Medieval Flags and Norman Foot

I finished up some Conquest Games Norman foot (with the addition of some Norman command figures by Crusader Miniatures to give me three full elements of 16 figures) recently, but couldn't consider them completely finished until I figured out how to handle their command banner.

I've got a lot in store for these Normans. I'm hoping to use them for dark age battles against vikings in Saga, big crusades era battles against muslim enemies or in their Italian holdings with Hail Caesar or Too the Strongest, and I'm even hoping to use them as Starks for some Lion Rampant "Game of Thrones" battles.  Sticking with just one banner that would be appropriate for all those theaters wasn't going to cut it, so I cribbed an idea from James Roach and created an interchangeable flag.

I experimented with a variety of different brass tubes, pins and plastic tubes before settling on a system that worked for me. The portion held in the figure's hand is 1/16 brass tube. I cut another length the height of the flag, and then glued a metal wire spear length inside it.

I removed the spear's point and glued it on the other end of this 'upper' portion. After painting both halves spear shaft wood tones I wrapped and glued the flag itself around the upper portion.

I used a crusades era flag from Little Big Man to test the idea out. It's ok, but I also picked up some sample flags at Historicon from Rick O'Brien, "The Flag Dude". I replaced a medieval banner that I had printed out myself with a Flag Dude version, and it blows my humble effort away.

My home printed paper flag is on the left, The Flag Dude's version is on the right

The colors are richer, the animation more pronounced and overall it simply "pops" in a way that my homemade version doesn't. I had some specific sizing requests for this banner and Rick was highly accommodating too. I'm planning on picking up several flags from him just for my Norman foot, plus all my other medievals because they just look so slick. Looking forward to getting these guys on the table. With fancy flags like these, they can't lose! (right?)

Gripping Beast Monks

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is winding down and while I beat my personal goal of 400 points I'm trying to push through to an even 500. I've wracked up a few more points last week and I'm currently sitting at 477. Searching my lead pile I found a pack of Gripping Beast monks that I've been putting off painting for a while. They aren't the most exciting miniatures but will certainly get me closer to my goal.

These weren't the most challenging figures to paint up, but they'll make good bystanders or objectives for a variety of dark ages or medieval battles.

These four monks should give me an additional 20 points, putting me at 497, just one Curtgeld short of 500!

Gripping Beast Dark Ages Baggage Horses

I knocked out some baggage animals by Gripping Beast. These should be useful for Saga or a host of other games where they can serve as game objectives. I'm fairly happy with the sculpts, but the shaggy hair was a bit tricky on them. A bit too shallow to hold a wash or pick up drybrushing.

SAGA Rematch!

I couldn't let the shame of Earl Pusskin's defeat stand, so once more my Normans took the field reclaim their honor against my wife's Viking warband. All the bloody details and pics after the jump.

SAGA! Our first game

I finally got SAGA onto the table this weekend, after having only played a few games at HGMS conventions over the years. Our Vikings and Normans mix it up after the jump.

More Conquest Norman Cavalry

Two units of Norman cavalry

Finished up some more plastic Norman cavalry by Conquest. I'm not too particular about the precise number of figures per unit, and managed to stretch two boxes of their horseman into three 10-figure units.

They all received colors and shield patterns to match the unit I completed last summer. With such a large number of horse, I figured they deserved a large banner for the leader of one of the units rather than the smaller plastic flag that comes in the box.

I designed and printed a flag and finished it with some weathering and distressing techniques described in a recent Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. I've included it here in case you also need a free printable Norman flag.

This should be resized to 2.98 inches x 0.627 inches at 300 dpi in your graphics program of choice

I think I have enough to field a very small Norman force for some test games, but I don't yet have a suitable historic opponent. With Gripping Beast offering plastic Arab warriors soon, I don't expect my Normans to be enemy free for long, but I might need to run them against some orcs or something first just to get them on the table.

Back With Some Vikings

Sometimes life can really get in the way of painting up tiny little men and throwing dice to see if they kill each other. It's taken a month to get our latest real life crises sorted out, but I finally managed to find some time to get back to the painting table. A raiding party of SAGA vikings after the jump.

Conquest Miniatures' Norman Cavalry

Over the last year I've painted up a few Vikings, a whole village of levy archers, and just now completed the Darth Vaders of the Dark Ages - a dozen Norman knights. It's hard for me to see the Normans as anything but bad guys. I'm not from the UK, and don't have any sort of emotional ties to any of the various post-Roman clans, but reading about the initial conquest by William the Bastard it was hard for me not to identify with the plucky Harold and his army of underdogs who fought off viking invaders and Harold's nutty brother before finally falling to the Norman invaders. The Normans don't seem to have acted like anything but thugs in their adventures in Italy and during their Crusades in the Middle East either.

I was eager to get some of these signature units painted up for SAGA or larger wargames. Conquest Miniatures' plastic Norman Cavalry set seemed an affordable way of getting these classic dark age knights on to the table. My thoughts and a review of Conquest's figures after the jump.

Foundry eBay Deals: Vikings

The other warband I'm working up for SAGA are Vikings to face my Normans.  Foundry's eBay store has a number of old citadel sculpts, but I've already started my warband using Wargames Factory and Gripping Beast plastics. Do these old Citadel sculpts measure up, or are they dwarfed by today's modern "heroic scale" figures?

Foundry Vikings  I like these sturdy Viking figures. They aren't rushing about, charging into melee, but I dig the quiet air of menace suggested by the guys wielding axes and wearing the helms with face guard. These are listed as ex-Citadel.

Viking Archers  The recent plastic sets from Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory don't have a plethora of ranged options, so I was thinking of picking up these Vikings as an archers option for SAGA. More ex-Citadel I believe.

A separate section of the Foundry store offers another range of Viking figures, but these aren't ex-Citadel. More about these after the jump.

Old Glory 28mm Norman Archers

Taking a break from Romans and Carthaginians to make some progress on my Dark Ages lead pile. Im hoping to do Hastings, Normans in Italy, and the 1st Crusade some day, but for now I'm just trying to sneak in a few SAGA warbands in between other projects. Norman archers after the jump.

Starting a Viking SAGA Warband

I found some time to make headway on a viking warband for SAGA. I was especially keen to see if the color palette I selected for my vikings would provide a suitably gritty and varied appearance while still maintaining a subtle tie between the various figures.  I've used predominantly warm browns, with a large amount of ivory and red as the thematic tie between all of my vikings.

2 points of vikings for SAGA

I picked up a pack of Gripping Beast bondi to add to the Wargames Factory vikings I had on hand. I wanted to use Little Big Man's shield decals, so did a little swapping to keep the bondi all wielding similar shields and reserving the intricate designs of the LBM decals for the more well off viking hersir.

Wargames Factory viking hearthguard.

These vikings were some of Wargame Factory's first plastics. WGF early sculpts seem a little off to me, but the flaws in their Romans disappeared once they were ranked up. Based singly for SAGA though, the Wargames Factory sculpting oddities are more apparent. Many of their arms seem unusually short and stumpy, and their hitchhiker thumbs sticking out allow various weapons to be chosen for the warrior, but look pretty wonky to me.

Viking bondi. Gripping Beast on the left, Wargames Factory plastics on the right.

To fill out the unit of bondi I added a pack of Gripping Beast metals. They mix well enough with the WGF plastics to my eye, have great detail and life, and were free from egregious mould lines or flash. I'm hoping to get some GB plastics to compare, but with the few models needed for SAGA I'm leaning towards forking out the cash for nice metals rather than the more economical WGF plastics.

More vikings may have to wait until the new year though. I've switched scales and periods yet again, this time to gingerbread in 80mm, but this should be a short side project that won't divert me from the dark ages for too long.

What was it like fighting behind a shield wall?

CC Licensed by Flickr user mararie

At the moment I've got 15mm Eastern Front for Fireball Forward in the wings, the Reaper mega delivery of fantasy figures coming this spring, and Warlord threatening to release plastic Caesarian Romans soon, so the only natural course of action when faced with so many projects is to start a new period. Of course.

I've heard the siren song of SAGA and been working on some dark ages terrain and a few test figures to try color schemes recently. I love the historical aspect of our hobby, so I've also been picking up Ospreys and pouring over articles and I've recently run into a few really interesting bits. "Behind the shield-wall: The experience of combat in late Anglo-Saxon England" is a masters thesis by Jordan Poss, written while attending Clemson University. What caught my attention was the paper's focus on the experience of the men in combat. What was it really like to march up the hill at Hastings, shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers, clutching a spear and shield before charging into battle?

Poss is an entertaining writer. He gives a general background of the political situations that lead to the set piece battles during the dark ages, explains the tactical challenges faced by the opposing armies at Maldon, Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, and Hastings and then tries to get into the head of the men fighting toe to toe. Looking beyond the arms and armor to explore the role of fatigue, terrain and morale in these case study battles. His description of the experience fighting amongst the slain and wounded warriors and their disemboweled horses really stuck in my mind.  I've read a bit about the various battles of the Conquest but it was nice to revisit them for another view of these ancient struggles.

Architects of War Dark Ages Buildings

Architects of War was running a show special at Fall-In for a bundle of dark ages terrain I couldn't pass up. I painted up the Daub and Wood A-Frame and Timber A-Frame to go along with my wattle fences in anticipation of some SAGA. My thoughts and progress pics after the jump.

Renedra Wattle Fence

I knocked out a pack of Renedra wattle fences this weekend. I thought the little "feet" used for basing might look a bit goofy, so I gave each length of fence a base. To make sure the fence ends could join up seamlessly I left the bases a bit short, leaving a baseless gap on the ends. I might go back and tidy that up, but seen at normal playing height those gaps aren't noticeable. The pic above only shows a few lengths of fence, but the pack contains enough to create quite a large enclosure for dark ages livestock or a village.

I have a few more bits of dark ages terrain I want to get finished up before moving on to the actual figures. I'm looking forward to finally jumping into SAGA and maybe extending those warbands into full on 1st Crusade and Sicilian Norman armies for Hail Caesar. Black Friday is coming and I'm already starting to collect a list of wargame deals for the holidays, hoping to find deals to flesh out these nascent dark ages armies. I'll post whatever I find in case you are interested. Do you know of any hobby or gane deals coming online for Black Friday?

Battle of Hastings Reenactment

I don't quite know the full story behind these photos that popped up on reddit earlier this week, but I was still fascinated by this reenactment of the Battle of Hastings.

I love that shot of the archers loosing arrows. Lots more snapshots posted by the photographer on imgur.

Dark Ages Color Palettes

I've been noodling the idea of starting the Dark Ages / Norman Conquest / Normans in Italy / 1st Crusade period, but since it's on the back burner I'm taking my time and planning out how I want to tackle Yet Another Period. I read some really good posts on Model Dad's blog about dark ages dying techniques and color schemes. Using that as a base, I've decided to work out the color schemes for the various armies I might be painting up for my 10th - 12th century Normans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. This is a pretty massive post where I go into historic dyes, hobby paint equivelants, color schemes, and samples. All this and more after the jump.

Dark Age Norman Book Club

I discovered the battle of Hastings after watching Simon Schama's History of Britain.  Hastings and the Norman Conquest weren't a part of my high school courses, and I didn't take any medieval history courses in college. Schama's retelling of the story stuck with me, as he draws their personalities so vividly that they seem like living people, rather than a collection of names and deeds. The cast of characters, the twists and turns of the conflict, and the agonizing decisions that Harold faced seem like something drawn from fiction. I read a few books subsequently on the battle and period, but with only a handful of battles I didn't think there was enough potential for gaming the war to warrant painting up any armies. 

After listening to Lars Brownsworth's 12 Byzantine Emperors, I decided to listen to his Norman Centuries podcast, despite feeling the Normans were the "bad guys" who ruined the good thing the Anglo Saxons had going on in Britain before William got involved. I still think the Normans were a group of thugs, but I did get interested in their adventures in Italy, as well as their involvement in the First Crusade.

It turns out these Normans are a group I could get behind for wargaming. From small scale raids with SAGA, to the actual battles involved between William, Harold Godwinson, and Harald Hardrada, the Norman invasion of Sicily and Italy, and finally their trek to Jerusalem, there's plenty of fodder for wargames large and small.  My knowledge of the 11th century is woefully shallow, so I've decided to put together a reading list to bone up on the period before painting up hundreds of Norman knights.

I already polished off a few books:

• 1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry1066: The Year of the Conquest
•  The Year 1000. 
• 1066: The Year of the Conquest

For getting a handle on Norman warfare I'm looking at Osprey's The Normans (Elite) , Norman Knight AD 950-1204 (Warrior) and Ian Heath's Armies of the Dark Ages, 600-1066 A.D.  I typically need to provide both sides of any wargaming I want to do, so to get a handle on the Muslim adversaries they might face with a Crusades game I'm thinking of picking up The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. That should be plenty to get me started, but I would love any recommendations.

Edit: The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land from the recommendation in the comments. Thanks Bob!