The arrival of the dreaded lurgy

Sadly no painting this week as a plague of biblical proportions descended on the family home knocking down myself, the wife and both kids. True to form myself and number one son took to our beds (and whinged like only a man can can according to the wife) while the wife and daughter bravely battled on at work and school (while throwing disapproving looks at the weakling men folk). Of course now the women folk are both laid up in bed suffering while number one son and myself are almost back to full health (and slightly smug).

Anyway in between running around after coughing, sneezing and fever ridden women I hope to get back to a bit of painting action before Christmas proper starts and a week of family visits and over eating again puts paid to the hobby time.

Jon

Command stand - Thorfinus filius Oter

Another command stand this time Thorfin (or Thorfinus filius Oter) , described as the most powerful jarl of the Hebrides, who convinced Somerled to depose Godred the II King of Mann by suggesting that Somerleds own son Dugball become the new king of Mann.

Thorfin is a Gripping Beast Irish warlord from the Saga range, the horn blower is another Gripping Beast Scot/Pict the standard bearer is a Crusader miniatures Irish miniature with his axe replaced with a flag pole. The Flag is again from the "Don't throw a 1" Blog with a re-paint and highlights.

Next up is to keep plugging away at the various Norse-Gael miniatures I have to build a unit as Somerled's household troops.

Somerled king of Kintyre

Slowly painting up my Islesmen and have finished up one of my command bases. This base is going to represent the Norse-Gael Warlord and king of Kintyre Somerled.

Somerled is a Gripping Beast Norse-Gael warlord from the Saga range, his standard bearer is from the Gripping Beast Scots/Pict range and the horn blowing bodyguard is a Crusader miniatures Scots thane with a plastic Wargames Factory horn. The flag is from the excellent Don't throw a 1 Blog which has lots of nice (and free flags for gamers).  http://onelover-ray.blogspot.co.uk/

Sadly my printer ink ran out when I printed the flag so I had to re-paint it and add some highlights. I have no evidence that Somerled was a short arse but the newer Gripping Beast Saga miniatures seem much shorter than the older Gripping Beast miniatures. Plenty more Gaels to paint up yet.

Jon

Heros of the Dark Ages

I came across this company recently http://www.heroesofthedarkage.com/ranges/ and thought they looked interesting (and not to expensive) so I ordered a few miniatures from them. I was looking for a few different miniatures to add some interest to command bases and such like and among the ranges there were several miniatures that looked like they would fit the bill.

The order arrived today and sadly I'm a bit disappointed. Now I should say I wasn't expecting Perry brothers level of sculpting, having looked at the pictures on their website, and the miniatures are slightly crude though IMO serviceable enough with a lick of paint. No what left me disapppointed was the massive variation in size between models from the same manufacturer. Some of the miniatures are closer to 20mm in size while others look like they are pushing 40mm and almost all of them look either to big or small to fit with my other miniatures. Below are a few pictures that might illustrate what I mean

Below are some shots with other manufacturers Gripping Beast (left) Heros of the Dark ages (middle) and Crusader (right)

 In the interest of fairness other companies also seem to be a bit variable in their figure sizes. First picture below is Crusader second in gripping beast.

Right moaning about size aside here is a closer look at the heros of the Dark Ages miniatures. First a viking holding a loft a severed head which I thought might mark out a Norse command stand quite nicely he is one of the larger figures

Next a monk. As I was thinking of putting together a force to represent Wimund Bishop of Mann I thought a few monks might be nice to dot around the units this guy is a big brute but not a bad miniature.

 I thought this guy would make a good Godred of Mann he is another big boy but has the right look for the Isles with bare legs, mail and simple nasal helm.

 Another monk this guy is a "normal" 28 and will be hanging out on Wimund's command base

 A mounted Abbot don't really now why I got this figure just thought he looked good. Probably the nicest figure of the ones I ordered though he is going to need some work to make him fit on his horse properly.

 The three dwarves these three are more like 20mm than 28mm they are also rather "flat"  miniatures they might find their way onto a baggage element or something.

So all in all some OK (and slightly different) miniatures for the price with highly variable heights and sculpting. 

Christmas trees....

OK a quick heads up for UK gamers about Christmas trees. Over on  TMP every festive season there is always a thread about cheap snow covered model Christmas trees for model Christmas villages. Well I've never seen them here in the UK  until I was in Homebase today looking for something total unrelated. Homebase have a model Christmas village this year and among the accessories were snow covered fur trees perfect for 28mm I bought both packs on the spot and £7.00 netted me 10 nice snowy fur trees ready to put straight down on the table here a couple of pictures if anyone else is interested.

Gripping Beast Islemen - WIP

I've made a start on the Gripping Beast figures that came in the post though I'd show a couple of pictures of the progress. These guys are going to to be Somerleds household troops (hence the armour) so I've tried to make them more Gael (hence the proto tartan) than Norse to make them different to the Mann forces (in reality I suspect there wouldn't have been much difference in appearance between Godred's and Somerled's soldiers).

The Crusader miniatures turned up yesterday as well so I have plenty of white metal to paint over December :) 

Arrival of the islemen....in the post

My order from Gripping Beast arrived to day on the plus side they are very nice minatures on the down side I plundered figures from different ranges mostly the Dark age Scots and the Saga Norse-Gael ranges and the two ranges are quite noticably different in size. I have two very nice Islemen generals but the standard bearer and musican I have tower over them (instead of Somerled the slayer I seem to have Somerled the short). The other down side is that the axes are all seperate and I have to drill the hands out to get them to fit....I don't like drilling hands.

I also ordered a few character type miniatures from a company called Heros of the Dark Ages yesterday among some pretty odd miniatures there are some quite nice minis hidden among their ranges.