| Status: | FINISHED |
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| Contains: | Figures, counters, measuring sticks |
Does S stand for SAGA or Saxon? Well, it doesn't really matter since I'm doing saxons for SAGA. This should be a fast little project, partly since SAGA does not require a whole lot figures and partly since I need to get these done in about two months...
My gaming club is planning to have a SAGA demo in January so I promptly promised to paint up a Saxon force for it. I was planning to do that anyway, but setting some sort of deadline does wonders to my effectiveness. For the demo I need a basic 4-point starter force, but I'll probably do a full 6-point one while I'm at it. However, this project covers just the starter for now.
The first step is to inventory and assemble the figures. I have way too many figures for a basic SAGA game, so I need to choose what I'm actually going to paint in this first batch.
I've bought a box of Gripping Beast plastic Saxons and a pretty similar amount of Black Tree metal unarmored Saxons. I start off by selecting figures to paint.
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| Here are my Black Tree saxons I got for Project S. Looks like I'm missing one shield, gotta dig into the bits box again... | Plastic saxons from Gripping Beast. I will make the hearthguard out of these and use the unarmored Black Tree models for basic warriors. | A closer look at the saxons. Seems I got a command group too. |
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| Closer view of the saxon sprue. | Some Black Tree saxon archers for Project S. | Glueing the shields on. Apart from rebasing, this is the stage I hate the most... |
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| Plastic saxons waiting for the primer. And some other guys as well. | Plastic saxons from Gripping Beast. | More plastic saxons. |
So, finally I pick 12 archers, 8 unarmored axemen as ceorls and I also assemble one regular and one command sprue of armored thegns. This will give me 12 armored warriors while I only need 9 (the warlord and two sets of huscarls). I assemble one of them as a twin-sword duelist just for the fun of it.
I start off with the unarmored warriors. I decide that I need to brush up my 3-color skills. I happen to have a couple of special figures I want to do in this style, but I've been a bit hesitant to tackle them because it's been a while since I really did this last time. I also figure that if the low cost throwaway troops don't turn out so well it doesn't matter as much since they won't spend much time on the table anyway.
The armored warriors follow in the same style. I thought they would be faster to do, but actually they were slower because there were so many little bits of cloth poking from under the armor to be done with the 3-color. I should have settled for just washing them.
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| Primed saxons. These are all Black Tree 28mm models. They're a bit old fashioned, but I like them. | Let's see how this batch thing works out. A made a bunch in a couple of different colors, hopefully the final mixed result will produce a suitably non-uniform dark age feel. | Getting the base colors on my saxons. |
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| I decided to do these entirely in Foundry 3-color to flex my Kevin muscles for a change. I still need more paints, though... | The white, red and green guys. | Ok, they're starting to look vaguely human. |
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| And the plastic saxons don't fare a whole lot better either. | Unarmored saxons waiting for the final touches. | The huscarls start to get some color. Oh, and some boys in blue in the background. |
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| Pretty much ready except for the shields. | The final saxons getting ready. |
I had a small delay because I didn't have shield transfers. I had some, but they were too big for the shields. Luckily Phil at Spirit Games set me up with some other ones and I got to finish the first batch of figures.
All the warriors are done! In addition to the figures, I got the official dice and I painted up fatigue counters and measuring sticks from Warbases.
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| A closer look at the archers. I still have eight of these to paint in case I want a larger force at some point. | Saxon archers. These are all Black Tree 28mm figures. | I did these entirely in the Foundry/Dallimore 3-color style, with Foundry paints. I really need to get more of them for some color variations... |
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| I plan to use these archers as levies in SAGA. | More saxon axemen. | And these will be regular warriors in SAGA. Except maybe I shouldn't have painted the two-handed axe guys, because that's not a legal option for regular warriors. |
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| The obligatory overhead shot. | I plan to use these archers as levies in SAGA. | The back rank looks on. |
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| The shield transfers are from VVV. I found that DD11 transfers fit these shields best. | The spears are a bit fragile. | I'm not too fond of the warlord. Maybe I should get a real metal model for that. Also, I still can't do swordblades in 3-color. |
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| Oh, me eyes! I forgot to add the pupils before taking these pictures. The problem is now sorted out... | The shield transfers are from VVV. | And here are my final saxons for now. |
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| These are all plastic Gripping Beast models. | Paintwise, I think the cloak turned out ok. It's just that it doesn't sit well on the figure... | The obligatory overhead view. |
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| SAGA 4-point starter force. | I got me some official dice too... | Here's the SAGA set finished. Except for the fatigue markers, which I forgot to put in the photo.. |
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| The custom measuring sticks are from Warbases. That MDF sucks spray paint like a sponge... | The figures are a mix of Gripping Beast and Black Tree. |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Copyright 2003-2021 Mikko Kurki-Suonio
Sucks!
