Old Glory Dark Age Miniatures

This past spring, a local gamer was advertising a few free bags of ancients that he was clearing out of his lead pile, which I happily picked up. However, as part of the deal I also had to take a bag of loose, miscellaneous dark age and early crusader figures. Most of these figures where of no use to me, but I did find a a few figures that I thought could be pressed into service with my Anglo-Dane/Saxon force for Saga.

First up is a unit of levy archers cobbled together from what appear to be Old Glory late Roman auxiliary archers  and Welsh bowmen. The garb isn't a complete match with my other figures, but I'm hoping they are close enough to blend in on the table.

The sculpting style between the two Old Glory lines is also different, but I think my painting and basing is enough to unify them so it isn't glaring. For me, the only remaining standout is the differences in the bows. The Welsh bows are a much more slender sculpt. They also bend much more easily as a result, so I opted to add some wire bowstring in order to stiffen them up.

One thing I found odd about the Welsh figures is a few of them are wearing a single shoe, with the other foot bare.  I don't know if there is a historical precedence behind this, but I decided to paint those figures as having two shoes and tried to hide the wonky feet in the grass.

The other figures I thought could be of use were some Swabian heavy infantry, which I plan is to use as mercenaries. They come with a mix of shield shapes, but I opted to only use round shields so I could add the LBMS decals I had remaining from my Gripping Beast figures. Luckily the shield sizes were fairly close, so only a little trimming around the boss opening was required to make the decals fit.

The sculpting of the figures is not as good as a lot of more recent figures, but that said, they still aren't bad and I'm happy to have them on my table. Size-wise, they are also a good match for the Gripping Beast plastics and metals, so you could mix them into units without concern.

Dark Age Farm Elements

I needed something besides trees for my Saga gaming terrain, so I've assembled some elements to let me build a farm settlement. 

The buildings are Saxon and Anglo-Dane dwellings from 4Ground.  They are a bit too clean looking for me right out of the bag, so I've opted to repaint them and give them a bit more of a lived in look. 

The fenced in farm plots were built using the wattle fencing kits from Renedra. I used four frames in total, giving me a large pasture (animals still to be painted), two garden plots and a small grain field.

For the gardens, I used various HO plants from Walthers SceneMaster line.  I'm not sure if the crops I found were actually present in Northern Europe at that time, but I figure your average person  isn't going to be an expert on ancient farms.

The grain field was created using 6mm pull-apart static grass from Bachmann.  I went with the Alpine grass, as it has little flecks in it that I thought might pass as ears on spring grain. 

I've probably built too much for a small table, but it will give me a some variety in my games.

Anglo-Danish Levy Slingers

The development of my Anglo-Danish SAGA army continues with some levy slingers. They are a mix of  Gripping Beast plastics and Crusader Saxons with some head conversions to add a bit more variety.  

I've gone with a slightly more muted palette compared to my warriors, assuming many of the levies would be coming from the lower rungs of society.  I forgot to mention them in my earlier posts, but I would recommend the 1000 Foot General blog and Historicenterprises.com for color palette ideas.

The second photo shows the Gripping Beast plastics. I love the character in the faces, but as I've mentioned before, I don't care the "dysentery walk" pose that many of them have nor the lack of extra bits for customization. But I think they'll get he job done and blend in well with the Crusader figures.

Next up are the Crusader figures, which have well sculpted bodies, but some of the face sculpts are a bit wonky. They also all have the same style cap on, which is visually dull.  As such, I sawed the heads off on four of the figures and replaced them with plastic heads from the Gripping Beast set. Each Crusader figure is next to its modified counterpart.

Though the Crusader and Gripping Beast heads are similar in size, the Gripping Beast heads sit a bit lower on the neck, so some of the figures ended up looking a bit more stumpy that I would have liked. However, I don't think they stand out when the unit is assembled in a group.

Overall I' happy with the final unit and I'm looking forward to having a chance to try them in a game.

Dark Age Warriors

I haven't had much time for painting as of of late, but I have finally managed to finish up a unit of Dark Age warrior for my Anglo-Danish force for Saga.

As with my Huscarls, these are part of the plastic Saxon 4 Point Starter Warband from Gripping Beast/Renedra and have been completed with LBMS decals. 

Compared to the Huscarls, I'd have to say these figures are not as well designed. The left hand is cast on, limiting the variety of poses.  Three of the five poses also have the arm cast right up against the torso, resulting in what I call the "dysentery walk" look.  The shields help hide it, but it is also makes it difficult to fit the shields against the torsos properly, especially when the head has a beard (which is most of them). There are no additional pouches, knives, etc. to place on the belts and only 7 different head types (unless you mix in heads from the armored frames), further limiting your ability to create varied looking troops.

While I think the completed figures looked pretty good, I'm not sure I'd recommend buying the stand alone box of these unless you need a lot of warriors on the cheap.

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.

Hereward the Wake and Huscarls

Saga seems to be one of the few historical games that is popular locally and two of my gaming buddies play, so I've decided to expand into another era of history (much to my wife's frustration).  Luckily it is a skirmish game, so I made the case that it wouldn't require too many new figures and managed to get the rules and an Anglo-Danish army for Christmas. Most of the army will be made up of the Gripping Beast Anglo-Saxon plastic set, but I did add on a few metal figures as well and got some of them painted up these last days.

First off the table is Hereward the Wake:

Overall he is a nicely sculpted figure from Gripping Beast and easy to paint.  I also decided to try out LBMS transfers for the first time with him, and have to say they are amazing products that really bring figures to the next level. The only downside to this particular figure is his stat card for Saga.  Unfortunately I didn't see his restrictions prior to purchase, but his army is unable to field Huscarls (of which I have quite a few). He can however use Flemish mercenaries, so perhaps I can use some of my Huscarls as men for hire.

Speaking of Huscarls, I  also purchased one metal unit equipped with Dane axes:

I've done my best to use colors that would be reasonable for the era, and referenced the following sites for ideas:

1000 Foot General

Historic Enterprises

For the basing, I wanted something that would look like the Yorkshire moorland:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_York_Moors

To achieve this, I've used the following mix of plants:

Gale Force Nine:
GFS001 Green Static Grass

Army Painter:
BF4212 Lowland Shrubs

Warlord Games:
WGS-TUF-01 Summer Tufts
WGS-TUF-05 Wild Meadow Tufts
WGS-TUF-06 Heather Tufts (they were a bit too dark for my liking, so I've added some magenta paint highlights to the purple)

There is still a lot more to paint, but I think this is going to be a very fun project.