my system of batch painting across units to get the project moving a tad faster and include the last few Saxons to get them finished too**. That isn't to say I'm trying to finish this project before moving on to other stuff, but I would like it to be slightly further along.

*I was actually really good, going off my pre-set list only once and it wasn't for these

**As I think I am down to the last 8 or so figures

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Saxon Slingers

   As I said on the last post, I haven’t done much painting since I finished the titans at the start of the month, but I had been trying to force myself to do bits and pieces*, most of which revolved around getting some Dark Ages projects finished. So while layers of washes were drying on my ACW project, I have been sneaking the odd half painted Saxon or Viking into the painting queue while the motivation is good.

   The result of this is that my unit of Saxon slingers that I started in late 2018 has now been finished and I have a few more interesting figures to add to my Norse-Gael army**. 

*Mostly unsuccessfully

**Still got a long way to go, though!

The finished unit in all it's glory?

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Infantry support

   My rabbits (or one in particular and I know exactly which one) ate the laptop lead, so I've not been able to update the blog while I waited for a new power cable to arrive. Now, however, I am ready to go again.

   Not a huge amount to report, but I did spend a good weekend evening painting a Sons of Horus tank - something I still think the top spas need to introduce into their relaxation programs. The tank in question is a legion vindicator but with the traditional demolisher cannon rather than the laser destroyers of it's sister tank. I've got a vague plan for this vehicle in the new year, so we will see how that works out.

   Then, just to prove I am incapable of committing to a single army, game or period I played another game of Sharp Practice 2 this week (not photo worthy) and tried out a few quick games of Saga 2 just to see what changes have been made to the rules.
   There are going to be much better Saga 2 reviews out there and I am well behind the times, but suffice to say, if you enjoyed Saga, then the second edition is much better and does make you think harder in game. If you didn't like the way Saga worked (I know working out defence saves can be a serious headache), then the changes aren't going to sell this new edition to you.

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Mixing my groups

   After, what ended up being, a whole weekend at home I managed to not only achieve some adulting but also got some models finished. I'm splitting them into genre relevant posts, so the first half is more Dark Ages figures.

   I painted two batches of figures, with a mix of Saxons slingers, a Saxon fyrdsman, a Norse-Gael javelin thrower and a Norse-Gael hurscarl. Getting more Saga figures going across my desk is giving me a real urge to give the new edition of Saga rules a try in the near future*.

* Although I feel like I should up my batch size a bit to keep this moving

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Return to the Dark Ages

   The drive home from the Jungles of Akkar event was both absolutely tiring and a confusion of hobby thoughts going through my head. I spent the drive thinking about how badly my Sons of Horus army played; so how to improve it or to just put it aside and get something else right, my next 30k project with Ultramarines, but also my various Dark Ages projects.
   Why Dark Ages after a 30k event? Well, one of the players at the event was an author called Justin Hill, who wrote a couple of novels (Shieldwall and Viking Fire) based on the life of Earl Godwin, father of Harold Godwinson, that I read years ago and I managed to corner him in the pub for an hour or so to just chat Dark Ages.

   Over the summer North Star had a flash sale and one of the items they were selling off was a blister pack of Gripping Beast Anglo-Saxon slingers, for the price they were selling them, it seemed daft not to grab the last pack and while the plan was simply to put them into the Pile of Potential and come back to them, the fact they didn't seem to have any slings with them really did make them an another day project.
   So, the day after the weekend event, I put together a Gripping Beast order to fill in some gaps across my Dark Ages projects (mostly to convert Saga sized units into Lion Rampant sized units, including some slings, and as soon as they arrived I got to work.

   The slingers are being painted in the same method I used last time, painting a batch at a time in a single dominate colour, so when the unit comes together it doesn't look like it has been painted in a uniform. I plan to mix models from other projects into the next few batches to really get everything moving again.

   While the models below are from my Norse-Gael army and were really just me trying out ideas for the sheer hell of enjoying painting some models. I bought a single unit of the Gripping Beast Norse-Gaels to boost the model variety of my Viking army, before I got carried away and made a full army of each. The model on the right was my attempt to create a single striped tartan looking cloth (it looks much better in person), while the guy on the left was my attempt to copy a model that Michael painted in this post, but his is much better.

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Sons of Horus Tactical Squad 2

   As planned I have focused on making sure my second tactical squad for my Sons of Horus 30K project has been finished before I got too excited painting anything else. This now means I have 2 of my 3 big squads finished*, so any distractions** now won't kill this project entirely.

*I have been painting the odd man from other
squads in the same batches, so actually the
next squad or two should be finished fairly
quickly.
**Gangs of Rome is starting 

to deliver . . 

   As with my last big squad, I am trying to make sure I am mixing different marks of armour into the squads early on, especially into any of the positions, as this way I can add anything to this army and individual units without the new thing looking out of place. So in this case I have added a MKV as the squads vexillia and there are other marks mixed in, in the ranks.
   I have also been mixing armour types on the same model for similar reasons, these men are supposed to be in the depth of the heresy where resources were hard to come by. That forgeworld supplying you might now be in the rear view mirror and hard to get to, or have fallen to your enemy.

   The first Deimos Rhino for the army, while it isn't for this squad it was too good a kit not to get painted early on and was a nice break from infantry. I kept the colour scheme simple to match the troops, however, I broke the big flat areas up with gang markings*.

*Apparently

   At this point I think it is impossible for me to go more than a week or so without getting the itch to paint a Viking and these were the last few I needed to finish another unit off. Hopefully, this will tie me over for a while.

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First models of the year

   As my last post was me planning my hobby year out loud, it only made sense to try and follow it up with an actual hobby post as soon as humanly possible, which I have just about done. As I, also, said in my last post, the chances of me staying focused are next to 0 but as long as I go in the correct direction, the meanderings can just be called flavour.
   Bearing that in mind, my hobby over the new year weekend and the first days has been, mostly, on target. I have started my Sons of Horus 30k project with aims to get my first games in at the end of February and be playing properly in the months afterwards - this is going to be a big project if I see it to completion so I want to get it started asap.

   The first models of this project to see the painting table are the members of the first tactical squad, all 15 of them. When it comes to motivation it is the big squads that are where it is easiest to falter, sitting down on an evening and seeing a 5 man squad that needs doing is something you can usually get yourself to start, but a massive block of infantry leaves you doing anything but paint. So I always try to start my new projects with them to try and get them out of the way, but I actually paint them in blocks of 5, aiming to finish each 5 either in a single evening or over a couple of evenings. Then rewarding myself with a more interesting choice after each unit is finished. The results are then that the bulk of your infantry is done while you are still motivated, so when you are suffering from a lack of enthusiasm you only have small bits lefts to do, or at least that is the plan.
   As these are Sons of Horus, I have tried to include more than just legion badges and the colour scheme to make them feel like the legion in question, in this case it is a couple of top knots mixed into the unit in the style of the legion leadership - see Horus or Abbadon for examples. These are either bare heads with top knots taken from the chaos marines sprue and either used as is, or cut and stuck to the 30k helmets.

   On the other hand, because I am incapable of sticking to a plan, I found myself painting some more Vikings on new year's eve. I only have a handful of Vikings left to paint and, while they aren't on my list of projects for this year, it seems daft to ignore them, so every time I have an interesting colour scheme I want to try out, I will do another couple of them. In this case the interesting colour scheme was a Sons of Horus style green (purposely not the exact same) and orange.
   The models are a mix of Gripping Beast and Shieldwall Miniatures, like the rest of the project.

Thanks for reading.

Sound of the Axe-work

   I've not done a huge amount of hobby recently but I was determined to get my Saxons finished before the end of the month, so I could spend December painting up anything else that I fancied. This post is the last of my Saxon backlog;

The various Saxon Warlords, 2 Anglo-Dane and 1 I will use as Anglo-Saxon (Hereward the Wake is just too cool a model not to have as an Anglo-Saxon Generic Warlord). 

The last of my current Anglo-Danish Hearthguard, although I plan to add a single blister of the new Warlord Games one when they are released. 

 The last Anglo-Saxon stragglers

So that brings my Anglo-Saxon force up to 27 points for Lion Rampant (with a few extra Heartguard) and about 9 points for Saga, while my Anglo-Danes lag behind slightly but will be expanded in the future. I just need to get my movement trays painted up for both forces.

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Hearthguard to me!

   As the weight of numbers, dwindling enthusiasm* and work start to take their tole I am glad to be near the end of my Saxon project, the end is in sight. I am really looking forward to seeing the whole army set up as a shield wall, but that will have to wait at least another week. In the meantime, here is another couple of batches of Saxons that have left my paint table.

*Not deviating from a project

is really hard at the best of times!

 More warriors, levy and archers. They are mostly from my Gripping Beast top up but there are a few Footsore Miniatures still mixed in, along with a couple of Shieldwall Miniatures too.
I am particularly pleased with the guy on the far left with the axe on his shoulder, as I ruined his hand drilling a hole for the spear and had to improvise, creating one of my favourite models in the army in the process.

Hearthguard - including the first repainted Anglo-Danish models and another banner. These are mostly Gripping Beast but I think there is a single Footsore Miniatures model at the back.

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Call in the Fyrd

   The last week or so have been really busy with work as the pressure has started to ramp up, but I have managed to keep putting some time aside nearly every day to get some painting done and my Saxons are starting to look like an army rather than a few armed guys taking a flag for a walk. I am still painting my Dark Ages figures in same colour batches and it is really starting to pay off, both in terms of out put, helping me to keep the figures in manageable numbers and in the final look, while some batches are easier to pick out than others, they start to get lost as the numbers start to grow, with the shield designs really helping to break them up.

The warriors and spear levy, a mix of Gripping Beast and Footsore Miniatures - along with the second banner of the army (more to come!).

 Next few archers, as with my Vikings I don't need to much in the way of missile troops (all Gripping Beast).

The hearthguard are a mix of Gripping Beast and Footsore Miniatures again - it was nice to paint a figure who wasn't carrying a spear or bow.

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Form the shield-wall

   So, another weekend and another trip to a Viking ship museum, this time in Denmark, add in the weird fact that most of my normal Bolt Action opponents are buying Saga armies all of a sudden and my Dark Ages painting motivation is in full swing. I had always planned to replace my Viking and Saxon armies with new, better painted models and with the initial stages of my Viking army finished, my attention is now on getting my Saxons (can double as Anglo-Saxons or Anglo-Danes) ready for the table. Like my Vikings I am painting in batches of models from a mix of units and the aim of this first stage is an army that can double as a full 6 point Saga force and a full 24 point Lion Rampant army.

   With no further ado, here are the results of the first few batches, a mix of figures from either Gripping Beast or Footsore Miniatures.

 Warriors/levy.

 Levy archers.

Hearthguard.

Thanks for reading, and please check out my wife's blog post on our August trip to Oslo, it is worth it for the photo of me paddling furiously in a fjord.

The last ship sails in.

   Carrying on with more batches of Vikings while I paint the odd zombie has resulted in the last of my Vikings being finished, but a low zombie turnout so far this month (aiming for a single one this week but a bigger number the week after). Now I have all my Vikings sorted I have split them into their respective units and types and I am pretty pleased with how much of a rabble they look.

      The last few of my 'regular' Vikings to fill up units. Slightly more blue in my last few batches than I planned but they look good in their respective units. A couple of these are repainted models from my old army to fill up where I was a couple of men short and I will carry this on with any other models worth saving from that army.

   The rest of the Norse-Gaels I picked up as a way of diversifying the origin of my Viking warband. In time I plan to split these guys into their own force but mixed into my current army they really look good,

   My full 24 point Lion Rampant army, or split down it makes about 7 points of Saga army, which is what I have been using elements of it for more recently as a couple of my mates have started painting up their own Saga armies and I have run a couple of demos now.
   I really doubt these will be the last Viking figures you will see me paint any time soon but for the moment I am considering this project finished.

Thanks for reading