Germanic Tribes for Midgard Heroic Battles

Today I've got a bunch of hairy arsed Barbarians for you to enjoy. The figures are a mix of Victrix and Footsore Miniatures and were a lot of fun to paint. They're based on my usual 10x5 cm bases for use with Midgard Heroic Battles by James Morris. As I couldn't be arsed to hand paint all the different shield patterns I decided to use LBM (nowadays available through Victrix) decals instead. Backdrop is by Handiwork Games as ever

Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoyed!

Siegfried the Dragon Slayer

Continuing on from last years theme I'm back, or better still painting away on my Middle Imperial Roman project for Midgard. My Romans are more or less done, so I've to do the opposition now it seems.

Last year I painted Brynhild, so I thought it only sensible to now paint Sigurd (Siegfried for us Germans). While the whole epic cycle around Sigurd probably refers to a later period than what I'm going for with my 3rd Century Romans, we don't really know and that's excuse enough for me.

The figures used are from Footsore Miniatures, Victrix and Armorum & Aquila Miniatures and go together quite well. Converting the chap mockingly holding up the severed head, was fun and indeed the reason to paint this whole little vignette. Sigurd and his banner bearer were collecting dust in my stash for over a decade already, but I couldn't think of a way to tell an interesting story with any of the figures I found. I love the defiant pose of the sculpt, so it had to be something special. And when I happened upon the Dark Age Archers set from Victrix I instantly knew I was on to something. Good thing I'll need archers anyway for this project, eh?

3rd Century AD Roman Legionaries

This week too I'm running with the Middle Imperial/ Late Roman theme from last week. This time I've brought with me a base of Legionaries, which can clearly be dated to the first half of the 3rd century by their old style semicylindrical shields. Also the broad leather balteus, from which the Spatha was suspended, which had by then superseded the earlier Gladius short sword. Most of the Legionaries are sporting the -in my humble opinion- rather fashionable Niederbieber type helmet, also dating to the 2nd to 3rd century. As for armour they're wearing a hodgepodge of Lorica Squamata (scales), Lorica Hamata (chainmail) and the rather famous Lorica Segmentata (banded metal strips), that is featured in so many Hollywood movies.

The figures themselves are a mix of Armorum & Aquila Miniatures, which by now are rather dated but almost the only commercially available figures for the 3rd century. Then there's a single Wargames Atlantic miniature from their Late Roman Legionaries set. The set fits the 3rd century almost perfectly with the inclusion of the Niederbieber helmet, but I find the details on the plastic rather soft and the Spathae much too large. That said they paint up OK. Also included are three heavily converted figures from Victrix Limited' Late Romans. To make them suitable I gave them heads from Aventine Miniatures, sculpted on the broader Balteus and designed and 3D printed  Spathae/ appropriate scabbards and Pugiones, the famous Roman daggers. Despite being noticeably larger than the other figures I do think they work together rather well. Shields are a mix of Aventine and A&A.

Painting wise I tried to give them a somewhat uniform appearance by using broadly the same colours, without painting them all the same. Personally I find it highly doubtful that Roman Legionaries ever wore anything approaching a uniform. For the shields I went with free hands and frankly, I had a blast. While at first I found it a rather daunting undertaking, I quickly realized I quite liked the look. So much so that by now I have more of those shields already painted than Legionaries waiting in the painting queue. First world problems I guess.

3rd Century AD Burgundians...or was it Romans?

I welcome you to my first post this year, and yes, I'm a little bit embarrassed myself. But what should I do? I was busy with important things. Like... procrastinating?

Anyway, enough of that inane blubbering, on to the meat of the subject: Burgundians (no, not THOSE Burgundians, but those of the Nibelungen Saga) in 28mm for Midgard! Or was it Romans? A little bit of both I'd say. Knowing I'm unlikely to finish a complete force anyway I decided on adding a few Burgundian foederati to my very fledgling Middle/ Late Imperial Romans.

Midgard makes use of individually based leaders. To easily indicate the level of said heroes I decided on the number of figures per leaders base. Thus today we have Brynhild, a level 2 leader, and her hearthguard. Brynhild is from Footsore Miniatures, while her hearthguard is a converted Late Roman miniature from Victrix. Not liking the overly foldy (that's no word, isn't it?) cloak I sculpted one myself using Green Stuff and let him hold his helmet in his hand. Rather chuffed with the results I have to admit.

Next we have a base of Funditores, staff slingers, that could be Romans but could equally well be Burgundian. Instead of using the recommended 12x6 for the basing I decided on 10x5, primarily because I like the look of the narrower frontage, but equally because it saves me painting figures. For the unlikely case I'm ever fielding these in anger against someone with the bigger bases I can always add a small 2x4 base. 

Figures are Victrix again and despite the overly busy folds in the clothing, were a joy to paint. I really love the character in the faces Victrix do.

Sightseeing 500 A.D.

I've been running a small competition on the German Sweetwater Forum. The goal was to create a small vignette.

To see the other entries I encourage you to visit the link above. Some really nice scenes there.

Have a nice sunday!

SAGA - Anglo-Danish Hearthguard

Not much of a progress on the painting front lately but at least I got another point of Hearthguard for my Anglo-Danish war band for SAGA done.

SAGA - The first Anglo-Danish ready to carve out a kingdom

I haven't played SAGA for quite a while now. But having finally talked a friend of mine into giving it a try, my interest was suddenly rekindled and I got straight to the work bench.
Besides my Late Romans I only have fledgling Norman and Saxon forces and instead of doing the smart thing and rounding these out I of course decided to start a completely new force. What self respecting wargamer would have done otherwise in my position, eh?
Anglo-Danish it had to be this time.