The Sons of Death

Time for quite a change from the stuff I've been painting lately with some Saga miniatures! I realized my last 28mm have been painted last March and since then I've only churned out 15mm Napoleonics and Flames of War miniatures. So a change in pace was definitely in order to neutralize the palate from all that small lead.

These guys are the Gall-Gaedhill or the Sons of Death, a band of Norse Gael mercenaries that can be taken as Swords for Hire in Saga. I'm mostly just going to use them as normal Hearthguard and Warriors instead of the special unit, but they were nice looking minis so they found a place in my growing warband.

I decided to stick with just a few different shades when painting them and left all decorations off from the capes to make it a nice fast side project between all the olive drab. Worked out quite nicely with the unit being mostly done in one session with only the basing left for later. I wanted to keep the chainmail more dull coloured, but might still have to go back and give it a light drybrush of a lighter tone. It looks a bit too monotone, especially on the photos. But for now I'm happy with the results and painting them really did miracles to my painting motivation. To finish them I used shield decals from War Flag as I have done in the past as well. Easy to apply and only minor touch ups were required to blend them in.

Back to the Dark Ages

Well I'm back from the summer cottage and got some painting done after a weeks break. I decided to speed paint a group of more Norse Gaels that I had laying around after I was delivered the wrong pack. I was originally supposed to get the Gall-Gaedhill blister, but ended up getting these guys. The correct box is still somewhere and I've more or less given up on it already after a few months.

It was nice to paint something quickly after a small hobby break, even if I cheated a bit at the cottage by playing Zombicide (with the missus though so it's not exactly breaking the no miniature related stuff rule) and reading all the blog posts being updated.

Nothing fancy here, but I did end up painting an extra highlight layer compared to what I'd normally do to make them pop out a bit more. Half of the shields are with Battle Flag decals and half hand painted. This was actually the first time that I ended up painting slashes and cuts on the shields. Turned out rather nicely even if I say so myself.

The building on the background is one of the Saxon hovels that 4Ground makes. Absolutely fantastic looking stuff! I've got the three now and I think I'll be buying the Anglo-Danish buildings also to make a small village.

Next up some 105mm Artillery for FoW that has finally arrived after being ordered in early February! Though there is a stag party and a wedding coming soon so there are some distractions that keep me from reducing the lead pile. I also finally managed to clean up the rest of the Oldhammer pile so I guess I'll start painting through them too. There's also the last two Red Devils sets waiting for paint. A 6 pounder and a 75mm howitzer. Especially the 6 pounder will be needing paint soon as panzers have been sighted at the club lately.

 

Painting Challenge entry 8: More Norse-Gaels

Next up is the second half of the Gripping Beast Norse Gael starter box with an extra dane axe wielding warlord. I've now got 7 points done with the plastic models so I shouldn't have to resort to borrowing stuff anymore :) I actually finished these guys last thursday already, but didn't want to put them here before Curt had time to put them up on his blog.

I used some Battle Flag shield decals on these guys. They look great, but I had some minor problems. These are meant for the plastic Vikings which apparently have different sized shields so I had to cut them up a bit to make them fit. They are also quite thick to make the colors vibrant, but it does have a downside that they don't work well with curved shields. Ended up using them on the straight ones and just hand painted some basic shapes onto the curved shields.

These guys seem far more peaceful than their Dane Axe weilding brethren, but I guess that comes from the fact that they've managed to keep their shoes and haven't had to resort to selling them to get better weapons. I added a Warlord Games Celt casualty on the warlords base to spice it up a bit. Blood effect with GW's "Blood for the Blood God" paint.

Looking at the images now I've noticed that there's a bit of the white undercoat of the warlord shield showing from next to the shield boss, so I'll still have to fix that up. Damn close ups...

The Ostmen

8 Bonnachts with various weapons (counts as Javelins)

Painting Challenge entry 2: Norse Gaels

Time for my second, or the first published entry for the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge. First one should be published on sunday when the first fortnight challenge ends.

Here we have the first half of the Gripping Beast Norse Gael starter warband featuring all the Dane Axes. Warlord, 4 Ostmen and 8 Bonnachts should allow me to play Norse Gaels with a 6 point warband when I combine these guys with my earlier Saxons. I definately like the GB minis way more than the Wargames Factory ones. No more open hand and long neck syndrome and a lot more detail. The only gripe I have with these is the amount of barefoot models. If there was something I learned in the army it was the importance of foot care. Maybe the Gallic Vikings are either pretty darn poor going without shoes, or then just really tough buggers, or then both...

I started out with a 3-color basecoat by first doing a light layer of black followed by grey at a 45 degree angle and then white straight from above. Gives a nice base to start painting over as you already have shades in place, emphasizes all the folds and shows you where all the shadows would be naturally. After that I painted all the base colors on and used GW and Army Painter inks to shade the model a bit more. This was followed by a few layers of highlights to bring out the detail. I like how they turned out especially the axe blades. The shinier blade part gives a nice contrast.

I ordered some Battleflag shield decals to make my task a little easier, but they are still on their way so I decided to paint some quick freehands that can be later covered. Tried to add a bit more variety by shading them slightly. Doesn't really show on the pics though.

Next up is a short break from painting as I'm leaving on saturday to see some relatives and I'll be coming back after christmas. So plenty of time to figure what to paint next. Fantasy Battle Chimera, 28mm Winter War Finns or some Flames of War paras.

 I really do like the second guy from the right. Nice sculpt on the face.

The fur cloak might need a slightly stronger highlight to make it pop more.

Another sculpt with nice character in the face is the one on the left.