It all started so well...

Firstly sorry for lack of updates, I have been a little busy with commissions that needed finishing before Christmas, these included a large rebase project of Caesarian Romans and ancient Germans and to Finish painting a large batch of Normans and lots of Sassanid Persians. Now my desk is almost clear again I have begun to clutter it back up with my dark age collection. I have prepped up 24 heavily armoured Romano British spearmen including a new general and ASB. These i hope to have finished for a game on the 12th of December, so watch out for pics soon. I have also started work on a few more Vikings, including a Godi, another hersir and ASB along with GB plastic hirdmen. My lovely wife has bought me the Macedonian army deal from Wargames Foundry for Crimbo and while she wasnt looking i managed to sneak out the three Thracian cavalry figures which you can see painted above. These are fantastic figs and a joy to paint. According to my limited resources, the geometric patterns the Thracians are so famous for are a little more subdued and the stripes are thicker by the time of Alexander. This makes painting them a little quicker to paint but I am sure I will still go to town on the majority of them just so there is no doubt that they are Thracians. This will be a large project for next year, as i am planning on creating two armies for the period. Alexandrian Macedonian and Skythian with Greek and Thracian allies. It will be nice and colourful especially after the muted colours of dark age Britain. Now i must remain focused not long to go.....

not bad considering its Friday afternoon...

I have just finished off what I had planned for this week and I still have the weekend free, not bad for me! 3 Gripping beast Hiberno-Norse, 2 Crusader miniatures Berserkers and a monk The 5 Vikings I will add to the rest of my Hibenro Norse figures and the chap I painted last week will lead them. The monk can be added to my Romano British civitates army. So here it is, my first complete unit for my new Norse force. A Hersir, 2 Berzerkers and 17 Hiberno Norse with a mix of double handed axes and throwing spears. Some of the shields are hand painted the nicer ones and the standard are transfers by little big men studios. The majority of this unit was painted a few years ago, now at last it is complete an ditching for action. I will take a few more pics when I have time, as the close ups I did all came out a bit blurry apart from the berserker above. With the weekend now free, i will finish prepping up the plastic GB Hirdmen and some Romano British, then decide what to do next. I dont think I will get any painting done as it is my 6th wedding anniversary to my beautiful wife Marie Saturday, so I will be spending lots of quality time with the mrs. What a lucky lady....?

10 weeks to go 'til cold steel. Viking week

This week I am cracking on with my Vikings. I hope by the end of the week to have a unit of 18 Hirdmen and 2 berserkers to join the chap pictured below. I am cheating a little bit because I have a few finished already, just dont tell anybody.... This first unit will be Hiberno Norse in flavour. I am not sure which army list to use from Shieldwall just yet, most like it will be either Norwegian or Hiberno-Norse. Both have great light infantry (or open order infantry under WAB2). The Norwegians led by Hardradda have always been my fave and have the added bonus of being able to hire serjeants which can make useful heavy infantry to hold the centre, as well as close order bondi. My freshly painted GB Hersir kindly given to me by the infamous Lord S of GB. The rear showing off his Little big men studios shield transfer This is my Veteran Norwegian war leader, who embarrassingly fell under a Norman horse whilst swinging his huge chopper around in the last battle.

Cold steel 2011

I am off to Cold Steel at Grippingbeast towers next January. So I thought I would paint myself a new army for the occasion. After last weeks disaster which you can read about in the battle report I sold off most of my Vikings to Dave. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but with only around 10 weeks before the event I will be hard pushed to paint a 1500 point force. I have a lovely box of plastic Hirdmen, as well as around 100 hundred various metal Vikings ready to paint. Also at the Derby show a couple of months ago I took advantage of Westwinds offer and bought around 200 of their Age of Arthur figures which are dying for some paint. So with the 10 week deadline in mind I have decided to.... PAINT BOTH!! Yes i know it makes no sense. So without further ado here is a photo of the first figures of my new armies, the new generals. Gripping Beast Viking and Westwind Warlord. Both were a real pleasure to paint, I guess mainly because rather than batch painting I actually concentrated on just the above models, A much more enjoyable experience. The Viking which is the free give away from GB plastic box set is now my favorite Viking model, which is no mean feat as I have painted a few in my time.