Dark Ages SAGA Project

[rdewhurst]

I dabbled a bit in Warhammer 20+ years ago and I did splash some paint on a few miniatures, but I am effectively new to miniatures. I painted the miniatures in the War of the Ring board game a few years ago, and as I enjoyed that I started looking for another project with better miniatures. A friend's suggestion led me to Saga, and a purchase of some Vikings on eBay was all I needed to make a start.

The miniatures I bought were mostly Saxon miniatures, and were already based and primed. A few repairs and replacement of most of the weapons took care of the damage received in transit, and then I got down to painting.

First up, the warlord and his hearthguard.

[rdewhurst]

Next I painted 2pts worth of Viking warriors, also Saxon Miniatures, and also keeping a matching colour scheme for shields. Not sure I'll do this for future units, but this is all very new to me and I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be to keep units together otherwise.

[rdewhurst]

That was enough for 4pts of Vikings, but after a game against proxied Anglo-Danes I thought I needed some missile weapons. A combination of 8 Black Tree and 4 Gripping Beast archers made up 1 point of levies. In Saga these are the poorer Thralls so have less colourful clothes.

[rdewhurst]

Pausing on the Vikings, I needed another warband for them to fight, and decided on Irish. Footsore Miniatures had a special offer, and I started by painting 2 points of Hearthguard with Dane Axes. I read up as much as I could about clothing for the period, although much of it is very uncertain.

I am quite pleased with being able to get the figures up to the wargame standard I'm looking for: although I find eyes rather difficult.

[rdewhurst]

The first 1pt of Irish warriors are mainly from the Footsore deal, but there are also some Crusader miniatures in there, which come with pre-moulded spare javelins in their left hand. I was rather keen that most of the javelin troops should be seen to have a fistful of spare javelins.

[aircav]

Great stuff 
Looking forward to seeing your armies grow

[rdewhurst]

For a bit of variety I decided to paint a unit of dogs next for the Irish warband. I've found I like as much variety as possible, so I didn't want to use all the dogs from the same manufacturer, as they each give only two poises. So in the end I went for a mixture of Gripping Beast and Warlord games, with a Gripping Beast horn-blower as their keeper.

[rdewhurst]

Lastly, for now, my Irish warlord and two champions. The warlord and right-hand champion are Gripping Beast (with a Gripping Beast pet), and the left-hand champion is from Footsore.

[rokurota]

Very nice!

[Argonor]

Excellent stuff!

I am looking forward to seeing those warriors in battle!

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

These look great. If you've got a local opponent or two, you could consider looking into the Age of the Wolf campaign book? Although I think it's being released under a new name soon (like, Saga Conquest or something) to include the Crescent and Cross factions and refine/tweak the rules, so if you haven't got it already I'd wait for that release.

Your models look amazing though, really well done.

[Little Odo]

A fantastic looking couple of warbands. Get them into action ... now! 

[gamer Mac]

For a beginner that is really Outstanding work, very tidy paint work and nice basing

[rdewhurst]

Thanks for all the encouraging comments-- helps to keep me going!

[rdewhurst]

It's been nearly a year since I started my Saga Dark Ages project, and I haven't posted updates in a long time, so I thought I should bring this thread up to date. First of all, some of the pictures already posted need updating. The Irish have a new curadh (champion). The idea is that both mail and shield indicate the more heavily-armoured curaidh (as opposed to hearthguard).



Champion on the left is sold by Footsore as the Irish warlord, warlord is Gripping Beast, and the champion on the right is Gripping Beast plastic Anglo-Saxon Thegn.