Dex Aie!

"God is with us!"

The cry of the Normans as they charged up Senlac Ridge in October 1066 under the Papal banner; and looking at this little lot you can imagine it is true. If I saw them charging toward me, I would be having fairly severe doubts about whose side the Almighty was on. 

The first unit. 

The second unit. 

All of them together. 

There's still 4 four on the sprues; you can't complain about the value of the conquest miniatures. 

There was also the casualty marker which I had a great deal of fun with: 

Before gore; the guts painted in honour of the Tauntaun. 

In other news, the Eldest continues to enjoy his Dungeon crawls and has developed a love of Warg Riders; so current work in progress:

Highlighting and detail left but I'll take care of that for him tomorrow. 

Conquerors

The crush that is the end of term means that progress on anything hobby related has been slow. But Saturday Night can only mean one thing - party time!

Yes, watching Deep Space 9 and building toy soldiers. Rock and roll. 

I have finished building the second unit of Norman knights. 

As per usual I converted a couple of the figures to get more dynamic poses. 

The ever popular foot on rock pose reaches the far ages. 

And there is also a casualty marker in the box set. So I added a little something to that as well. 

No guts, no glory. 

Again the Conquest plastics continue to impress. Highly recommended. 

Hopefully I'll be able to slap some paint on them next week. 

Men Of The North

So the Dark Ages project is off to a good start. This terrifies me, frankly, as it means something is going to go horrible wrong somewhere along the line.

In any case, the Saxons are really a sideshow. The core of the project is enough Normans to refight the rebellions of the 1070s and that is going well with the arrival of this box from the magnificent Dice Bag Lady. Fantastic service, a couple of lollies for the kids and great communication. If you haven't ordered from her, you really should.

So the box arrived.

They went together very easily - there's not a huge amount of variation in the poses, but given the cheapness and the ease of converting plastic I'm not going to quibble. Basically, I would recommend the conquest plastics as a great way to build a force swiftly.

As you can see, they paint up very well.

I also converted one of the horses into a more dynamic pose for the lord commander of the Knights.

As previously mentioned, I'm enjoying the latitude allowed by the colours and sigils of the Norman period, so I was able to have a bit of fun with these shields as well.

And I couldn't really resist having a look to see what a charge at a shield wall would look like.

So the next step will be another six Norman knights. Then a few more Saxons; if I have a bit of time left I might do a few Vikings as well. Then next month a big old load of Norman foot troops.

For Wodens Day

I've completed my first Dark Ages chaps. These Anglo-Saxons were basically an experiment in trying to produce a slightly darker palette than the medieval forces a produced last year. The darker overall look was created by heavy shading and washes with a highlight of the base colour only, so the whole thing was brought back up to mid tones rather than my usual method of using bleached bone to warm and lighten the highlights. 

They wouldn't be Anglo-Saxons without a shieldwall: 

The biggest surprise for me was the range of colours available in the early medieval period, which is certainly going to inform my painting of the Normans which will be the centrepiece of this project. Anyone interested in this should definitely check out this fascinating article about the colours and methods of production. 

Overall very happy with these; my first experience of Gripping Beast plastics and they paint up very, very well. Only took a few hours to get sorted. The new project is starting suspiciously well...

The Dark Times Are Coming

Having got my Bloodbowl teams up and running, thoughts turn naturally to the next project.

Next year we're teaching a new GCSE History course and - for the first time in my career, I'm only teaching one subject so I will have brain space to devote to other things that just keeping on top of 7 different exam specifications (2013-14, a very hard year). 

So I've been thinkin about the Norman period, as this is our Depth Study. In glorious serendipity, last month's WSS had a lovely article on gaming the rebellions in the 1070s. 

You can see where this is going, can't you?

So I've made a small start on some Saxons using the Gripping Beast minis from my birthday 2 years ago:

And I mussed up the shields a tad as I always like my miniatures to look like they've been round the block a few times. 

I've also ordered some Conquest Norman Knights from Annie at Bad Squiddo - excellent price and she offers the extra Knight to make up the Saga units as standard, which makes her both a scholar and a gentlewoman. Send some business her way if you don't already. 

This should be relatively easy* - a few units for Lion Rampant or SAGA ready for Open Evening in September. 

*please don't remind me I said this is December.