My Dark Ages Stuff.....New Viking unit...Updated 6/28

[Madhouse Workshop]

I'm sure there is a bunch of you that have seen my stuff on my blog, but if not here we go.....
I've really been enjoying reading Saxon and Viking history and historical fiction for the last few years, so I was really quite happy putting these together. There are many subtle conversions, especially of the plastics.  I've had my Viking army done for quite sometime, but I'm now in the process of painting more Vikings and my Saxon army as well.

The next few posts are all of the old stuff.  

The hersir unit is set up for WAB with the beserker being the second guy from the left above.  The Jarl being the third guy in.  The berserker is a converted Warlord Games barbarian.

Another closer shot of the front rank.  Another berserker alongside a dane axe wielder.  The two models on the right are both conversions of Warlord Games barbarians with Gripping Beast plastic viking heads and shields.  I think they make good vikings.

The other thing I tried to do with this army is make all of the movement trays sort of tell a story, instead of being an eyesore geometric shape or hunk of metal or plastic. Views from the rear, the rear most ranks are painted to same detail as the characters and front rank.  On the shields I managed to combine Little Big Men Studios transfers with my own hand-painted shields as a time saver.  The other thing the LBMS transfers did was inspire me to put in much more detail, such as weathering and battle damage.

[Madhouse Workshop]

As I mentioned there are a whole slew of subtle conversions going on, the photos below show some of that.  I also like multibasing, I typically will do the front ranks and characters/commands on individual bases.  The second rank usually is where I will multi-base quite a bit.  The third rank will be a mix.  This is the fourth unit of Hirdman along with its movement tray and the casaulties that I then made a mold of them to vary the poses.  This unit I wanted to do some modeling that gave them more of a shieldwall appearance.  The pic below shows the one model that I converted crouching down a bit, with a normal model, and then one with a shield over the face.  I also added one of my cast dead in the midst of the unit.


I converted a couple of the shieldwall models crouching and banging their shields.  The one with the shield over his head is a converted Wargames Factory viking, but most of the models are Gripping Beasts.

Good shot of the crouching model and the spear over the top of him. Also a shot of the backs of the units.  I added quite a bit of hair, similar to some of the metal GB models.  Relatively easy conversions.
 

I'll add the shields later after painting them and the models separately.


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A slightly exaggerated example of my painted shields, an idea that I blatantly stole from my good buddy Mike Butcher, these are my shieldwall or Skjaldborg markers for my Vikings in the WAB format.



It was also a good way to practice painting shields, again I was looking to match my rank & file that have some with the Little Big Men transfers.  Based much like my army.
 

[Madhouse Workshop]

More Vikings ready to pillage....Pics of Unit #2.  Much like the first unit, this another big unit of Hersirs. Similar to the other unit, I made up a movement tray with a bunch of eye candy to show off the unit. This included various bits of armor, weapons, shields, bodies.

The second guy from the right with the dane axe is a converted War Factory Games model.


Cape on the one guy in the back rank is from the Fire Forge knight models.

With these Vikings, I wanted to step up my game a bit on the basing.  Really liked using the various flowering weeds, grasses and tufts. 



Yea that Gripping Beast berserker is really looking old, its a rough casting that I've since replaced with a different model.

[Madhouse Workshop]

Onward, the third unit of Hersirs and Jarl.  Pretty much the same thing going on here as with the other units.  Lots of candy and gripping Beast goodness.  The two berserkers are the old casts, and are showing their age, I did a bit of smoothing and updating on them, and I already have models to replace them.   Despite those, there are quite a few of my favorite figures in this unit.

I really like the main character below, the hornblower next to him is a cool figure also.  The standard bearer turned out pretty cool, one of the plastic models converted up with a banner left over from the Fire Forge knights.




More pics of the back ranks.  These are painted to the same quality as the front.  I'll eventually shoot some pics of them, as they are pretty cool in their own right.


I really dig the GB plastics.  They are very nicely detailed models with a lot of variety and are really easy to convert as well.

[OSHIROmodels]

Cracking collection 

cheers

James

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

 

Wow, really great stuff, those units look FANTASTIC! I particularly like the shields, I've been using the LBMS shield transfers myself and like you, have found they have upped my game when it comes to freehanding shields, adding in damage and weathering instead of the pristine designs I've used in the past.

Seriously good work on the conversions, subtle and extremely well executed. It makes my own stuff look rough by comparison!

[tomrommel1]

stunning indeed  The shield wall markers are a grand idea

[Dr. Zombie]

That is an awesome army you have got there.

[mrtn]

I usually enjoy your models, these are no exception.

[Codsticker]

Great stuff!

[Engel]

Having followed your work for some time its allways nice to see your Dark age stuff. 

Keep it up
Cheers/ Jonas

[Madhouse Workshop]

Thanks for the kind words.  As I stated previously, I've had these done for quite sometime.  I'm in the process of adding a bunch of stuff to them and also to crossover into the Saxon side as well.  Much of that is on my paint desk currently which I often give peaks at the blog.  There will be other conversions and I obtained a bunch of minis from Foundry and also from Saxon Miniatures.  So there is much more to come along with a huge Viking Longship project and some terrain as well.

Anyways this is the 4th unit of Hirdmen that I have finished. 

[Globlin]

Some cracking shield walls! I like the little vignettes you've made on the bases and the painting is nicely colourful, yet still down and dirty - proper dark ages stuff!!

[Zaheer]

Wow, great stuff. I can't admit to being much of a fan of those GB plastics, but you've really made them work. Looks like they're about to launch themselves at someone!

[A Lot of Gaul]

Those are really, really nice! I particularly admire your modeling work for the fronts of your movement trays!

Cheers,
Scott