Captain Blood's Twilight of Britannia... More Arthurians! (P.26)

[Captain Blood]

Fear not Phil. I am firmly a mixed media man these days
I like nice metal figures, I like nice plastic figures.
But I'm glad David won't be calling round quite yet with the mob armed with flaming torches... 

[twrchtrwyth]

These are lovely. 

[HvM]

Gorgeous paintjobs!

I really love those miniatures by Musketeer

[commissarmoody]

They are pretty bad ass aren't the? I need to get some next time I get some free cash.

[Remington]

Beautiful work, Richard. Absolutely gorgeous and inspirational.

Not sure if this was mentioned before but I wouldn't get too hung up with the shield sizes. The large Musketeer shields correspond to about a 60-70 cm diameter shield which is in the mid field of Saxon shield sizes anyway. Large, later shields were around 1 - 1.2 m in diameter. That would be a 1.7 - 2 cm miniature shield.

[skip]

truly inspirational painting, makes me want to up my painting standard

[Too Bo Coo]

I've been trying your blond hair technique, I love it!   

[Captain Blood]

Beautiful work, Richard. Absolutely gorgeous and inspirational.

Not sure if this was mentioned before but I wouldn't get too hung up with the shield sizes. The large Musketeer shields correspond to about a 60-70 cm diameter shield which is in the mid field of Saxon shield sizes anyway. Large, later shields were around 1 - 1.2 m in diameter. That would be a 1.7 - 2 cm miniature shield.

Thanks Dimi 
So the very small shields aren't particularly characteristic of the early Saxon migration era then? I could mix in a few of the larger round shields?

truly inspirational painting, makes me want to up my painting standard

Good man  The more you do, and the more time you take, the better you get.

I've been trying your blond hair technique, I love it!   

Great! Glad it works for you

I've got a few more Saxons half-done. I hope to finish them in the next few days before I disappear off to the furthest tip of Brittany for 3 weeks - where no painting is allowed

[guitarheroandy]

There is some debate about exactly how small and 'buckler-like' these shields were. I think the point is to avoid the really large round shields of the later Saxons as, in this early era, the fighting styles of most post-Roman force in the West were more open and fluid, so shields were therefore smaller and lighter and the bosses were designed to catch and deflect enemy blades - 'disc terminals' is what they are called and 'rather like a golf tee' is how author Guy Halsall describes them in his book 'Warfare & Society in the Barbarian West' which is a key work for anyone into this period and highly recommended (although it tends to be very pricey).

So as long as you avoid the really big shields, you can mix and match sizes a bit and not worry if some are bigger than others, in my opinion, as I'm sure getting exactly equal measurement wasn't an exact science for Saxon armourers when building shields...

I'm currently having very interesting discussions with the author of War & Conquest ancients rules about how to represent the effect of these smaller shields in his rules (I'm helping to write Arthurian and other Late or post Roman era lists for him) as they are clearly not like the classical skirmisher buckler but are also a bit more than just a typical shield that you'd find in a later Saxon shield wall!

[Remington]

Well the thing is that we seem to have shield sizes between 45cm and 1.20m attested one way or the other. The literature seems to suggest that the small, easier to wield shield ranges typically between 65 and 90 cm and the later shields were around 1m in diameter. What I am missing, aus usual in such discussions, is the irrevocable proof of this. Sadly a lot of that kind of conclusions are also a result of ideas that formed in scientint's' minds even before the finds have had the chance to give us a proper answer.

For my early Saxons I went only for the large Musketeer shields till now. First of all they look cooler and as a second point they fit better with the Foundry and GB shields for their respective lines. No plate wielding Saxons in my troop! they're not Greeks after all

[OSHIROmodels]

I reckon the bigger blokes would carry the bigger shields 

cheers

James

[Elk101]

I reckon the bigger blokes would carry the bigger shields 

cheers

James

That works for me! 

[Remington]

I reckon the bigger blokes would carry the bigger shields 

cheers

James

It's only logical!

[guitarheroandy]

Well the thing is that we seem to have shield sizes between 45cm and 1.20m attested one way or the other. The literature seems to suggest that the small, easier to wield shield ranges typically between 65 and 90 cm and the later shields were around 1m in diameter. What I am missing, aus usual in such discussions, is the irrevocable proof of this. Sadly a lot of that kind of conclusions are also a result of ideas that formed in scientint's' minds even before the finds have had the chance to give us a proper answer.

Irrevocable proof is way beyond the scope of this kind of period, unfortunately. That's part of the fun  

[Captain Blood]

...shields were therefore smaller and lighter and the bosses were designed to catch and deflect enemy blades - 'disc terminals' is what they are called and 'rather like a golf tee' is how author Guy Halsall describes them in his book 'Warfare & Society in the Barbarian West'...

Oh dear, I thought those spiky bits on the bosses were random casting mistakes - like the 'worms' you find on so many metal castings. So I have been dilligently sanding them off... 

Luckily I subscribe to this theory too:

For my early Saxons I went only for the large Musketeer shields till now. First of all they look cooler...

Sad to say, this tends to be my primary consideration with most wargames figures...