Saga Vikings

I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I finally did the finishing touches to my Anglo-Danes for Saga, and so thought it was a sensible time to put up some pictures of the Vikings I completed some time before up as well. So here are my Vikings.

6 points of Viking warband

The figures are mostly plastic models from the Wargames Factory Viking Huscarls box, supplemented by a few metal miniatures by Gripping Beast. These were the first 28mm figures I have painted in years – which is the reason why they get better the more I do, and in my opinion the first of them that I completed are, well,  a bit ropey.

Berserkers

So the first Vikings I did were four berserkers (Gripping Beast).  I wasn’t happy with the weapons provided with the models so I replaced them with surplus plastic axes from the Wargames Factory box. A pretty straightforward paint job without much detail, but I reckon they look OK.

The bulk of my Viking force are plastic figures from Wargames Factory. For the most part these are nice figures with some movement about them and reasonable detail. The challenge is to assemble them into sensible poses – this seems to have worked reasonably well for the most part! You need to be a bit careful with the arms as well as not all of the armour detail on sleeves matches or corresponds well to the detail on the bodies. I increased the variety by adding details like pouches, cloaks and suchlike with green stuff, and a few scabbards from plastic card. Some of these worked very well indeed. I gave one chap a fur cloak made from Milliput as well.

I started painting eye details with this lot – some of them have slightly strange expressions as a result – and improved my painting on their shields. Good shield designs definitely make all the difference. I  know that you can make shields look really nice with transfers, but I just don’t like them (and I do like a challenge!)

They’ve come out with a slightly dark look. While this is growing on me, it wasn’t the original intention. Unfortunately I used Humbrol acrylic spray matt varnish and will not do this again as it was cloudy when applied and nearly ruined them. They were saved by an immediate re-varnish with Vallejo satin and matt - I was very lucky. Note to self:  always use Dullcote in future.

Dane axe men

Not strictly Vikings but as they are made from the same box set I’ve included them here. I wanted a few extra Dane Axe armed hearthguard for my Anglo-Danes so converted eight Vikings to do the job. The box set comes with four pairs of arms ready for double-handed weapons; the other ones are conversions. So are a few of the axes as there weren’t enough in the box! These figures in particular have a lot of movement about them and some of them look really good with the scratch-built cloaks.

Viking warlord

Finally, the big man himself. After honing my 28mm skills on the rest of the army I went to town a bit more on this chap, especially his shield, which I am particularly pleased with.