Koyote's SAGA Britons, Irish,Late Romans, and Saxons

[Tonhel]

Amazing work!

[Ogrob]

Lovely as ever. Your colours and green stuff both are super smooth.

[James Morris]

Very beautiful paintwork and conversions.  I enjoy your thoughts on the choices you have made.

[RedRowan]

Really like the colour scheme you have used for these.

Steve

[Koyote]

Really like the colour scheme you have used for these.

Steve

Thanks.

Whether painting an army for a large scale game or a warband for a skirmish game, it has long been my practice to use one or two unifying colors to tie the models together. For soldiers in uniform and warriors who wear some form of uniformed livery or heraldry, this is easy to pull off and looks quite natural.  For armies or warbands composed of disparate groups or warriors responsible for obtaining their own clothing and wargear, you can weave together the individual models by using your unifying color(s) in more subtle ways.  For instance, some models may have all or part of their garments painted in this color, while others may have their garment's trim or other items (e.g., belts, pouches, scabbards, backpacks, shields, weapon grips, etc.) painted in the unifying color.   The end result is non-uniform army or warband that is tied together, sometimes quite subtly, by one or two unifying colors.  For my Irish, I used particular shades of green and yellow to achieve this result.

Before painting my Irish I did some of online "research" into the colors used by the Irish in Viking Age Ireland. According to multiple sources, green didn't become widely associated with Ireland until the 1600s.  Green wasn't even the original color associated with Saint Patrick and the Irish church.  Moreover, one source states that in early medieval Ireland, certain colors of clothing were used to indicate one's social status, thus certain colors (red, purple, blue, and green) were reserved for the nobility and others (black, brown, grey, and yellow) were reserved for the lower classes. 

Even though SAGA is, to a certain degree, a "historical" wargame, I deliberately chose to buck historical accuracy in favor of an ahistorical color scheme that is a bit more lively than boring browns, yellows, and black, and uses a modern heuristic to help people quickly identify my faction.

A heuristic is a mental shortcut where one uses information gleaned from past experiences to assess and quickly make decisions. In this instance, since many, if not most SAGA players associate the color green with Ireland, when they see my warband for the first time, they see a a bunch of barefoot, unarmored models armed with spears or javelins, their minds tells them that these are likely Irish (or possibly Scots).


Another example of my personal preferences blurring historical accuracy was my decision to make my Irish pagan holdouts*. You can see evidence of this in my tattooed Curaidh, the lack of crosses, the inclusion of women and a druid in my warband, and in baggage markers I made back in 2017.  I chose the Irish back in 2016 as my first SAGA warband because of my fondness for pre-Christian Irish myths and heroes.  Since Viking Age was the only time period one could play SAGA in back then, I turned back the clock a bit on my Irish to make them a bit more like Irish from the my favorite myths.



*Christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century, but it's unclear when the Irish conversion to Christianity was, for all intents and purposes, "completed". The druids and their beliefs weren't simply exterminated overnight, but rather they disappeared gradually as Irish Christianity absorbed, rebranded, and appropriated them. There is a prayer from 8th century Ireland that asks God for protection from "the spells of women, and smiths, and druids", so there could have been some Druid holdouts in Ireland at the beginning of the Viking Age.  I'm tempted to put a Dark Age blacksmith into my warband, so my warband will represent all three threats listed in this prayer.

[metalface13]

They look fantastic! I have no idea what colors the Irish used in the Dark Ages, so it doesn't bother me one bit. But using it definitely communicates what faction they represent.

[Hu Rhu]

The painting, conversions and basing are some of the best I have ever seen here on the LAF. Your attention to detail and the care in which you put togther your forces are superb. 

[Little Odo]

Excellent painting and conversions. A great looking warband.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Definitely add a blacksmith mate.

[Koyote]

Definitely add a blacksmith mate.

I shopped around a bit online, but couldn't find a smith model that would fit in with my other Irish, so I made my own.  His name will be Goibniu.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Loving it mate! Perfect!

[Ogrob]

Nice!

[SotF]

He looks similar to the older Reaper Townsfolk Blacksmith with added weaponry

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Lovely GS work.

[sir_shvantselot]

Remarkable stuff. Love the conversions and paintwork. Do you rate the new Gripping Beast Irish plastics?