Sunday, February 26, 2017

More Anglo-Danish Huscarls

The construction of my Anglo-Danish force for Saga continues with 3 units of Huscarls. These are made from the plastic Saxon 4 Point Starter Warband from Gripping Beast/Renedra. I found my set on eBay for $30 US (including shipping), which is a good deal for the number of figures you get (32 in total).



Though the pack advertised two units of Thegns/Huscarls, you can actually make three units if you are willing to combine the two figures on the command frame with the ten bodies on the Thegns/Huscarls frame.  Since I already have a metal Warlord, I went with this option.


The kit comes with a dragon banner, but I opted to replace it with a Little Big Men Studio banner mounted on metal wire with an attached plastic spearhead.  I really like the LBMS decals, but for some odd reason they leave the space between the two banner sides blank, so you end up having to paint it in. The shields have also been decorated using LBMS transfers. 



One of the major complaints against plastic figures vs. metal figures is that the details can get soft on the sides of the figures, and you can see some of the seams where the pieces join. While that is present to some extent here, especially in the chainmail, I don't think that it is glaring enough to detract from the figures.



The frame has a good variety of arm and head options, and the choice of heads can be further expanded using the bare heads from the dark age warriors frames.  The two figures below use the same body (there are five armored body designs in the kit) and as you can see, they end up looking fairly different when assembled.


Overall, I am quite happy with these figures; they have a lot of character and are relatively cheap compared to their metal counterparts. If you're a wargamer on a budget, this is definitely an option you should explore.

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