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Koyote's SAGA Pagan Rus

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Koyote:
Another year, another SAGA warband.  This time it's going to be Pagan Rus. 

Whether Viking women fought alongside their male counterparts is still being debated, but one of the few historical accounts of Viking women warriors comes to us from the Greek historian John Skylitzes. According Skylitzes, after the Siege of Dorostolon in 971 AD, the victorious Byzantines found among the Rus casualties, armed women. This one account isn't definitive proof, but its justification enough for me to add Brother Vinni's viking women warriors to my warband.  I LOVE his new Axe Maidens.

Koyote:
Last week, my Warhansa models arrived.  Overall, I'm please with the quality.  The minis are as-pictured on the website and the detail is good.  There are a few air bubbles here an there, but very little flash and fewer mold lines than expected.

My only complaint is their overall height.  They look like Rus dwarfs.  Their heads, arms, hands, and feet are slightly on the heroic-scale side of 28mm, but the length of their torsos and legs are a bit too short.

Fortunately, short legs are an easy fix.  Using a hobby knife I cut off their lower legs where their leg wraps meet their ketill pants (aka puffy Russian pants).  Using leftover rod from the metal javelins I armed them with, I pinned a short length of GS doweling between the two sections of leg.  Eventually, I will use GS to extend the length of their ketill pants to cover the GS doweling.

I converted 8 out of 12 models in this way.  The other 4 models didn't need it.  Strange.

I'm going to use these as my Pagan Rus levy.  To distinguish these models from my warriors and to better represent a levy's 3/4 armor, I replaced their large round shields with small round shields (made by Footsore Miniatures). 




Below is a size comparison photo.  My converted Warhansa Rus is now fairly close in height to 28mm viking miniatures from other manufacturers.

Ogrob:
Nice. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Koyote:
When planning a warband or army for any other tabletop wargame, I find it useful to start with a theme or backstory.  This approach may not be for everyone, but for me it fuels my creativity and helps me build a more cohesive and interesting warband. 

I came to historical wargaming from a fantasy and sci-fi gaming background, so when researching a historical peoples' history,  I inevitably find myself focusing on their mythical heroes and villains.

In Rus and Slavic myth, the Bogatyr are analogous to Western Europe's knight-errants.  The earliest tales of the Bogatyr have their roots in the pre-Christian era.  In these stories the Bogatyr exhibit superhuman abilities and their foes are often creatures from myth, like dragons and giants, but in later chronicles, the Bogatyr stories are based upon the  historical and semi-historical figures.  Perfect!


Bogatyrs (1898)

A sizeable portion of my Pagan Rus warband will be comprised Gripping Beast's Jomsviking models.  Their ketill pants and the shape of their helmets give these models a Rus look.   GB's Jomsviking hearthguard are the most impressive models from the Jomsviking line, so they will form a unit of elite fighters. 



My first instinct was to make the Hearthguard, but then after reading the Swords for Hire section of the Age of Vikings rulebook  I changed my mind.  The Gall-Gaedhil rules look like a lot of fun, but since these ferocious raiders operated in and around Ireland, fielding them alongside my Rus would be odd.   However, thanks to magic of 'counts-as', a principle borrowed from fantasy and sci-fi gaming,  I have no problem using the Gall-Gaedhil rules if I field them as a unit of 'counts-as' Bogatyr. Problem solved. :)

OSHIROmodels:
Looks promising  8)

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