Anglo-Saxon Huscarles Finish off Intermission

    Four 28mm Anglo-Saxon huscarles from Gripping Beast to complete my 6-point Anglo-Dane army

With this small batch of four Anglo-Saxon huscarles ("hearthguard" in Saga), I am now finished with the intermission between the completion of my Moorish warband and the start of my next painting project: Carolingians. These were the four armored figures in the Gripping Beast 4-point Anglo-Saxon starter box that I bought from Game Table Adventures in Newark awhile back. I now have more than enough figures in that box for a loaner army of Anglo-Danes or Vikings. That was my goal when I started this painting intermission -- fleshing out my 6-point armies so that I didn't have to swap figures back and forth to field an army. That brings me to a total of five separate 6-point armies: Moors, Picts (Scots in Age of Vikings), Welsh, Vikings, and Anglo-Danes.

    My two favorite from this batch of four - I love how the dusty purple and faded dark green came out

I like these four poses - they are all significantly different, with their own helmet styles, tunic lengths, and way they are wielding their weapons. These were cast "open handed" -- which I prefer. So, I chose to give two axes and two swords. To this day, epoxying weapons into hands is probably my weak point in modeling. If you look closely, you can see they're not perfect fits, but I hope that the overall look of the figures stands out more than the figure's sometimes awkward grip. For three of these, the shields were cast on. The fourth (with the maroon and yellow cross shape), I needed to glue on. I substituted an Anglo-Saxon style, rimmed shield divided into eight sections. Seemed a perfect fit for Anglo-Saxons.

I used brighter or richer colors in general for these wealthier Saxon nobles

I wanted the colors to be a bit brighter than the faded colors I have been mostly painting on the warriors. I used the "Yew Green" (darker pine green), dusty purple, blue, and a striped red and green for the tunics. I normally avoid stripes, but since most of the tunic was concealed by their armor, I figured I could handle doing their arms and the fringe peaking out beneath the chainmail skirt. Each tunic got a contrasting or matching edging, too -- I particularly like how the green one's decorated border turned out. All of the sield designs are hand-painted to give the effect of ones I found researching Anglo-Saxon shield patterns on the web. They turned out okay -- certainly not my most impressive.

    My next project: Carolingians -- the army of Charlemagne!

As I mentioned above, I begin my Carolingian army next. The 4-point Gripping Beast starter box will be the core of my army. However, I dug through my unpainted lead drawer and found a bunch of Dark Ages archers to use to supplement the box (which contains 8 mounted troopers, 16 foot, and one mounted general). I use two points of warrior bow in my Carolingian army, so I would need 16 of these, as well. Some of the archers look like Franks, others more like Vikings or other random Dark Age figures. However, Charlemagne's empire was very cosmopolitan, so a mix of clothing and armor styles seems a good fit. I am starting out with a small batch of four mounted troops, and I just finished painting the base color on the horseflesh before starting this update. 

So, look for more updates soon (hopefully) -- especially if we get that snow the weathermen are forecasting.