O Lord protect us from the fury of the Northmen

I wanted some figures with a bit of story behind them to go along with my standard Vikings, so took at look at the fabulous figures over at Gripping Beast and grabbed their VIG11 Save us O Lord set containing a praying monk, a viking axing the monk and carrying a torch, a viking carrying a chest and a viking with a torch and a hapless dog.

These superb figures scald up perfectly amongst the rest, which is no surprise as most of mine are the gripping beast plastics.

The monk in this set then spurred me on to a new idea- a scenario for Saga in which rival war bands compete to kill and enslave as many of the the Lord's flock as they can, all the while trying to show their fighting might in true Viking fashion. The scenario "Bash the Bishop" will be up soon.

So these are the monks that I have gathered so far:

The Gripping Beast CIV1- Monks parading cross

So thats a vicar looking guy, two cowled monks and a monk carrying a holy cross.

The next set was CIV7 - defenders of the faith

This contains a senior monk in a chainmail hauberk, a hooded monk drawing a knife from his robes and two junior monks in fighting poses. Two swords, an axe and three shields are supplied to arm your holy warriors.

The final Gipping Beast set I got was the CIV4-Bishop and attendant

This set was a pair and included the Bishop, his crook, and his attendant who looks particularly shady and greedy, with his hood up and gripping his Bible close.

I also bought some figures from Redoubt Enterprises. I had only recently heard of this company but I am really impressed by what I recieved.

In their RX28 pack, which can be found in the renaissance extras, you receive 9 monks- one of which is a dead casualty. 

These come in a range of poses- one is carrying a cross staff, one is kneeling, one is carrying a candle, one a box etc. the detail is amazing across the lot.

They are slightly larger than the gripping beast monks but are still realistic when ranked up or in a large rabble.

Obviously if you alternate between redoubt and gripping beast you get an unatural crennalated effect...

....but as you can see here they mix well in large groups.

Overall I'm thoroughly impressed with both companies figures and am glad I opted to buy from a range of producers, despite the minor scale difference.

I've got some Perry Miniatures monks coming in the post at the moment so will see how they scale up next.

I have returned!- Perry Miniatures Medieval Cottage unboxing

After a year of incredible highs and stressful lows I am now a fully fledged primary school teacher!

Thanks to everyone thats checked out my stuff in the mean time, means a lot.

I've been hard at work collecting and building an expanding Saga collection and finally have a bit of time to show some of it off.

So lets get on with it.

Perry Miniatures Medieval Cottage

Easing back in gently I would like to show something that arrived on the doorstep a few days ago from my dear brother over at Famous Gaming and his fancy new site : www.famousgaming.co.uk

Check it out, hes doing custom terrain commissions at the moment and is making some lovely stuff. Tell him Mr Odinson sent you and expect a cheeky discount.

It's the Perry Minaitures 1300-1700 Medieval Cottage set. Yes thats a bit later than the Viking era but take a look, this could represent a Saxon homestead ripe for a ruddy good pillaging as long as you don't get all that caught up on medieval architecture and spend more time doing important things like rolling dice and killing Bretons. 

When i opened it up i was surprised to find something extra that I hadn't known was coming when I placed the order.

You get the building parts as expected: 2 gables, 2 sides, 2 roof parts,a door and an optional smoke hood for 1600 onwards, and even a little shelter for animals/ tools BUT you also receive a wattle fence sprue that is ideal for creating animal pens, makeshift defences or even just plain fencing to break up open expanses of fields.

First thing I did was cut off the sides and gable ends as these would obviously be the main frame of the building. The corners of the building have slight male and female parts which needed filing to join up but this wasn't any major stress. Hopefully you see what i mean here:

But within 2 mins all was sorted and they easily got to this stage:

Lovely.

The roof slots on and glues at the middle nice and easily, with the roof peak being sealed with one long thatched section. 

And in no time at all you reach this stage:

The doors were nice and easy to whack on. Each door has 2 parts- a frame and an actual door.

They glue on the inside of the building- perhaps would have been easier to do before constructing the main body but atleast now they can be hinged and move around during games to show occupation. 

The finished door.

Aaaaand the constructed building, along with some Gripping Beast raiders. And an unfortunate monk.

Awesome set,  nice and affordable, easy to construct and good to scale and suitable for a range of historical eras.

Will definiately be buying more!

Pegasus Hobby 28mm small stone cottage

Just wanted to share this awesome product that my bro over at Famous Gaming has now got in stock.

Its perfect 28mm scale and ideal for a dark ages houses and hovels.

It comes pre-painted in the box- grab a few of these and the slightly larger one and you're well on your way to having a dark ages town ready for a fierce game of Saga or WAB:shieldwall.

front view

rear view

They're made of resin and seem pretty hard wearing. The paintwork is applied well and from handling doesn't appear to be likley to flake off. I'd add a wash to the straw roof just to bring out some extra detailing but all in all well impressed with these buildings!

Thanks for checking out the post and head over to Famous Gaming to see their range of modelling supplies and scenery!

Warlord Games plastic Celtic Warriors- unboxing, review and sprue inspection

This review is for the Warlord Games Celtic Warriors boxed set

Bought two of these in the past when my army was originally going to be a WAB celtic warband many moons ago. I think they make great bondi, thralls and beserkers for your viking armies though. 

You get 40 high quality figures spread across 4 sprues- 3 standard and one upgrade.

Lets look inside:

You get these adhesive shield covers to apply to shield faces for easy and speedy decoration. Nice celtic patterns but would also suit Dark Ages armies.

This is the standard sprue, flipped so you can see both sides. As you can see torsos and legs are separate allowing for loads of combinations. You get 10 torsos per sprue- 2 of which are in chainmail with an awesome mail collar. The detailing is great and very little clean up was needed before putting the kit together. The torsos come with arms already attached, and most already have weapons in their hands. The hnds can be swapped for gripping east plastics vikings very easily and look great as simple conversions.

A few poses are tricky to work with as they hunch quite far forward, making ranking them up quite an issue so I tend to use the hunched guys as permanent skirmishers mounted on round bases. 

The heads glue on to flat plateaus just above their adams apples. They do combine with the gripping beast heads and bodies with a bit of work but its not a perfect mix and tbh you get a lot of heads with both sets so theres no need to go swapping around.

Along the bottom of each sprue you get your weapons and shields. They combine perfectly with all other 28mm ranges, which is ideal! Nice mix of shield shapes too. 

This is both sides of the upgrade sprue. Unfortunately I took a few guys off here before photographing it, but that shouldn't get in the way. Its almost identical to the standard sprue but this one has a command section where the heads usually are. 

Instead of heads you get a choice of two pagan banner poles, a large carynx war horn on the shape of a boar, two severed heads, a decorative bird and a mane of hair to attach to your leader. The detailing on the standards is great- the boar even has celtic tribal patterns on it. As my army are pagans they fit right in.

There are no bases supplied but check out Famous Gaming for all your basing needs. They've got everything you'd want, as long as it's in stock!

So for your money you get 40 multipart posable figures, with a range of weapons, shields and heads and an upgrade sprue. They mix well with other 28mm ranges and although they are designed to be celtic they make perfect thralls, bondi or fyrd. With some minor converting they could also make great beserkers as quite a few of them are half dressed.

Detailing & sculpting: 9/10- barely any mould lines, great detailing, but lack of poses and joined arms.

Scaling: 9/10- scale well with most other 28mm ranges, could be slighty chunkier but overall good.

Amount of bits: 7/10- dont get an abbundance of bits, although what you get is of a good standard.

Ease of construction: 10/10- incredibly easy to build.

Value for money: 9/10- 40 men in a box is great, although id like to see more upgrade parts!

Over all: 44/50 - pretty good!

Will definitely be investing in more of these as my army grows!

Thanks for looking, to see how these figures scale up against other 28mm dark ages miniatures please check my other posts.

Conquest Games plastic Norman knights- unboxing, review and sprue inspection

This review is for the Conquest Games plastic Norman knights set

This was the first time I've seen inside this box- I've not handled conquest figs before but after hearing good things I gave them ago, and I'm glad I did!

Although I dont play Normans and dont really like the Norman feel of things, I got these to represent Saxon cavalry or knights brought over form the continent as mercenaries.

You get 12 cavalry for your money, pretty good value and really nice figs. Thats one commandsprue and 3 standard sprues. You actually get 15 bodies and 12 horses to allow for a bit of variation amongst the unit.

Heres the sprues:

command sprue

This is the 'command' sprue. Comes with a banner arm, horn arm, a stick- not sure why youd go to war with a club when youre a knight but yes a stick, and some sword and spear arms. You also get a choice of round or kite shields which is a nice touch.

You can see in the bottom left there is a downed knight too- perfect for dioramas or a gaming objective. Im thinking of running a scenario around him with both sides battling to reach him and take him captive/ home.

The horses are multipart and well detailed and you can mix them up to get a few extra poses.

The three torsos are a mix of what looks like chain, boiled leather and quilted leather to give some variation between figures. No heads on this sprue but theyre found on the standard sprue.

flipped command sprue

As you can see some shields come with arms and some don't so you may have to do some minor converting.

This is the standard sprue. You get your 3 horses again, 4 torsos this time, same amount of shields and arms and now also the heads. The heads do look quite Norman-ish but they will do as Saxons too. Mixture of three torsos again.

The arms on most, if not all, join just below the elbow. This gives great joins which stick well and look durable but doesn't allow as much free positioning as I'd have liked. You can still get good poses out of them if you fiddle, I would've just preferred a bit extra freedom. 

The heads are glued on to a plateau neck, with the head also including the full throat. This means mixing these with other ranges will be tricky- you can probably lobotomise other heads but it'll be a fiddly job. If you manage to feel free to let me know!

Over all the scale works well with other ranges, once ive built a few ill add them to the scaling post from yesterday. Their weapons and bodies match up well with other ranges- shame they've been designed so the components don't mix as theres some cool bits on the gripping beast sprue id love to add to these guys.

In the box you also get a set of renedra cavalry bases! Bonus!

All in all, a good set of plastic cavalry. Not too expensive and scale up well with other 28mm dark ages miniatres. Shame they have incompatible components as kitbashing these would be awesome, but their price and the fact theyre all plastic make up for it in my opinion!

Detailing & sculpting: 9/10- barely any mould lines, good detailing, but lack of poses and joined arms.

Scaling: 9/10- range well with most other 28mm ranges

Amount of bits: 4/10- not enough extra bits for my liking- very little to speak of but does allow for varied weapons

Ease of construction: 8/10- not too fiddly- arm joints are unusual and are a bit fiddly at times

Value for money: 8/10- cavalry are always pricey and i felt these weren't too badly priced, although for the money I would expect more spare parts, alternative helmets and maybe a few axes. Having 15 men and 12 horses seemed strange too, rather lose the 3 spare bodies in exchange for a conversion section. But then again these are the only dark ages cavalry in plastic of this quality on the market, and compared to metal figs are pocket money.

Over all: 38/50 - not bad but could be better!- buy alongside some gripping beast plastic figures and your lack of bits will be remedied!

Thanks for looking!

Wargames Factory Saxon Thegns- unboxing, review and sprue inspection

This review is for the Wargames Factory Saxon Thegns set

You get 32 multipart, highly detailed figures for your money. And tbh these aren't ever very expensive. I got mine through Famous Gaming , they may still have some in stock I'm not sure.

They glue together easily and look great. The scale is just right & mixes well with other ranges. The detailing is spot on and easy to paint even for someone with two left hands, like me.

I've used this kit before and found it to be great so I got another, lets look inside.

You get 8 of the body sprues and 4 of the characteristics sprues, and they all stack neatly, hurrah!

The torsos and legs come joined in 4 different poses. That doesn't sound a lot seeing as there's 32 of them but with a bit of ingenuity you can arrange them in a rank and you'll never even notice. The torsos come in chainmail with great detailing. The heads go on into sockets in the traditional way, allowing for a great range of movement, although a few do require a bit of trimming along the neck to sit well.

There are a tonne of arms to allow you to pose your men however you want, some are even included to be used as archers in action poses. Nice to have that for a change. The arms are chainmail to the bicep and then cloth the rest of the way. Great detailing.

The body+legs and arm sprues are the same between this box and the viking huscarls box. 

Wargames factory have made it so there are 2 pairs of body/leg/arm sprues- one for armoured (the one above) and one for unarmoured (not in this post).

 The way you distinguish between the armies is by use of their special army sprues, as shown below!

saxon sprue from both sides
left hand sprue                right hand sprue 

So on this sprue you get all the heads, shields, weapons and special bits you need to make your miniatures into Saxons.  NB: This same sprue comes with armoured and unarmoured Saxons!

Theres a mixture of armoured and unarmoured heads- most are unarmoured. There are slouch caps to give that authentic continental warrior look- I found they look great on skirmishers.

You also get a mixture of three types of shield- there is the flat round shield, the domed round shield and the kite shield. The kite shield is a nice touch and could allow you to create a few Norman looking foot soldiers if you needed.

In the bottom right of the left hand sprue, just below the shield is a pair of arms to be used to hold either a dragon banner or a two handed axe. This great feature saves you from so much fiddly glueing, lifesaver. You also get a pair of bows, spears, a horn, dragon banner, some quivers and a selection of weapons.

They don't come with bases but for their price it's no biggie to go and buy bases separately. If buying online I recommend Famous Gaming for cheap renedra bases.

Detailing & sculpting: 8/10- barely any mould lines, good detailing, poses are ok but could be more dynamic and hair could have more texture to it.

Scaling: 9/10- scale well with most other 28mm ranges, could be slighty chunkier but overall good.

Amount of bits: 9/10- loads of bits, spare heads and BOWS which are really appreciated. 28mm plastic bows are golddust.

Ease of construction: 10/10- incredibly easy to build. Having joined legs and torsos was handy.

Value for money: 9/10- the boxes dont cost the earth and for your money you get enough to start a saga warband or have a chunky regiment for wab/ fog

Over all: 45/50 - a mighty fine score!

All in all a nice kit packed with great miniatures and that will give you a few spare parts to add to a bits box when you're done.

To see how they scale up with other manufactures of 28mm dark ages check my other posts!

Gripping Beast Plastics Saxon Thegns- unboxing, review and sprue inspection

This review is for the Saxon Thegns kit

This is the first time I've seen inside the new Gripping Beast Plastics boxes. I've liked their metal models for a long time but these new figures a bit of an unknown entity so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Saxon Thegns box cover

Luckily, in no way did they disappoint!

You get 44 plastic figures in the box, FORTY FOUR.

 That's enough to give a GW CEO a heart-attack.

They're spread over 4 standard sprues and 2 command sprues. Let's take a look.

Saxon Thegns Sprue

You get a tonne of stuff with these kits. The Saxon kit doesn't have quite as much as the Viking one, but you do get a lot more spears, which makes them perfect for shieldwall arrangements.

The bodies and weapons are a bit bigger than most other 28mm scale figs but its a minute difference that is within the realms of possibility. In the real world everyone is a different height and weapons are all different sizes,  that's part of realistic gaming, so I welcome the difference. Check one of my previous posts for a scale comparison of these against other figs.

Saxon thegn sprue flipped

All torsos have crucifix necklaces.

Saxon sprue on the left and Viking sprue on the right- can you spot the differences?

Saxon and Viking side by side flipped. Notice the Vikings have much more in the way of axes and swords whereas the Saxons have majority spears. Helmets are also very different.

Same shields as the Viking set- round with bossed centres. Shame there's no kite shields included but not the end of the world.

 The heads are glued on to a flat plateau neck with the join just above the Adam's apple. This makes a really solid and easy joint without any faff trying to get the heads to fit in place. It does unfortunately also make it hard to mix these torsos with other model ranges but theres enough heads in here to have plenty of options so I wasn't fussed. 

Torsos and leg are joined but are in a range of 5 poses so they don't look too static when ranked up.

 They're also in the perfect positions to form a shieldwall- a major bonus over warlord games ad wargames factory whose figures are in more combat based poses.

Command Sprue

The command sprue contains two figures, a fabric cloak, horn, dragon standard, cool heads and some swords.

The kit also includes bases! Definite tick for that! Theres a nice selection too, theres 20mm and 40mm squares and then 100  x 20 , 60 x 20 and 40 x 20 strips. So no matter how you want to base them you're covered.

Detailing & sculpting: 8/10- few mouldlines in places but over all really good and easily trimmed, great detailing on all hair, beards etc, weapons look great and chainmail is spot on.

Scaling: 8/10- Bit chunkier than most other brands but mix in ok. Weapons are slightly chnkier than wargames factory but can still be mixed.

Amount of bits: 10/10- an insane amount of bits! check the pics- you get a tonne of stuff!

Ease of construction: 10/10- incredibly easy to build. Having joined legs and torsos was handy, and arms go on easily. Neck joined heads are easy and still allow for posing.

Value for money: 9/10- bit pricey compared to other sets but youre getting 44 men- thats a saga warband or for wab/fog either one massive regiment or two regular regiments. Awesome.

Over all: 45/50 - a mighty fine score!

So for your money you're essentially getting two regiments or one huge one if you play WAB, or a whole warband if you're playing SAGA. Plus a tonne of stuff for a bits box. AND bases included. The models themselves are of a very high quality, with excellent sculpting and manufacturing. They barely needed trimming before being built, hardly any mould lines at all!

Great kit!

To see how they scale up with other manufactures of 28mm dark ages check my other posts!

Scale comparison for Dark Ages 28mm plastic miniatures!

The postman delivered a tonne of things I'd ordered through my bro over at Famous-Gaming today. 

Pretty exciting haul!

I'll go through the sprues in detail in seperate posts. There's figures from Gripping Beast, Warlord Games, Wargames Factory and Conquest Games. The bases are all renedra and the spray paint is army painter matt black.

These figs are almost all boxes I've used previously so I can demo scale for these easily.

These are the bases i use on my figs. Theyre made by Renedra and are the 100x20mm strips, the 20mm squares and the 25mm round. I got mine through Famous Gaming- they're cheap and will always combine postage! 

I also picked up these basing products from Famous-Gaming. Nice and wintery and cheap too!

These weren't from Famous but I'd like to highlight the products. I have used Revell Contacta glue for ages but recently ran out. I went to my local hobby store to get some more and they didn't sell it, but said the Humbrol liquid poly was the same. MY ARSE IS IT. Its as runny as water, the brush always falls out the lid and when unscrewing it tends to go everywhere. Well unimpressed! Stick with Revell, GW or what you know best!

Great spray- much better than GW- cheap, no loss of detail and easy coating.

Also Lidl stocks this, winner.

Okay on with the scale comparisons!

All these products were sold as 28mm, but as with all scale models that doesn't necessarily mean they are all to scale with eachother. They're close but its not an exact science and each brand has slight variations. 

So heres my first rank of men we'll be looking at. We have from left to right:

warlord games celt, wargames factory viking with germanic celt head, warlord games celt, wargames factory saxon, warlord games celt.

As you can see they match up perfectly. There are minor differences between the scales of weapons but as you can see they are interchangeable between the ranges without it looking odd. Shields are also a total free for all.

Heres the same rank with the addition of a Games Workshop Warrior of Rohan. Hes on a much thicker base and still stands a head below the warlord games celt. A few people out there say Rohhirrim make great figs for 28mm saxons. Maybe- if you have a gap in a rank to fill and they're all you have to hand but to be honest they'd look like shortarses compared to any army they faced so I wouldnt be keen. Ive got one or two amongst my army just to stop me losing them but, yeah, regiments of them look tiny. May work better as larger 25mm saxons but I think GW have intentionally made them difficult to scale up against other ranges.

So heres ranking number 2. Here we have:

A gripping beast plastics saxon, wargames factory viking, gripping beast hearthguard, wargames factory saxon/ viking mix, gripping beast plastic viking, warrior of rohan, wargames factory viking.

As you can see all scale up well together, minus the rohan guy who once again looks too small to come and play war. The GBP guys are a bit on the chunky side but make great hearthguard or character bodyguards if fielded en masse or when mixed into mixed ranks just look like slightly taller and burlier men. The GBP do have thicker weapons than warlord and wargames factory but they are still largely interchangeable and work well side by side. So thats 3 providers that all work well together, result.

Close ups on the rank above, in different configuration. Can you see what I mean about the chunkier GBP figs. I think they still look fine though, especially as so many are squatting to create a shieldwall.

Comparison with some warhammer fantasy empire- empire are quite a bit larger than everything, except perhaps the GBP saxon next to the priest. I may base up a saxon on a fantasy base and see how they compare to the empire free companies- could be a cheap way of building up a WFB Norse army!

People compare these and say they are interchangeable- I', afraid to say I cant agree purely on scale. Deatiling for both are great but the GBP is like a giant compared to a Rohirrim.

Another rank, yes i made a booboo and used the same head twice! GBP ranks up fine with warlord games figures as you can see. A more dynamic pose may have done him more justice but thats all i have for now.

The first 2 units painted!

Bowmen are a combo of wargames factory celts, ancient germans and viking bondi while the armoured infantry are a combo of wargames factory viking huscarls, saxon thegns and ancient germans, and warlord games ancient celts. 

Hope this was useful, please feel free to ask any questions or make comments or suggestions. 

Unboxing and sprue review for the above boxed products to follow!