Friday, July 13, 2012

Spear Chuckers

Here are lesser luminaries in the Dark Ages.  The unarmored spear chuckers.  This is all 16 of them, but 12 are Varangian(?), and 4 are definitely Saxon lesser fyrd.
First the Varangians:
And next the Saxon lesser fyrd:
I decided that these guys were unable to pay for painted shields, but a few scribbled some designs on theirs. The helmets, spear points, and shield bosses were painted in P3 Pig Iron with no over coating of silver.  I figured that their stuff would be of lesser quality.  The spear hafts were painted lighter than the shieldwall guys, to represent them being throwaways, so not finished.

Here are two fyrd from the sides:
And two of the tossers from the side.  First pose:
And the second pose.
Here's one with a shieldwall guy.  I was hoping to show the difference in their metals, but it didn't photograph in that way.
I'm leaving early tomorrow morning for Pelicon II, where I will be putting on a 5150 Star Army game, and playing in as many as I can get into!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Mounted Dark Ages figures

I got all 13 mounted figures painted over the 4th of July.  A day off without pay when you're an independent contractor.
The first pictures are of the 12 figures with kite shields.  I primed the knights black, drybrushed the chainmail with P3 Pig Iron, and then painted the rest of the figure.  It got the chainmail I wanted, but I'm still no fan of black priming.  I don't paint the GW way.

The horses were primed grey, sprayed dark brown or tan.  The dark brown were drybrushed with a dark brown craft paint.  All the horse furniture was painted with P3 Bootstrap Leather.  The tan horses had a wash of FW Sienna airbrush ink, and didn't come out as well as I hoped.  After their horse furniture was also painted, all horses received a wash of my brown wash and were dull-coated.

The shields were spray painted, dull coated, and added after the figures were mounted and all bright metal was painted.

Here are two facing off to show both sides of the figure.
I also realized that they are true 25's, which will make it difficult to add to the figures.  I got out a Newline Design Norman knight I have to compare, and he towered over them, even without the Litko base.  Here's a pic with a Ral Partha post 1889 British lancer, true 25, and on the other side, an Old Glory 3rd Crusade knight.  Pretty small, though a hair larger than the Ral Partha.
Boy, are these guys boring from the back!
And here's the only mounted figure that fits with the spearmen I posted earlier.  Obviously a chieftan, by all the falderal on his horse furniture.

That's it so far.  And now Two Hour Wargames announced that the next publication will be Colonial Adventures!  I should be painting up more pathans, or replacing my 80 missing anszrs!