Tungt infanteri

I have painted a small unit of heavy infantry belonging to the House of Folkunga/ Bjälbo.

The miniatures them self are a mixture of Gripping Beast plastic hirdmen, Fireforge Games Heavy infantry and two Curteys miniatures.
I wanted to try out a new technique as I was after an image of lots of chain mail. By using the chain mailed torsos from GB and arms from Fireforge I think I managed to nail the picture I had in my head with a unit with lots of chain mail.
The Curteys miniatures fit perfectly into my unit as an added variation and I the effect it gives to mix in some metal miniatures in an plastic unit.

I started with priming them "Panzer grey" a dark grey that I really like as a start for painting chain mail. The chain mails was then drybrushed with metal before I started to paint the blue and the rest of the colours.

I have chosen to give them the Lion symbol from the House of  Folkunga/ Bjälbo. I wanted to have the symbol in one colour and not adding silhouette and details of the faces on the lion as I imagined that the yellow lion form wound be enough for these men. This also speeded up the process.

Starting with a dark grey primer and a metal drubrush was a really nice technique for this unit and I will probably use it in the future on units with much chain mail.

I went with the bases you get in the Fireforge boxes and the 60x40mm base is nice for multibasing, I had four men in the front rank and two in the second. By using more men in the front I get a much tighter shieldwall formation without having to paint more miniatures. It also makes a much more fun and varied look in the units.


I choose not to remove the Thor's hammers on the hirdmen torsos as I imagined that the old Gods and their symbols would still be used by warriors.
After the battle of Lena 1208 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lena the victory was attributed to Odin and this shows that for the warriors at this time the old Norse Gods had some importance, at least as a sort of superstitious tradition if nothing else.