Vikinga här

Its time for some new army pictures, this time its my Vikinga collection.

Bare in mind here that the painting standard is somewhat mixed, I have changed how I paint some things since I first started and its with mixed feelings I can say that I have raised the standard of my miniatures since the first one painted. The raised painting standard makes the first one look like crap, but they are hopefully hidden away in the sheer volume of troops...

In Hail Caesar this would translate roughly to:

5x units of Hirdmen
1 small unit of veteran ex. Varangian Guards
5x units of Bondi
1 small unit of Bondi
1 small unit of Thrals with javelins
1 small unit of Bondi light infantry archers
1 small unit of Drengr skirmishers
1 small unit of Drengr skirmishers with slings
1 unit of Bondi with bows
1 small unit of Ulfhednar
some traders and some kids
4 Norse chieftains
some Pagan priest/ advisors and a Bard
some Einhärjar/Valkyria type of Shieldmaidens
1 small unit of Christian priests and some wounds markers.
1 small unit of Ryttare

One of the reasons I made this inventory is to get a picture of what I got. 
But also because that I have thought about rebasing my Norsemen into Michael "Dalauppror"s 1-2-3 baseing method. http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/2015/11/123-basing.html
Seeing this whole collection in one place makes me really rethink that idea... That could take ages...
But the miniatures sure could use some love by now, some missing shields, arms, weapons and heads, besides the extra layer of shading or highlight some of these badly needs so I really dont know... Rebaseing them could be a way of working my way trough the collection.


Ohh and the regular questing when it come to my army pictures... What am I missing ?
The army maybe could use some mounted types of scouts. A bigger command base, like 60 or 80mm multibased one with a chieftain and his bodyguard to really make him stand out.

Call out the leþunger

This is my by far greatest batch paint...
So now you know why its been relatively quite in this blog. Besides other things outside hobby time this batch painting have taken up my time.
Its not the must fun way to paint miniatures by batchpainting them but as you see it gives results in numbers....
But from now I think I will try to keep the numbers down a little.

It all started when I started converting some Fireforge miniatures and mixing in Gripping Beast Hirdmen and Dark age warrior bits and miniatures. After that I wanted to include archers to get a mixed unit and so I started looking for archer miniatures or spare bows to include, and to even further get a mixed feeling with the unit I ordered some infantry from Curteys miniatures.
http://curteysminiatures.co.uk/product-category/feudal-medieval-western-europe/
I needed some archers from them but thought I could include some command miniatures to.
And to sum it all up, by the time I had gotten the right mixtures of bowmen, command miniatures and miniatures dedicated to close combat their numbers had swollen...





So this is what I ended up with.
I plan to use these in Hail Caesar as three units of Ledung mixed rank medium infantry.

Modelwise Im really happy with the overall feel of the unit. The units have Fireforge Miniatures as a base but with heavy influence from Gripping Beast Hirdmen box and some of their Dark age warriors. All the leadminiatures, archers and command are from Curteys miniatures. I have included some old Brettonian plastic archers with head or arm swaps. And together with some archer arms from Perrys Wotr infantry kit I have a unit of all kinds of mixed bows. Those old Brettonian bows are really huge in comparison with some of the other bows but I think this only adds to the overall effect of the unit, and I am glad I can pay homage to those old sculpts by including them with my new miniatures.

These units include greater number of single based miniatures then I would normally do when Im doing whole units at the time. This is to get more miniatures suited for Lion Rampant or other skirmish games.

 The whole Ledung battle line.

Paintingwise it was some hard choices. I wanted to have a rather generic looking bunch of miniatures so they could be used in as much factions I could. So I didn´t want paint them all in the colours of a decided noblemen or nation.
The dresses are kept simple and more colours are used on some of the shields.

By trying to keep the shieldpatterns rather generic maybe I can use these for about anything, even things outside my project theater. Maybe use them as Scotsmen fighting some English, maybe Frenchies (at least from Normandie...) or Germanic mediaeval troops.

And same thoughts about the banners, generic colours that could be used for anything.

Im not totally happy with the shield patterns but I think they work. Some of the patterns or shield designs looks a little wrong but I have no plan to redoing them at the moment.

Thanks Michael for those extra Perry bowmen arms.

Medieval Scandinavia - Hail Caesar Army list

One of my current projects is building an Medieval Scandinavian army and I felt that I needed a way of restricting or guide me into what units I should get for this project. As Hail Caesar is my game of choice when it comes to historical games because of its simplicity to adapt it to all kinds of armies, eras and games, I have made an army list meant to represent an Medieval Scandinavian army.
So there you got the background, I've made this army list to help me choose what units I needed to start collect and paint.

The armylist is inspired from the army list found in "Hail Caesar Army lists II - Late antiquity to early medieval" from Warlord Games that I highly recommend.
I tried to use the same tone of words and unit compositions found there but giving it its own twist or flavour. I have looked mainly at the Feudal Scots, Early Russian and the Feudal German list for inspirations as I find these the most logical to start from. Im no expert in this subject and I am more then welcome ideas on how to adopt or change the list. See this list more as a starting list more then a finished product, a work in progress.
Hopefully I haven't made the list too good or too bad but in balance with the other lists.

This list are mainly meant to represent Denmark, Sweden and Norway. I know the army compositions of these varied but also over time and I tried to have options incorporated in the list to alter these as you see fitting for a certain battle or year. 
The term Knight in this list is meant to represent nobles actually knighted and men not knighted but thought in same manners, this is for simplicity.
The term  Mercenary could represent the numerous German troops that thought in Scandinavia from time to time or troops recruited locally or from neighbouring Scandinavian countries.


Medieval Scandinavia, 11th - 13th Century.

Army compositions:
Knights, up to 50%. This includes mounted or dismounted Knights and Leidang units with Knights fighting in front rank.
Infantry 50%+. At least half of the units in the army must be infantry other then skirmishers
Leidang, 50%+ of infantry. At least half of the infantry must be Leidang medium infantry.
Divisions 4+ units. Divisions must contain at least 4 units, and must be led by a commander.

Unit	Clash	Sustained	Short range	Long range	Moral save	Stamina	Special	Points
Dismounted Knights, Heavy infantry  -Make unit Tought Fighters	7	7	3/0	0	4+	6	Stubborn      +Tough fighter	29pts      +1pts
Feudal Heavy infantry  - Give unit Long spears	7	7	3   3/0	0	4+	6		26pts  +3pts
Feudal Medium infantry  - Give unit Long spears	6	6	3   3/0	0	5+	6		23pts  +3pts
Leidang Medium infantry  - Make unit mixed rank archers.   - Add Dism, Knights in front rank	6     6	6     6	3    3	0   2	5+     5+	6     6	Shieldwall Shieldwall  Shieldwall, Stubborn, Tought fighters	24prs      +2pts      +3pts
Medium infantry Crossbowmen  - make unit small	5    4	5 4	3 2	3  2	5+   5+	6   4		24pts   -6pts
Light infantry archers  - make unit small	4     3	4     3	3     2	3     2	0  0	6     4		20pts   -6pts
Skirmishers with javalins	3	2	2	0	0	4		11pts
Svennar, medium cavalry   -Make Svennar Heavy cavalry   - Give Heavy unit Lance	8     9	5     6	3     3     3/0	0 0	5+   4+	6     6		27pts +3pts +3pts
Knight, heavy Cavalry, Lance  - Make unit Cataphract cavalry	9	6	3/0	0	4+	6	+Stubborn	33pts    +4pts
Mercenary Heavy infantry  - Give unit Long spear	7	7	3    3/0	0	5+	6	Drilled   Drilled	29pts  +3pts
Mercenary Medium infantry  - Give unit Long spear	6	6	3 3/0	0	5+	6	Drilled  Drilled	26pts  +3pts
Mercenary Knight, Heavy Cavalry, Lance  - Make unit Cataphract cavalry	9	6	3/0	0	4+	6	Eager  +Stubborn	33pts    +4pts

Commanders: One commander must be provided per division. All commanders including the general have leadership 8 and is free.

Special rule: Shieldwall - The unit may close rank as a heavy infantry unit.


Bröte- A field defence often erected to block roads and enemy movements in the heavy wooded terrain of Scandinavia. Perfect roadblock and then to spring ambushes from the sides of enemy columns.
The exact rules for this I havn´t decided yet, I looked at the wagon laagers on page 39 of the "Hail Caesar Army lists II - Late antiquity to early medieval" but Im afraid this will be too good in combination with heavy or medium infantry units. But maybe just count units behind a Bröte as in cover giving it +1in moral save and hindering cavalry from attacking.

I have thought about including some more kind of light infantry units to easy up on movements in forest terrain in the future.


Please add you opinion or thoughts about the list. Even if you dont know the HC rules or the specific time or place. Maybe you have an opinion about the army composition, thought or worries about balance or something else. Maybe the spelling or names on the units, whatever it is. It would help me to expand and further develop this army list.
As I said earlier, Im no expert but this is my impressions on the subject according to my sources or past knowledge

Thanks for reading all this.