It'd been an interesting start to the New Year. 2019 opened with me on the opposite side of Germany to all my paints and miniatures, and when you've got a deadline looming - two months out, of course - of your own making, those stray hours without brush in hand start to really drag on. Once I got back to the warm, toasty little space where I do most of my painting nestled up against the radiator, as luck would have it there's been scarcely a day spare where I could actually get any priming done; the spray would go absolutely bonk if I tried it in these cold, humid conditions.
Not the auspicious start to the month I'd hoped!
There have been a couple of bright spots though, and I've been making progress with my pledge. Almost all of my Crimson Fists have been assembled and my Sisters of Battle are eagerly awaiting a day in which I can get some spray priming done. Progress, then, but not much to show off. I could take a couple snaps of my growing little pile of Space Marines, but I don't think it'd be the most exciting thing!
What I did want to share was something else that got tacked on to the pledge at the last moment which has turned into a really exciting part of the entire experience. With some Christmas cash I decided at last to take the plunge and pick up some of the excellent shieldmaidens from Bad Squiddo Games and could not have been more surprised by the quality of the product. Feel free to follow along with my excited shrieking over on Twitter if you want some initial thoughts on what arrived in the post for me. I've started down the path of SAGA, and with the shieldmaidens making up the core of a 6pt Viking force, I also got a bunch of Saxons from Black Tree Design as an opposing force and an excuse to really dive into the period with some research. No surprises which of them showed up first!
Mentioning early on with Tale of More Warlords that I would like to be able to share either little blurbs of fiction or historical discoveries when getting into our projects, I could now ramble at length about the interesting stuff I've discovered about the so-called Dark Ages! In particular, the sheer length of the Anglo-Saxon dominance over England and how their culture changed and adapted over time has been really interesting to me, along with the Viking Age - widely regarded as beginning with the sacking of Lindisfarne in 793 - all the way through to the Norman invasion and the fated Battle of Hastings in 1066. Fascinating stuff! Calling it the 'Dark Ages' seems a total misnomer now by comparison, as continued research by historians and archaeologists seems to suggest things were much more vibrant and even relatively progressive compared to what's been widely propagated in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Aah, Victorian historians; the lingering hangover of your malingering... but I digress!
In particular, one thing that has stood out during my research into the Vikings has been the design of their shields. It's been interesting reading the back and forth between different historians and accepted fact, but by far the most useful thing to me as someone trying to finish a force of Vikings for the tabletop as quickly as possible is the fact that while they were demonstrated to have been painted, they would likely not have had particularly elaborate designs in the main. Spirals and flared crosses were common, believed to be a method of throwing your opponent's aim off - spirals curving against the grain of the wooden planks used to build the shield would make it more difficult for them to strike a telling blow and splinter the shield entirely.
Here's the first test piece of the shieldmaidens, though! Deliberately finished as quickly as possible, she's been given a spray of Army Painter Skeleton Bone and then painted in simple block colours, gone under a Quickshade Strong Tone Dip, then some block colours over the top for simple highlights. I've been challenged to get the lot of them finished by the end of January, which I'm certainly going to try! Corners have to be cut, then, but once I've got the basics done I can go back and finish in any extra details at leisure.
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| Hildur doesn't take kindly to historians telling her that her shield wouldn't likely have been iron-rimmed! |
That's it for this week! A quick update and a couple of neat discoveries to let folks know what I'm doing, and how interesting this little project quickly turned when someone suggested stepping outside what I know and trying something new. In particular, the Extra Credits series on the Danelaw has been a fascinating introduction to the personalities of Alfred and Guthrum - definitely worth checking it out!
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