Vikings for SAGA point 5: More hirdmen

Another group of Hirdmen, this time led by a retired Berserker who likes his parties. I guess his well fed belly more than makes up for the extra armour point he gets leading these guys.
The Hirdmen are from Crusader, retired berserker from the Foundry Viking range. Shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios.

I've created a gallery with all Vikings here...

Vikings for SAGA, point 4: more Bondi

4 points finished and ready for a first game. Probably next week. Another point of Hearthguard and 12 archers (hopefully they are of any use, don't really like the idea of including them) on the paint bench before I move to the civilians, carts, casualties etc to enrich the gaming table.
Again a mix of manufacturers and the shield transfers from Little Big men Studios.

Vikings for SAGA. Point 3: Bondi

First of two (maybe 3)groups of Bondi. Next group will follow very shortly and then I have 4 points to put up a first test game to see if the game will live up to it's expectations.

In the meantime I'm recovering parts of this blog since a lot of the pictures went missing recently. With a nice piece of Apple's new hardware I decided to migrate to iCloud last week. Wrong decision. As a long time user of their products I also used their internet galleries. They announced these end of life last year but stated that you can use them until June 2012; also if you migrated. Well, not for me. Two days after my move to iCloud the galleries were deleted..Gone. Together with the pictures on the blog that were sourced from the galleries. Fortunately I quit using the galleries after 10 blogposts or so and I still have copies but it's time consuming to put them all back. In the meantime Apple support is working on it now but I don't think they will be able to get all the pictures back in a way they link back to the blog. Anyway, I'm frustrated and I rather paint or browse the blogs instead of this %$@.

Vikings for SAGA, point 2: Berserkers

Yesterday I realized it was exactly one year ago I started this blog. It's been really nice to see it slowly grow through the year and had good fun making new virtual friends with as one of the highlights a game with Blogosphere celebs Ray and Fran during my holiday in Kent.
Time for the hobby is a bit limited for me the next months but I will try to keep up the one post a week schedule. And I will keep them shorter :-)

Berserkers: two from Artizan, one Crusader and one unknown (Gripping Beast?)

My flesh recipe for the Berserkers:
Vallejo red leather basecoat. Highlighted Foundry expert Flesh B to E

Vikings for SAGA, point 1

The fist unit for my Viking SAGA warband. Easy first point with only 4 minis. Hope I get all 6 points and some extras done before the end of February. Models from Artizan except for the one swinging the Axe who is from Foundry. Shield decals are from the excellent Little Big Men Studios.

 

The next unit on it's way....Berserkers

Viking Warlord for SAGA

First project for 2012 is a Viking warband for SAGA. So first up is the Jarl who will be commanding the raiders. I intent to do 6 points and some extra villagers,wagons, casualties, etc. I might do another faction if the game is fun enough and I'm still motivated when these are done.

The nice thing about the Dark Ages is that we are spoiled for choice of good models from many manufacturers. Downside is that you spent too long deciding which models to pick for your units and how to compose a vignette..After a start with some attacking poses I decided I liked this one better so started to experiment to create rocks out of cork. Really easy actually, the only hard thing was to get the feet instead of the base om the rock. You could remove the base and then pin it but I just carved a hole the size of the base and put the mini in the cork. Fill it up with plastic putty and done..The moss was done using foam that comes with a blister pack. Massive Voodoo has an excellent tutorial on this.

The Warlord was posted yesterday @Analogue Hobbies as part of the AH speed painting challenge. I'm about 1000 points behind and no real contender but it's real fun seeing the entries from all over the world each day.

Next Saturday an ACW game to kick off the year. Immediately after I leave on a business trip for a week so the next update in two weeks time.

 

2011, year of the rebs

It's that time of the year again so first of all: Fijne Kerstdagen en een gelukkig 2012!

On the wargaming front it was ACW only this year and since I quit the project for half a year or so I thought it was a good time to do a little overview. For the first time I only did one period with the benefit that I can clearly see what I produced in a year, which is about 250 figures. Not bad, not overly impressive but I'm very happy with it.

Strangely enough it was not difficult to stay with ACW for a full year. There were three main things that really helped keeping the focus on the project.
-Start with skirmish gaming to get the painted units on the table asap. In our case we started with the excellent Terrible Sharp Sword rules to get going. After each game we always wanted to paint more. When we had enough we start using Guns at Gettysburg for Brigade level games. Now, we have a choice..
-Blogging. I started blogging early 2011 which really helped as well. All the encouraging comments, new cyberfriends and reading a lot of your good blogs are a good boost to stay productive and stay engaged in the hobby.
-The koopclub. As everybody in the club got the ACW bug it soon became the norm to paint ACW Regiments and have some new stuff ready for each next game. In the OOB for our new year's game are 18 Regiments and 4 Batteries per side. Starting with zero I think that's quite an achievement for such a small club with so many interests..

Anyway,  Couple of overview pictures from the 2011 painting. Battle reports will follow in 2012, and some new additions of course...All details, close-ups etc are in this ACW Gallery

Next week the start of a SAGA Viking Warband here as they enter the 2nd Annual Winter Painting Challenge over @Curt's blog. Should be fun trying to avoid the bottom place.
Merry Christmas.