28mm Saxon Army Complete

Following on from the Norman Army I am delighted top present the Saxon Army - now all complete bar some banners

previous post can be found here on the Norman Army
http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2019/01/norman-archers-command.html

These are all predominantly Gripping Beast Dark Age figures sourced from the following boxes

I have mixed up the Vikings and Saxons - I know its heresy but fundamentally they look the same.

There are a lot of figures to assemble.

So the Saxon Army takes shape - first up some skirmishers - please note I am only showing some examples of these units not all of them

Then we have the unarmoured Fyrd - I need a few more of these boys and two more boxes are on order

and of course we have the mainstay of the army - the armoured thegns

Of course there are the Huscarls - an extra big unit and differentiated with their red cloaks. The cloaks came from spares I had from my Fireforge Crusaders

I thought it would be a bit of fun to give the Saxons at least some cavalry - these were created from some Norman Cavalry spares and a box of dark age cavalry.

Finally King Harold and a few command stands (only showing Harold today) - He still needs a flag.

So here is the entire Saxon Army

And that's it...in the next post I'll show both armies side by side (over 1000 figures) and talk about how we are going to play that iconic battle Hastings

Thanks for following

To see both armies facing one another go here

http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-armies-assemble.html

Norman Archers & Command

previous post here


So here comes the third and final post for the Norman Army. In this we are focusing on the Norman Archers and the Command Stands.

The Archers have all been assembled using the Conquest Games Medieval Archers and the Gripping Beast Dark Age Archers. I managed to squeeze out 8 units of these chaps – some of which can be used as skirmishers if required. A couple of observations on these plastic figures.

Conquest Archers

Gripping Beast Archers

First up the Gripping Beast figures appear to be slightly smaller in bulk against the Conquest ones and for that reason I have avoided where possible putting them on the same bases. The Conquest versions are beautifully sculpted and give the modeller plenty of opportunity to create plenty of different poses. Indeed you can give them short or long bows. These are probably the best of the range that I have seen from conquest and despite being called medieval archers on the box they have a very strong dark age flavour – conical helms and short mail coats. So as mentioned I can field 8 of these units.

 

Conquest Archers

My research into Hastings suggests that 25% of the Norman Army were archers, 25% horse and 50% infantry. As of today I have 35 units for the Norman Army in the following numbers – Archers (8), Horse (10), Foot (17) – close enough I think.

Gripping Beast Archers

Skirmishers

Skirmish line

Archers on the table

As far as the command stands are concerned I created four from the plastic Norman Foot boxes and a further five from metal figures sourced from the likes of Conquest, Footsore and another manufacturer I cannot recall. These have all been mounted on circular bases to differentiate them from the standard units. Both rulesets we are going to use – Hail Caesar and To the Strongest call for separate leadership stands.

So there we have it folks the Norman Army – just need to add a few banners and then it is all complete

Conquest Plastic

Close Up

Pictures of the Duke (conquest games - bloody big horse)

Still need to add the banner

And there we have it the Norman Army - 35 units and 10 command stands

Up next (as soon as more static grass arrives) is the Saxon Army of King Harold.

which you can now find here

http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2019/01/28mm-saxon-army.html

The Norman Cavalry

Thanks for all the great comments on the Norman Infantry and as promised here comes the cutting edge of the Norman Army - their Cavalry.


previous post can be found here
http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-norman-infantry.html

These have all been exclusively sourced from Conquest Games and are probably the best value cavalry figures you can buy - 15 horses and riders for £20.

I have procured over the last nine months sufficient numbers to field over 100 of these - formed up into 10 units (each with 10 men) - Again these are based on a combo of singles, doubles and fours.

The following pictures are just a few shots of the painted forces - they certainly look like they mean business

The costs of buying transfers to do all the shields was going to be prohibitive so I have painted my own..

The charge....

First six units on the table...

Second group of four...

and now added to the infantry....

Archers and command stands next and then that's the Norman Army finished

next post here

The Norman Infantry

Its been sometime since I posted on this project - the starting link is here

Part 1

Since April of last year I have been working my way through almost a thousand 28mm figures for my Dark Ages project and although I didn’t quite complete all the figure painting by the New Year – two days later I could finally lay down my brushes. 

The Norman Infantry

This has not been a fun project and there have been plenty of times along the route where I have cursed and almost cut my losses and sold up. However perseverance has paid off and I can finally relax. Almost – there is just the small job of basing these troops. 

Some of you might be asking why this was not a fun project and I think I can distil this down into a couple of simple statements. The first is that pretty much all the units are the same – chainmail and more chainmail. To get the randomness of what you want from a dark age force this means there is no continuity in the clothing (other than chainmail) so that means every tunic, set of leggings and shield has to be different for each man standing next to another. The second reason is also very simple my ambitions were too big – I needed two forces (Saxon & Norman) that would look sufficiently large enough on my table. To recreate Hastings (the first game planned) needed a sizeable number of troops (aka units) for at least three players either side. This roughly meant I needed to create at least 30+ units a side for the [players to command a reasonable number of troops.

I also rather foolishly decided that no troops would be finished off until all the figures were painted. This ultimately meant I didn’t see the progress of the finished article coming to the table until the very end. From a motivational point of view this was not good and for future projects I’ll go back to my tried and tested route of finishing off units as a project comes together. So enough soul searching – lets celebrate the first units to be completed.

In this post we are going to focus on the Norman Infantry – these have almost all been sourced from Conquest Games (there are a few Gripping Beast Saxons mixed in with Kite Shields). 

For the great value of £20 you get 44 plastic figures in a box. Each box contains 8 sprues with five different posed and clothed figures and two command sprues (each with two figures). 

The figures themselves are fine (most see to be advancing) and where there are sufficient kite shields to kit out all the figures there is a rather mixed bag of weapon poses to choose from.Spedifically not enough spears being carried upright.

Rather disappointingly the arms are not interchangeable with the Gripping Beast range. Each main sprue consists of two armoured chaps (one in mail and the other in scale) and three that appear to be in cloth tunics. I decided early on that the armoured boys would be separated from the non armoured chaps to create two distinct types of units.

All these figures (as have my entire project) have been based on either 5cm x 5cm mdf bases or 10cm x 5cm bases (sourced from Warbases) – typically the armoured units are based in 4’s and 8’s whereas the lighter unarmoured folks are in 4’s and 7’s. Units size can be adjusted according to the number of bases and can range from typically 20cm to 30cm frontage. In the pictures below the units are based on a 25cm frontage with a typical unit containing 24 warriors.

This gives me some 7 armoured units and 10 unarmoured units. The bases have all been finished off with sand, static grass and tufts sourced from War Painter on ebay
https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/warpainterscenics 

Onto the figures...

Unarmoured Normans

Unarmoured Normans

Scale Mail wearing Normans

Chainmail Normans

More Infantry

Taking to the field

All the infantry - 17 units

In the next post we will look at the Norman and Saxon Cavalry

which can be found here
http://shedwars.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-norman-cavalry.html

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all those that follow this blog.

The good news is that the last figures of the Dark Age project are now painted. A full posting expected this weekend.

Very relieved and feel like this monkey is off my back

Eric the Shed

Another Year - Another Blog Birthday

Believe it or not another year has gone by and the Shed Wars blog is now celebrating its 7^th Birthday –

In the grand scheme of things I am please it is still going but this year has been difficult – only 40 posts in the year and over the last few months posting content has become very haphazard.

This has really been down to three things…

Firstly I took on board a new job earlier this year and with my free time seriously curtailed I just didn’t have all the time to do the things I wanted to do and sadly the blog is one of those things that has suffered.

Given this lack of free time I haven’t really got stuck in and completed the projects I have been working on and as such there has been very little to write about.  

Finally and indirectly linked to the two points above my motivation has been suffering, Without doubt the extra pressure that this new job has put on me (I should add the rewards make up for it) has caused my interest to wane. 

These days I hardly visit the forums let alone post and just picking up a paintbrush after a long commute can feel like a real effort (ie it doesn’t deliver the fun factor).

All these points don’t mean that the Shed has become an empty folly at the end of my garden. Far from it – right up until the weather closed in at the end of November we have been playing games every Monday night. It is just that I haven’t posted about many of them. Playing games whether they are big battles, skirmishes or even just board games is a tremendously good way to unwind from the pressures of everyday life.

So before I talk about what’s going to happen in 2019 here are a few stats which on the face of it show that the blog is still alive and kicking..

Year	Followers	Page Views
2012	80	25000
2013	180	95000
2014	285	230000
2015	373	383000
2016	387	578000
2017	424	789000
2018	441	1150547

Both followers and page views are up  - the follower count seems to have peaked around 440 mark and I suspect trying to push this to 500 is not going to happen in the near future. On the big plus side is the page view count that has now rocketed past the 1 million mark. I am no longer getting as excited as I used to on this number as earlier in the year the site was plagued by bots from Russia. In one month my page view hits climbed to 30k (average for a month is about 15k. My best guess suggest that my page count view is closer to the 1 million mark rather than 1.15 million. Even so it is gratifying to think that my pictures and words have been reviewed so many times.

So what ii on the plan for 2019 although this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Without doubt my primary mission is to complete the Dark Ages project. As of today over 700 figures have been painted and there are about 300 more to complete. These all need to be based properly, command stands added and only then they can emerge onto the table. With a bit of luck the upcoming seasonal break will let me break the back of what remains. If I am lucky these forces will fight there first battle in early spring when the Shed officially reopens. Over the coming weeks I have to decide which rules set we are going to employ – the favorites so far are Hail Caesar and To the Strongest.

Next on the to do list is a complete reorganization of the shed and if time and budgets permit a new paint job on the walls, a rebuilt table and some refurbishment work. More on this if it develops in the coming weeks.

Once the Dark Ages project is complete I have two choices I can either finish off some of the stuff for the Sudan (remember Khartoum, the Dhows and the Gunboats) as these have all been languishing in a dark corner of the shed. The alternative is to start on my next 28mm project – Romans & Celts. Over the last six months I have been buying up a considerable amount of plastic on ebay and can now probably field forces of around 400+ per side. The idea of a Roman (imperial of course) has always appealed and although this will be my first foray into Ancients proper I am very excited about starting this.

In terms of games for next year I am going to make 2019 the year of the campaign – I have ideas about running three separate campaigns across the English Civil war, Napoleonic Peninsular and VBCW. These will probably consist of three separate engagements with each battle determining the set up for the second. Of particular interest is the ECW one as this is going to take place in the area where I live…again more on this if it happens…which it will.

Finally 2019 represents the 140^th anniversary of the start of the Anglo Zulu War – almost certainly we will be celebrating this in the shed – afterall you don’t paint 800 Zulus and never let them come out to play every so often.

On a final note I’d like to thank all those that have visited the shed this year for their participation, their friendship and their patience. Here is to next year

Eric the Shed