6mm Dark Ages(IV) - The Vikings

I am determined to finish off both my Dark Ages project and the Imperial Guard before Christmas, both are nearly done, this post features my small but deadly Viking raiding force which represents a Longship's worth of troops:

(All miniatures from Baccus)

Just the last of the Anglo-Saxons to do now and that will be another job finished.

6mm Dark Ages(III) - The Warbands

Firstly let me wish any readers a happy New Year and I hope you had a merry Christmas.  It's a busy time for me as its both my children's birthdays around Xmas hence the lack of blogging, I have however managed to finish off a couple of projects and the dreaded mass of the Imperial Guard is dwindling fast. With that out of the way on to the subject of this post:


I am currently working on some Dark Age themed skirmish rules with the emphasis on raiding and plundering. This all started because of me buying the lovely H&R longships and my mate having some really nice coastal game boards. I wont go into the rules in detail in this post but will mention that each element is either an individual hero type or a "band" of 3-6 warriors, heros and bands can progress if they survive and plunder can be used to buy larger ships more men and equipment.

The rules are almost there so I need to get a load of play-testing in, not one for using card counters, I bought some Baccus Anglo-Saxons and Vikings at Fiasco, and have utilised a bunch of old Baccus Celts too.

My plan is to make a Viking warband and the Anglo-Saxons and Celts will act as the defenders of the settlements I will be raiding.(I have also picked up some Irregular woodland Indians which I may use for Skraeling defenders).  I will be using Perfect6's scenics along with Baccus civilians and various company's livestock as plunder markers and Levens Anglo Saxon buildings for the settlements all of which are done.

So onto the warbands, my mate Craig has already done his Viking warband so I have concentrated initially at least on the defenders first up is the Anglo-Saxons:

A couple of Light Bands:

 

Veteran Fyrd and regular Fryd:

Hero with entourage:

Hero:

Huscarls:

Leader and entourage:

The Celts:

Celt Hero and Leader:

And as I have mentioned the settlements and not yet shown a pic here are my roundhouses:



I will get around to doing my Vikings and some more Anglo Saxons at some point but as I now have (well with Craig's Vikings) everything we need to get playing they can wait until a few more pressing projects get finished.

6mm Dark Ages(II) - More Longships

A very short post just to show that I have finished one part of my Dark Ages project, the Longships. In my last post on this subject I had finished all three ships and just needed to finish off the crew. I also had to replace the stern post on the Snekke as I had lost the original piece and had replaced it with a bit of paper-clip, very oddly many, many, weeks later it appeared in plain sight, so was quickly attached.

Anyway here they are all together and finished along side Levens new jetty pieces:

 

That's all for this time, back to the Imperial Guard for me, well unless something shiny gets in the way!

6mm Dark Ages(I) - Longships

I recently paid a flying visit to Joy of Six, kids and the Boss in tow so I didn't stay as long as I had wanted, but still managed to spend a reasonable amount of cash and look over some stuff I'd had my eye on, the tables needed a good couple of hours to thoroughly take in, so unfortunately I didn't get to see them properly. I did get to meet Mick at Leven Miniatures which; after several years of e-mail communication it was good to put a face to a name and I picked up some more of his stuff and Perfect 6's scenics. Whilst collecting a H&R order for a mate I got to see their longships and crew in the flesh so to speak, this ultimately led to another purchase.

These miniatures are fantastic, very well sculpted and cast, easy enough to put together and a joy to paint up, the crew are much larger than your typical H&R mini and come without a base for ease in placing on the deck, I have completed three ships so far with just the crew to finish for my Skeid, I intend on picking up a further Snekki and the Drakkar in the future and some minis to represent the crews ashore.

 Karfi & crew

 

  Snekki & crew

 

 Skeid and the few crew I have done so far.

 

 A few size comparison pics

Some of the crew.

 

 

It's rare that I buy miniatures without a set purpose in mind, but these were an exception due to the quality of the models, and so as to justify them I'm now looking into Viking raid style campaign with some home brew rules.  In the meantime I have a bunch of castle walls to finish, and the rest of my fantasy army to do.

Update: I have now discovered that this particular range of Vikings and Ships were originally made by Kremlin Miniatures UK and sculpted by Martin Baker, before being purchased by H&R, hence the difference in size and sculpting style to the usual H&R fare.