Norse Bondi

I managed to get lots and lots of painting time last weekend, it have unfortunately taken all of this week just to get the time to do the bases...

Here we have a unit of Norse Bondi troops with the addition of some bärsärka type miniatures thrown into the lot.

The miniatures are mostly from Gripping Beast plastic Dark Age Warrior kit but with the addition of some heads from their Hirdmen kit and some plastic Warlord Games Celts miniatures as well as some metal miniatures from different makers to add that extra level of variation that I like.

I tried to keep the clothes and colouration simple as these are on the poorer side of the army.

On this unit I tried a new technique of having different colours on the basing primer and use that base in lots of areas on the miniatures as seen in these work in progress pictures. You can see what primer colours I used by the tray (?) they are glued on.

Stenkastare

I thought I could need some stone throwers to my Norse collection. These are meant to represent Drengr or other types of poorer people. Im not totally sure.

I tried to keep the colours down and not adding to much detailing on these to speed up the process and that I wanted the proper troops look even better in comparison...

The miniatures are from Gripping Beast plastic Dark Age Warrior box. Almost worth buying for the heads alone.

It would be nice to find some staff slings instead of these small slings but these will do until then.

JIHAD

Jihad, and also some Varghednar and some Ruses for my Norsemen collection.

Just in case you started to get the feeling that my collection of Saracens where getting big enough...

Gripping Beast should love me.


Here is an excellent review of the plastic arab cavalry for those interested.
http://sixtwentyeight.blogspot.se/2015/05/28mm-gripping-beast-plastic-arab-heavy.html

And another review here:
http://www.sagatapestry.com/2015/05/review-gripping-beast-plastic-arab.html

Turkish Ghulams

And here we got a small unit of Turkish Ghulams. They are meant to be combined with another small unit of Ghulams that I have painted previously to make up a standard sizes unit in Hail Caesar. They can be used on their own as a unit in Lions Rampant.

The miniatures are Old Glory all but one that is a Perry miniature. The Perry one swapped horse with an Old Glory one to make him better fit in with the unit.

As with the previously painted other half of the unit I tried to incorporate loots of greens but I think I did a better job on that on the other half. Green being the country colour of the Turks in Medieval Total war II, a game I played a lot... I think it would be fun to try to capture that a little.

In one book I found the reference of how you should hold your spear/ lance under your leg as you shoot from your horse so I think this is only proper to simulate on your miniatures.

And combining these with the previously painted other half you get this full unit of Turkish Ghulams.

More picture of the previous half of that unit can be found at: http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.se/2015/02/turcic-ghulams.html

Viking Bondi

I suddenly felt the urge to paint me some Norsemen.
And I opened up my closet of hobby related things and found a half painted unit of Norse Bondi troops. Perfect.

And here they are now all painted up and with some bases ready for the gaming table.

The miniatures are a mixture but the main mass of miniatures comes from Gripping Beast plastic Dark age warrior box. With some head swap from their Hirdmen box you get a nice Norse feeling to them and even better to throw in a metal miniature here and their for that added level of variation that make a unit look even more interesting.

 These were loots of fun to paint and Im afraid I just have to paint another soon...

German knights

Ever since Fireforge Games released those plastic Teutonic knights I knew I wanted to have a unit with those over the top helmets...

And here we are now.

The plan was to use them as Mercenary German knights in my Medieval Scandinavian project. It seems that during all of middle ages German mercenaries where deployed by at least Danish and Swedish interests for bolstering their own ranks or added needed troops types not found in the army. The German mercenaries would be continued to be used far after the middle ages for that matter but thats another story.

I wanted to go all out with the miniatures so I added the nicest helmets I could find and painted them in colours and heraldry that I liked. I think that the colour combinations or heraldry are really to "modern" for my other miniatures in this project but when I had the chance I really thought I should go all out, history be damned...

These were a real joy to build and lots of fun to paint. It was nice to add those extra details that I normally wont do when I paint units as I wanted to have these to really "pop" on the gaming table. I could have added some more highlights, particularity on the yellow parts but I wanted to have these finished so I didn´t have patience to add that.
They have taken many late nights to finish and I really like the end result.

These are the first six miniatures on a planned unit of twelve. The other six are built and primed but I havn´t started paint on those so it will take some time before they are ready.
On their own these six can be used as a small unit of Knights in Hail Caesar or a unit of Knights in Lions Rampant.

The blue and white knight here is more interesting then first glance gives. From one side he looks almost totally white and from the other almost totally blue. The effect is unfortunately somewhat hidden as he got double based with another knight.  

The banner is printed on regular paper and then glued on with wood glue and bend around a brush handle for a smooth bended "flowing in the wind" kind of look.
The banner and many like it can be found at Michas blog: http://michasfiguren.blogspot.se/

Now look at that shiny metallic "non-metal metal" two-handed sword...

 Red, white and yellow, that's a colour combination that really screams German to my eyes...

So there you have a start of a small unit of German mercenary knights or maybe even a start of an Holy Roman Empire army... Only time will tell.