Shield Maidens for Lagertha (and Jenny)

A Valkyrie leads Jenny's newest band of Shield Maidens

Ever since Jenny received her painted army from super-painter Ted Bender, she began toying with the idea of filling out her ranks of shield maidens with more miniatures. She plays Vikings using Saga rules and usually takes a point of the mercenary "Shield Maidens" unit. Although you receive only six figures instead of the normal eight for this warrior unit, there are some significant bonuses. The Valkyrie unit commander, the banner, large shields -- all make up for receiving two less figures.

My favorite figure of this batch was the strawberry blonde to the right of the Valkyrie

However, the thing that made her consider fielding them as ordinary warriors instead of the mercenary unit was the rock-scissors-paper of their effectiveness vs. other unit type. Shield maidens get bonuses in Saga against Hearthguard (their superiors) and Levy (their inferiors). However, they get no bonuses against other Warriors. Lots of armies use large numbers of Warriors and she wanted the option to field her ladies as ordinary warriors -- not mercenaries. That meant painting up two more figures, but then she caught the usual gamers disease and said, "Why not 10 more so I can field them as two units of 8 Warriors?" 

The figures came from various sources, but I think they look good together - nice variety!

Jenny acquired various figures to fill out her ranks (thanks, Keith and Don) and soon had 10 unpainted female Vikings. I offered to paint them up for her and she accepted. I decided to do them as one huge, uber-batch rather than two units of five so that it didn't sidetrack my Andalusian army much. Of course, the start of teaching online this school year and selling my house and buying a new one amplified the effects of taking on a big, new painting batch. It took me a lot longer to finish them than I thought, and my Andalusians have been sidetracked for a good 2-3 weeks now. Not Jenny's fault -- I wanted to get them done so she could use them in our Saga Game Days in Columbus and Dayton. My Andalusians were several painting batches away from being finished, so they wouldn't have been done by now anyway!

I am ambivalent about how Lagertha's blue and black shield design came out

I offered to paint the ten figures with Lagertha's (from the History Channel Vikings miniseries) shield design. Lagertha is the quintessential shield maiden, and her distinctive black on blue design would be cool on the tabletop, I thought. Honestly, I like how most of the miniatures came out, but I wasn't 100% crazy about how the shields did. Jenny said she liked them, so I guess that's what's important. I experimented with one figure and gave her strawberry blonde hair and really liked how it came out. I wished I'd been more confident and painted more that way. Oh well...another combination to add to my palette! So, the shield maiden interlude is over now, and Jenny has 10 more warrior women to fill out the ranks of her Saga army. I look forward to getting back into painting my Saga Moors (Andalusians), but am honestly not sure when it is going to happen with my busy schedule. Until then, enjoy these shield maidens -- and I apologize for the crappy pictures taken at a game shop prior to their first battle!